Actor

by Parnell Hall

  Along with half my lines.

  That brought a rush of fear.

  So did the murmur of many voices. I’d heard it of course when I’d first come up the stairs, and I’d been ignoring it. But now it was as if the rush of fear at the flash of not knowing my lines had opened the floodgates, let it in. The cacophonous mumble of many voices.

  There’s an audience out there!

  I took a breath, tried to calm down. I could feel my heart beating very fast. But my eyes were wide with wonder. And I felt myself drawn downstage. Inexorably, as if pulled by a magnet, I felt myself walking. Downstage. To the lectern. And beyond.

  To the curtain.

  And the gap.

  The gap between the curtain and the proscenium arch.

  That’s right. I confess. Confess to the most amateurish of all possible moves an actor can make.

  Peeking out at the audience from behind the curtain.

  Holy shit.

  The theater was packed. From that angle I couldn’t see all the way to the back, but every seat I saw was filled. And the noise from this far downstage was deafening. A huge lively crowd.

  Good lord.

  I was still looking when he tapped me on the shoulder. The what’s-his-name tech director, etc., etc.

  “Yeah, I know,” I said sheepishly. “I shouldn’t be doing that.”

  He smiled good-naturedly. “I don’t give a shit, but places please.”

  I went back upstage to the masking flat. As I did I saw that he had gone out onstage to check on the actors on stage left. Then he came back offstage and switched the work lights off. He put on the headset; his voice was slightly louder than Goobie’s, so I could hear the words, “Stand by, cue one.” He took ahold of the curtain rope and, “Cue one, go!”

  The curtain and lights went up.

  I felt a huge rush of adrenaline, even though it was five minutes or so before I had to go onstage.

  They were the toughest five minutes of my life.

  As I’ve said, the opening scenes are not particularly funny. They did not in fact get a single laugh. But there was an audience out there, ready to laugh, ready to go with the show, ready to like it. I could feel the presence. Expectant. That was the feeling in the air. One of expectation. The audience was waiting for something.

  And I was it.

  And suddenly it was upon me. Bingo, lights out, alarms, offstage shots, and yours truly strides out from the wings and trips over something in the dark that shouldn’t have been there and falls flat on his face.

  The audience couldn’t see me. It was dark to begin with, and I hadn’t cleared the window frame yet. But they could hear the crash. Well, no matter, a crash is right in keeping with the scene. But it sure as hell jumbled my wits.

  What there was left of them.

  I scrambled to my feet, wondering if I’d blown my cue, which of course I hadn’t. I couldn’t. Raina was alone onstage, shrinking from the noise and hiding, and nothing could possibly happen until I came in.

  Which I did. I clambered through the window. My knee hurt from where I’d fallen on it, but that was the least of my worries. I had a sudden panic attack that when I’d fallen I’d lost my gun. I hadn’t of course, it was right in my hand. I came through the window crouching, wheeled around on Raina and delivered my first line, “Shh. Don’t call out or you’ll be shot!”

  And suddenly I was fine.

  Which was again perfectly understandable. The anticipation was far more terrifying than the deed. Now that I was doing it, it felt absolutely right. Of course it helped that the first scene called for nervousness, high tension and anxiety. Hey, no problem. Just tap those emotions, they’re there.

  The first scene played like gang busters. And I could feel the audience warming toward me. And then when the soldiers came to search the house, and Raina relents and hides me from them, I could feel them going with it. And afterwards, when she gives me back my pistol and says ironically, “Pray take it to defend yourself against me,” and I smile and tell her it’s not loaded, cartridges are no use in battle, I always carry chocolates instead—I knew they were mine.

  But what really sold them was the cavalry charge.

  When Raina finds out I was routed in the cavalry charge, she of course wants to hear all about it. I tell her a cavalry charge is like throwing a handful of peas against a window—first one comes, then two or three close behind him, then all the rest in a clump.

  With her eyes shining with thoughts of her hero Sergius, she says, “Yes. First one. The bravest of the brave.” My line, said prosaically, is, “Hm. You should see the poor devil pulling at his horse.”

  The audience roared.

  Now, I know the credit belongs to George Bernard Shaw, not me. But the fact is, I got it. And there’s nothing that compares to that immediate response of an audience to an actor’s line.

  I can’t tell you what that meant to me. That first laugh. That first stamp of approval.

  After years and years and years.

  I had ’em, and I wasn’t gonna let ’em go.

  I played the hell out of that act.

  Before I knew it, it was over and Raina was gone off to fetch her mother and I was left onstage to do my monologue. I did it slowly, easily, naturally and with complete confidence, not to mention a few small but welcome laughs, and tumbled blissfully into bed. Raina and Catherine reentered, found me there and the lights and curtain went down.

  To thunderous applause.

  Son of a bitch.

  I did it.

  Son of a bitch.

  I really had.

  So far.

  One down and two to go.

  18.

  ACT TWO STUNK.

  I know that’s horrible for me to say, since I’m not in Act Two till the very end. That’s like saying Act Two stunk because I wasn’t in it. And what a horribly self-centered, egotistical, conceited thing that would be. But it really was bad. And it wasn’t bad because I wasn’t in it so much as because Avery Allington was.

  As much as Bluntschli carries Act One, Sergius has to carry Act Two. And Avery Allington couldn’t carry my luggage. I mean, he’d been bad in rehearsal, but in performance he stunk. It was as if seeing me get laughs in Act One had blown every fuse in his nervous system. The guy came onstage this hyper mass of nervous energy, not to be believed. He rolled his eyes, he rolled his voice, he postured, he posed. He strutted, he strode. All in an outrageous, outlandish, overblown performance that wasn’t believable for a second.

  Yes, as in the dress rehearsal, he got laughs, but once again, they weren’t genuine laughs. They were at best nervous, embarrassed laughs. And I hate to say this, but when I made my entrance at the end of the act, I really felt like I’d come back to save the show.

  Which brings us to Act Three.

  The dreaded Act Three.

  When I took my place onstage at the beginning, I couldn’t help thinking, I couldn’t get it out of my mind: This is when it happened. This is when Goobie Wheatly died.

  I knew Chief Bob was in the audience. He’d be watching, in case there was a clue hidden in the act. It wasn’t up to me to look. I had other things to worry about and didn’t have the time. But I couldn’t help thinking, all the same.

  But when the curtain rose and the lights came up I took charge. I was Captain Bluntschli, smooth, cool, efficient, back to put everything in order. Quick as a wink I straightened everything out, and before you know it, all the other actors were offstage and Raina and I were playing the scene.

  And I hadn’t been prompted yet.

  The scene with Raina went well, got laughs, and I knew I had the audience back again. Before you knew it, it was over and I was out the door.

  Again without a prompt.

  I’m only human. The first thing I did when I got offstage was look to see that the stage manager was still sitting there.

  Which he was.

  I stood in the wings while Louka and Nicola did their scene. It was competent, but fran
kly dull.

  Then Sergius and Louka did their scene. It wasn’t dull, but it wasn’t theater either. I don’t really know what it was, but the show went right in the toilet again.

  And suddenly that scene was over and suddenly it was my turn to come onstage and stick it to him.

  Which I did. First I skewered him with the “I shall bring a machine gun line, and the audience roared. Then Margie-poo entered and the three of us went at it and I kept zinging them and the audience kept roaring. Then everyone else entered, one at a time, and I kept firing off lines and the audience kept eating it up, and before you know it I’m delivering my last line, clicking my heels and walking offstage.

  To thunderous applause.

  Sergius still had his last line to say, but with all due apologies to Shaw, if I’d been the director I’d have cut it. Besides, Shaw might have felt different about it if he’d known Avery Allington.

  As it was, I turned around and suffered with the audience through an excruciating line reading of, “What a man! Is he a man!” then watched the curtain fall, once again to thunderous applause.

  It was the best of all possible worlds.

  We’d gotten through the play.

  The audience liked it.

  And nobody died.

  19.

  THE CAST PARTY WAS AT Morley s, a bar on the outside of town. It wasn’t really a cast party, I mean, nothing official, it’s just that’s where the actors went to hang out. The bar was a moderately nice place, with booths, tables, TV and pool table. It seemed to cater to the theater crowd. The actors were all there, as well as Herbie and Amanda and a few people who looked like trustees, and a few others who just looked like theatergoers, though which were which I couldn’t tell you.

  The apprentices were there too, occupying the booths and apparently trying to look old enough to drink. Half of them were having Cokes, but a few of them were having beers, and it appeared to me the Coke drinkers were occasionally sipping from the beer drinkers, and the bartender was doing his best not to notice.

  The actors were congregated around the bar and the pool table. Herbie was buying a round for all of us, and Amanda was digging her elbow into his ribs and whispering something to him, probably that he personally was buying this round of drinks and not the theater.

  Aside from that, good will was just bubbling out all over. I almost couldn’t hate Avery Allington.

  Almost.

  The son of the bitch was at the bar, pontificating to anyone willing to listen about the theater in general and his niche in it in particular. His audience consisted of a couple of trustees, the actor playing Nicola, the actress playing Catherine and the actor playing Major Petkoff. In other words, all of those whose names I didn’t know.

  I suppose you could count me in his audience too, since I was at the bar close enough to hear, but I was really in Herbie and Amanda’s group, which included a few trustees, Margie, and Nellie Knight.

  In our group, it was Herbie who was holding forth. “Sold out,” he said. It was not the first time he had said it, either. “We’re sold out for tomorrow and we’re sold out for Sunday.”

  One of the trustees, a well-fed type in a three-piece suit who made Herbie look positively slim, said, “Not surprising, really, with press like this.”

  He held up a folded-up newspaper he had been carrying under his arm.

  Herbie didn’t even look at it, just waved his hand. “A sellout’s a sellout. Doesn’t matter why they buy the tickets, just so they do.”

  I pointed at the paper. “What’s that?”

  The trustee looked at me as if I were from Mars. “You mean you didn’t see?”

  Herbie put his arm around my shoulders. “Hey, Stu, give the guy a break,” he said. “Stanley’s the fill-in. I guarantee you, the last two days he hasn’t read anything but his script.”

  Stu the trustee said, “Oh, yeah? Two days? Is that right? Very nice job.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “What is it I didn’t read?”

  Stu handed over the paper. I took it, unfolded it and looked.

  It was the Daily Sentinel, evidently the local paper. The page-one headline was PLAYHOUSE MURDER. Underneath it were two pictures, one of Goobie Wheatly and one of the playhouse. The playhouse photo was obviously recent, since the sign on the side read Arms and the Man. The picture of Goobie Wheatly was obviously not recent, since it showed Goobie Wheatly alive.

  “Yeah,” Stu said. “Can’t help selling out, publicity like that.”

  “We’ve sold out before,” Amanda pointed out.

  “Yeah, but never so quickly,” Herbie said. “It’s only Friday night, and the weekend’s already sold out. We’ve never done that before. And you know what that means? People calling up tomorrow and Sunday looking for tickets aren’t going to get ’em. They’ll have to take weekday nights instead. Come Monday, Tuesday, you’ll see.”

  I looked at Herbie and couldn’t imagine what it was like to be a producer. Because, in spite of the murder, in spite of me filling into the show, in spite of everything, he was looking at the attendance figures of this show’s run as a vindication of his theory of opening shows on Friday night. That was more than I could deal with at the moment.

  So was the article.

  It was long, taking up half of page one and then being continued on page fourteen. I was still riding a high coming off the show, and there was no way I could concentrate on reading it now. And not in front of all of them. But I sure wanted to read it.

  “Where can I get a copy of this?” I said.

  Stu waved his hand. “Keep it, please. It’s from the office, I got another copy at home.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I said.

  I felt someone standing behind me, turned and found myself face to face with Beth, the dream-girl apprentice I’d met just that afternoon. She was evidently twenty-one, since she’d just bought a beer at the bar. Oddly enough, I found that thought somewhat disconcerting.

  It also flustered me when she put her hand on my shoulder, gave me what seemed to be a very warm and genuine smile and said, “You were great!”

  My ears must have turned red.

  Believe me, I had not had a girl say that to me in an awfully long time. Certainly not a girl like that. I was dumbfounded, embarrassed and terribly self-conscious, and for a split second I was afraid I wouldn’t even be able to croak out the words, “Thank you.” Then I smiled and said smoothly, “Well, you taught me the lines.”

  She mugged at that and said, “Oh, sure, it was all my doing.”

  She smiled me a dazzling smile and walked off back toward the apprentice tables.

  Hot damn.

  I hate to say it, but that felt good. Really good.

  And you know what else felt good? Avery Allington had been standing at the bar, and she hadn’t told him he was great. But he was close enough to hear her tell me. And he was watching her now on her way back to her booth.

  Oh boy, did that feel good.

  I must have still been blushing pretty splendidly, because Herbie said, “Well, well, Stanley, you have an admirer.”

  That jerked me back to reality.

  I don’t think I would have minded that so much, coming from Amanda. But from him? All I could think of was, “Yeah, Herbie, screwing around with young women is on your agenda.” Which took all the joy out of what I’d just been feeling.

  Well, let’s not go overboard. I was still high as a kite over the show. And it didn’t hurt any when several of the trustees chimed in to second Beth’s opinion of my performance. The momentary damper was just that, momentary, and in no time at all I was back in the stratosphere again.

  So was Herbie. “I tell you,” he said. “This show can’t miss. Ticket sales are through the roof already. They loved it tonight, so word of mouth is going to be terrific. Plus we should get a dynamite review.”

  I blinked. Looked up. “Review?”

  “Sure,” Herbie said. “Be in tomorrow’s Sentinel.” For a second I saw a look of d
oubt, almost panic, cross his face. “If he was there, for Christ’s sake. Was the reviewer there?”

  “Sure he was,” Amanda said.

  “Really?” Herbie said. “Anybody see him?”

  “I saw him,” Stu said. “Relax. Harvey was there.”

  Herbie exhaled. Grinned nervously. “Thank god for that. If he missed that performance, it would be a crime.”

  Crime.

  Nice choice of words.

  I’m a writer, albeit a failed one, so words fascinate me. Like the word actor, however you want to spell it. And now Herbie’s use of the word crime.

  I knew it meant nothing, just like the word actor didn’t. But it set me off, started my mind going over the whole thing. On Goobie Wheatly’s death. The seemingly pointless murder of a spiteful but otherwise harmless, elderly stage manager.

  Crime, indeed.

  Was it, like many of the crimes of New York City, a pointless, mindless crime?

  No. Not backstage during a dress rehearsal. Someone wanted Goobie Wheatly dead. And if there was a reason, there was a way to find out why.

  All of that excess baggage was tied up in the simple word crime.

  But it wasn’t that important to me.

  I hate to admit it, but from the moment Herbie mentioned it, all I could think about was the review.

  20.

  IT WASN’T IN THE MORNING paper.

  When I pulled the Daily Sentinel out of the vending machine on the comer of Main Street at nine-thirty the next morning, I discovered the headline PLAYHOUSE MURDER.

  Déjà vu?

  Good god. My mouth dropped open.

  Another one?

  I’m not at my best in the morning; still, it didn’t take me that long to realize there had not been another murder, what I was holding in my hands was another copy of yesterday’s paper. Evidently today’s paper wasn’t out yet.

  A woman passing by confirmed the fact the Sentinel was an afternoon paper and wouldn’t be out for hours.

  She also directed me to the police station.

  Chief Bob had stopped by my dressing room right after the show to say, “Nice job,” and to invite me to drop in at ten o’clock this morning to discuss the case.