“I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve talked to the shrink about it and rationally it makes perfect sense that you wouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.”
“Honey…”
“And make me feel like the only unattractive woman in the world.”
“Sweetheart.”
She starts to cry. “Or the only unattractive little girl in the world, which is worse. I kept trying to figure out how to get you to look at me like that. I was smart at school; I was funny when you had people to dinner. I did cartwheels. Nothing worked.”
“Honey, let me say something.”
“It was like I was invisible to you.”
“No…”
“And the more I tried, the more you looked away.”
“Honey, let me say something.”
“What did I have to do, Daddy?”
“Can I talk? Please?”
She looks at him and purses her lips.
“I hate it when people say that,” she says.
He laughs out loud. He loves this girl.
“What?” she says impatiently. “What do you want to say? You have the floor.”
“You were lit up when you were a kid. You didn’t need me to light anything. You did it all on your own. You always have.”
“You’re not hearing me. I’m talking about your attention. Your attention to me. You were so generous with all those other people—those other girls, I should say—and so… niggling … with me. So, what the fuck was that all about? To quote a famous father.”
He shakes his head. He doesn’t know.
“I’m not asking you to do anything, Daddy. You’re not going to change; you’re too old. This isn’t for you; it’s for me. It’s good for me to say these things to you after all these years of thinking them and keeping them in. It makes me feel better. That’s all I care about.”
He has nothing to say.
“So go and find Olive. It’s fine with me. It really is. I knew it was happening the first moment I saw her in Mom’s room at the hospital. It was obvious. To Mom, too.”
“What? You thought I was coming on to her? Because…”
“No. I thought she was coming on to you.”
Maurice has been watching from the bar and when he senses they’re done he comes over.
“So? It’s good? You talked it out?”
They both nod.
“Good. I feel better.”
Candy reaches across the table and takes Herbie’s hand. “Thanks for listening, Pop.”
“I love you, sweetheart.”
“Who knew?” says Maurice. “That in the tiny hamlet of Cockeysville, words would be spoken that will echo down through all eternity.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THERE’S GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS AT THE THEATER today—and it’s all Bob. He shows up to rehearsal—the last before tonight’s audience—and behaves as if nothing strange has happened at all, as if he’s not been in a psychotic trance for the past five days. He’s affable, even outgoing to everyone; he’s the complete professional. He’s washed himself, his clothes are clean, the tent in the dressing room has come down and his performance in rehearsal is as good as ever. Well, better actually. They’re focusing primarily on Vanya’s scenes because they were the least rehearsed during Bob’s “illness” and Sam and the actors can’t help but notice that his performance has deepened to a very profound level. Vanya’s rages that had been impotent tantrums last week are now desperate pleas for attention and help. His self-loathing is now so intense that it’s difficult for the others to watch. It’s too painful, too naked. And yet, strangely enough, it’s quite funny. And with that little paradox Bob is teaching a Master Class in the art of performing Chekhov.
Many of the other actors—Alvin McConnell among them—are outraged that Bob’s crisis has been used to make his performance so much better than theirs. They feel they’ve been hoodwinked and they’re not wrong. There’s talk of bringing Bob up on charges before Equity, but going to the actors’ union to complain that one member of the cast’s performance is too good would be a tough sell.
Olive’s response is something quite different. She’s never before been in such close proximity to great acting and it thrills her right down to her high-button shoes. In her rehearsal with Bob she can’t help but be a better actress. His rawness, his reckless courage, his commitment to the depth of Vanya’s demons inspire her to meet his performance with everything she’s got. She has no time to hesitate; she has no place to hide. It’s the most alive she’s ever felt in her life.
By the end of rehearsal, Sam is in heaven. His production is brilliant. He delivers his pep talk before they all break for dinner but there’s not much left to say. “Think of tonight as another rehearsal,” he says. “Just keep working the way you have been for the last four weeks. It’s just another run-through.”
And that’s when the shrieking laughter starts—pretty much on schedule, as Herbie had predicted. The sound coming from Bob is not laughter. You couldn’t call it that. Because there’s no joy in it, no generosity, no fun; only an unearthly wail that makes you want to run from the room. It always starts with an interjection, shouted out by Bob, often in the form of a question— in this case, it’s “Just another rehearsal?” And then the shrieking starts. No one knows what to do about it. No one wants to stay in the room, so finally Sam calls the dinner break and all the actors flee as if there were a fire.
“Hey, pretty,” says Bob to Olive on her way out. “That was a fun scene, huh?”
Olive actually blushes, like she’s been caught having sex behind the woodshed.
“Never knew it could be that good, huh?”
“I never did know that,” she admits.
“What would your famous Herbie say if he saw that?”
“He would say it was pretty good, I think.”
“And he’d be right, too,” says Bob, suddenly the peacock.
“What are you doing for the break?” asks Olive.
“Napping in the dressing room.”
“You can’t eat?”
“Are you kidding?”
“But you can sleep?”
“No, but it’s easier to pretend I’m sleeping than it is to pretend I’m eating. You?”
“I’ll go home,” says Olive, “and pretend to have some soup.”
“Pretend soup!” he screams, followed by the despicable laughter. Olive waves and gets out of earshot as soon as she can.
Her apartment’s not big enough to pace in. Two steps I’m bumping into the other wall, she thinks. It’s too cold outside to take a walk. She flicks on CNN and flicks it off again. World? What world? Her well-worn script is on the kitchen counter but she doesn’t want to look at it anymore. Words on a page, she thinks. She starts to silently go through her first scene, remembering her moves around the stage, but she stops herself. That’s the worst thing I can do—play the scene in my mind without the other actors. That’s terrible. “Herbie! Where are you?” she wails out loud. “Where are you when I need you?”
They had made a pact the day before—no contact twentyfour hours before the first preview. This way she would be purified, Herbie said, like a Jewish woman going to the mikvah before her wedding ceremony. Which is all well and good except that she really needs to talk to him. He would know how to get her to the stage tonight in one piece, without having an emotional breakdown, without breaking out in a rash. God, she thinks, why am I in this business?
* * *
Around this time, Herbie pulls up to his hotel. He’s decided to go upscale for a change and try a hotel with room service instead of having to depend on those plastic coffeemakers in his room that turn out perfect cups of plastic coffee. This place is a chain, too—just a fancier chain. Now he’s got a couple of hours to kill before the show. What to do? Ordinarily he’d take a walk but he doesn’t want to chance running into Olive or Bob or somebody who would recognize him. He’d hit the bar but that’s also problematic. If he drinks or smokes weed he�
�ll sleep through the show, sure as hell. Doesn’t make any sense, he thinks, to drive eight hundred miles just to cop a snooze in an uncomfortable seat. So what to do?
He turns on the tube and then switches it off again. Those fucking gas bags on the news shows. It’s the biggest collection of bad acting in the history if the world, he thinks. This one’s got his opinion and that one’s got his and they’re pretending to disagree with each other so that the show will have tension. “Give me a fucking break,” he says out loud. “Get a job.” So what to do?
He takes a shower, shaves, and sits on the couch in his robe—he’s got a little suite-ette that’s supposed to fool you into thinking you actually have two rooms. He sits there and thinks about last night with Candy. It was a shock to hear her say that about Annie—about how she wasn’t the source of the juice. If Candy has to have it that way, fine. But it’s more complicated. It’s a deal between two people to live an extraordinary life.
But the other thing she said is eating at him. The thing about how he had to light up all those women, rub them up and make them shine. Especially Annie. What the fuck is that all about? Why is it his job to make women smile? I mean it doesn’t take Sigmund Freud to know where that comes from—all those years of playing the cakewalking minstrel boy for his mother so that she wouldn’t go insane and decimate their lives. Only little Herbie could make her smile, make her forget the devil inside her. Are we old enough yet to get rid of that shit?
“Jesus,” says Olive and she puts on her coat and goes to the theater. If she stays in her apartment another minute she’s going to jump out the window. At least at the theater she can pace. Now it’s six fifteen, almost two hours before the show starts. Jessica Alsop, the actress playing Sonia, is at the theater when Olive gets there. Jessica is a chronic sufferer and a dimwit and Olive hasn’t had much use for her, but any port in a storm at this point.
“Hi,” says Olive. “You nervous, too? I couldn’t sit in my apartment any longer. It was driving me crazy.”
“No, I never get nervous.”
Oh fuck you, thinks Olive. I need help here for God’s sake.
“I mean why should people in the audience make any difference to our work? We’re not doing it for them. This is for us and for our art—and for our director. Sam would be disappointed if he knew you were nervous. You have nothing to prove to these people.”
It’s no secret that Jessica has a big crush on Sam and his attention to Olive has been a gnawing source of aggravation for her.
“So if you’re not nervous, why are you here so early?”
“I just love it here, Olive. I love all theaters. I love to sit in the quiet and dark of the empty stage and listen to all the ghosts who have left their energy here. I want to suck up all their history and their knowledge and their wisdom.”
Suck this, thinks Olive. And she would have made the appropriate gesture, too, if she didn’t have to share a dressing room with this jerk for four more weeks. She puts her coat back on and goes for a walk. Even freezing to death is better than this.
* * *
Herbie’s pacing now, too. What if she’s no good? he thinks. What if she can’t act? That would be that. It sounds stupid. I mean why would one thing have anything to do with the other, but it would. It would be a lie between them, slowly choking off any real feeling. There’s nothing worse than a bad actress, he thinks. Like fingernails on a chalkboard. He’d rather shack up with a dental hygienist.
At seven thirty Herbie feels safe to leave the hotel. Half an hour before the show the actors have to be backstage and signed in—it’s an Equity rule, so he won’t run into anybody. It’s only a few blocks from his hotel, so he takes his time, checking out the neighborhood for bars. He’s trying to figure out where the actors go after the show. It’ll be some place where the drinks are cheap and the burgers are good—if such a place exists in this town.
Turns out there are a lot of bars. This is a drinking town, he thinks, which makes sense. I mean what else are they going to do? There’s one place that has wood-fired pizza, but it’s too collegiate-looking for actors. There’s a gay bar; there’s a place that serves barbecue. And then he finds it. It’s a couple of blocks too far from the theater to be perfect but he’ll bet anything this is the hangout after the show. There’s a 60s/70s feeling about the place, mixed in with a Moose Lodge kind of décor. The beer is cheap; the shots are cheap; and if you believe the menu outside they have the best burger in town. If this ain’t the place, he thinks, it should be.
Backstage at the theater, it’s eerily quiet. All the actors are staring at themselves in their mirrors, not quite sure they like what they see. There’s a lot of sighing, little mmm’s and aaahs to make sure there’s no mucus on their vocal chords. The women are redoing their makeup, taking it all off and putting it on again. There’s some stretching going on—especially in the ladies’ dressing room. None of this means anything—their vocal chords are fine; their makeup is fine; their bodies are stretched. They’re just terrified.
Then over the intercom comes the voice of the assistant stage manager: “Five minutes, ladies and gentlemen. Five minutes to curtain for Act One.” There’s a silence as each actor, in his or her own way, faces the void. And then Bob’s voice pierces the silence—“Five minutes?” he screams, followed by the maniacal laughter. The other actors in his dressing room lunge for the door, all of them reaching it at the same time, like the Keystone Kops.
Herbie picks up his ticket and unobtrusively goes to his seat. He looks around to see if he can find Sam, but he’s not at the director’s traditional spot, standing at the back of the house. He must still be backstage, pestering the actors, thinks Herbie. There should be a law. Actually, he remembers, there is—an Equity rule that the director may not be backstage after half hour. But it’s rarely enforced.
Then Herbie spots him coming out of a door to the side of stage left, followed by a pretty young woman carrying a clipboard. That’s his trusty assistant, no doubt, ready to jot down any pearl that may fall from his lips. He’s a good-looking, earnest fellow, thinks Herbie. Quite young. Too young, he thinks.
The houselights dim to half and the audience gathers itself. Then there’s the obligatory announcement about cell phones, followed by beeping, ringing, and jingling sounds. Then all is silent for a moment and the houselights fade to black. In the darkness a mandolin begins to play; then it’s joined by a concertina and a gypsy fiddle. It’s a folk song—by Glinka, bets Herbie to himself. There’s always a bump when you move from one reality to the other, and the director’s job is to smooth out that bump as best he can, make it seem natural to leave one reality— your long, frustrating day at the office, for example, or the fight you just had with your wife—and let yourself slip into the stage world, where people pretend to be other people and say words that were written a hundred years ago by yet another person. This music helps a lot, thinks Herbie. It cushions the bump.
The stage lights come up and Herbie finds himself rigid with tension. He hates going to the theater. He’d rather have an electric cattle prod up his ass. The actors seem false, the words are stilted, the scenery is flimsy and fake. Who needs this shit? I could be in a bar somewhere. All right, he says to himself, lighten up, take a breath.
About ten minutes in, Olive makes her entrance as Yelena. She has no lines in this scene; she’s just returning from a walk with some of the other characters, but Herbie senses something’s off. She’s fakey. She’s working too hard. He has to fight an urge to stand up and tell her to start over again. Leave the stage, he wants to yell out; take a minute and enter again. It was always like this when he went to see Annie. He must have done it a hundred times and he never got used to it. Oh shit, he used to think when Annie came onstage, you’re not going to try that. You’re not going to play her like that, are you? It’s so weird to watch someone you know intimately, someone you love, altering her rhythms, her speech patterns, her very psyche to fit into this other strange person. Weird. But Annie a
lways brought him around. She was such a good actress she made him forget Annie altogether in a few minutes. Annie wasn’t there on the stage at all—just this other broad.
Then he notices that his shoulders have dropped down from his ears and he’s breathing normally. We’re into a scene in the sitting room now. Yelena is working the room, not saying much— not needing to say much—flirting, being bored, occasionally reproaching Vanya for his boorish behavior. Her presence dominates the scene. She’s good, he thinks. She’s very good.
CHAPTER TWENTY
AFTER THE CURTAIN CALL, WHICH IS WILDLY ENTHUSIASTIC, Herbie makes his way over to Sam, who is in deep conversation with some producer-looking types. Herbie waits to the side as the rest of the audience files out and finally Sam looks in his direction with a quizzical expression on his face. Where do I know this guy from? And then the penny drops.
“Of course, Herb Aaron. I never put the name with the face. I’m a fan of your work.”
Herbie nods. He never knew how to take a compliment, so he turns it around.
“It’s a brilliant evening, Sam. You’ve done a beautiful job.”
“Oh my God, thank you. It really did pull together tonight amazingly well. This week has been… well, you know. Thanks for being so adamant about Bob. If it had been left to me I would have fired him—and we would have had, well… Uncle Vanya without the uncle, as you said. Anyway, thank you again.”
“He’s a piece of work, isn’t he?”
“My God, I’d hate to see the inside of his head—all serpents and vipers, slithering around in the muck.”
“But I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better Vanya.”
“No, he’s extraordinary—absolutely extraordinary. And you must be delighted with your protégée. A star is born, no?”
“She’s nobody’s protégée,” he says with a proud shake of his head. “But yeah, she’s wonderful. She’s a total actress, isn’t she? The whole package.”
After Annie (9781468300116) Page 17
