by Marvin Kaye
“You’re making things difficult,” she said.
“I am? What do you mean?”
“You know damned well what. You’ve been needling me about Harry.”
“Is that what I’ve been doing?”
“I said so, didn’t I? I would like to know what it is about Harry you object to.”
I shrugged. “I never said I had any objection to him.”
“It’s obvious.”
I tried to gain time by swallowing some Irish, but it went down the wrong way and I gagged. After I got my epiglottis back under control, I told Hilary I had nothing against Harry at all, but just didn’t see why she was attracted to him. “You can’t say the two of you are on the same intellectual plane.”
“Is that all you think I’m looking for in a man?” she asked, affronted.
“I had no idea you were looking for anything in a man.”
As soon as I said it, I knew I’d made a mistake.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Hilary asked in a positively refrigerated tone of voice.
“Nothing,” I mumbled, wishing I could retract the words, but it was too late.
“No good,” she said, “you can’t brush it off as if it didn’t matter.”
“It came out wrong! Let me explain—”
“Never mind!” she snapped, gesturing for me to lower my voice. “I have a pretty good idea now of your opinion of me and—”
“Like hell you do!” I interrupted. Heads turned, but I was too irked to care.
“Keep your voice down, Gene, you’re embarrassing me!”
“Too damn bad! It’s about time we got a few things straight! I—”
“I’ll see you at the Forum,” she said, snatching up her purse. Then, stopping, she glowered at me. “For your information,” she said crisply, biting off each word, “the thing that attracts me to Harry is not his mind. ...”
She let the implication dangle a few seconds, then walked out. There was no use in following her, so I stayed and ate dinner. I worried that she would be hungry, so I had them put her steak in a doggie bag, but I shouldn’t have bothered.
When I handed it to her, she asked me if it was my subtle way of calling her a bitch.
Felt Forum is the portion of Madison Square Garden running between Thirty-first and Thirty-third streets and fronting on Eighth Avenue, right across the street from Manhattan’s General Post Office. It’s an odd-shaped, elongated structure consisting of two fanned semicircles of permanent seats facing a broad expanse of flooring and a traditional proscenium stage. When the Moscow Circus on Ice appeared there, the jugglers, dancing bears, and acrobats performed on the auditorium floor itself, but other programs—such as H. R. Pufnstuf and the World Festival of Magic and the Occult—were set on the stage, with spectators filling the more comfortable seating and overflowing onto wooden folding chairs set up on the Forum floor in front of the proscenium.
G&G opted for the latter arrangement, with a single variation—a thrust stage consisting of a platform that jutted several feet beyond the curtain line, in the manner of Shakespeare’s Globe. The curtain was a concession for opening and closing the show, but otherwise the scenes flowed without stop and only an occasional change of lighting to delineate time change. (It’s not all that necessary, anyway, in Macbeth, since most of the action takes place at night.)
Hilary was busy when I entered. She was talking with Godwin and the Forum manager, trying to get straight where the best place would be to seat the press. Godwin was in favor of giving them chairs in the forward, folding section, while Hilary doubted the wisdom of seating critics and columnists where their butts would contact hard wood, rather than stuffed upholstering. It brought up an interesting point: to what extent is physical comfort productive of favorable notices?
I checked in with my employer, but other than the cold-meat exchange, we had little to say to each other. There was nothing for me to do at the moment, so I wandered around the place, getting acquainted with its layout. There didn’t seem to be any convenient way to get onto the stage from the auditorium, but after some exploring, I discovered an entrance in the outer lobby leading into the dressing rooms.
Unlike most backstage facilities for “talent,” as actors are called in the trade, the Forum had clean, antiseptic changing areas. The flooring was tiled, the walls were cream-white, and the lighting, instead of the usual naked 60- or 100-watt bulbs, was fluorescent. A series of doors opened on the corridor, and most of them were ajar. Performers milled around from one room to another, and the women were as unconcerned about their state of dress as the men as I popped in my head to say hello to the various cast members.
In one room, I saw Dave Bluestone affixing a Dermawax scar to his forehead for his first appearance as the bleeding sergeant. Near him, Harry Whelan stood with eyes closed, muscles tensed from forehead to toe. I asked him what he was doing, but he didn’t answer.
“Shhh,” said Bluestone, “he’s warming up.”
“How? Giving himself a charley horse all over?”
The character actor laughed. “Believe it or not, Gene, it’s for relaxation. You tense up the muscles, one at a time, till the whole instrument is taut, then you relax, one muscle at a time, until everything’s loose.”
“Sounds excruciating. Where’d he ever learn a dumb thing like that?”
“From me,” Bluestone said dryly. “I used to teach acting technique.”
I murmured something inept and departed. At the end of the corridor running between the dressing rooms, Mills stood, caparisoned in leather and papier-mâché armor, a helm with plume upon his head. He waved to me as I passed. I rounded the corner just as Mills began warming up his voice with a series of consonants and vowels that made the walls shiver.
The corridor ended in an ascending stair which led directly to the wings right of stage. It was a different world without the actors who would soon people it. Except for a few stagehands lounging around, the place was hushed, deserted. I stepped out onto the playing space and faced the principal scenic unit, an Elizabethan town house with an inner playing area below and steps leading to a balcony. A second level rose above that, but—according to Godwin—would be employed only at the very beginning of the play; otherwise, it would serve as a base of operations for the special-effects technician, who, garbed in solid black from head to toe, could not be seen against the velvet backing curtains as he worked various bits of theatrical magic in later scenes. The town house had doors right and left of its recessed ground-floor acting area (which was known as the “inner below”). These portals were the chief entrance-exit routes for the actors.
Godwin’s setting, patterned closely on The Globe, was both logical and economical, allowing rapid progress from one to another scene with minimal shifting of properties and dimming of lights. The idea, basically, was that when the “inner below” was concealed by a draw curtain, the remainder of the stage and outthrust platform would become, to the audience, any and every outdoor locale—from the battlefield to the witches’ blasted heath to the English countryside of Scene 43. But when the drape was pulled aside, the furniture pre-placed within the “inner below” would immediately transform the playing area into an indoor chamber within Macbeth’s or Macduff’s castles.
With the house curtain shut, the stage was an eerie place. The town-house unit loomed threateningly in the gloom, and everywhere there was a sense of indrawn purpose, as if the silence was an interval in some colossal progression about to resume its inexorable drive toward catastrophe.
I poked my head through the act curtain and spotted Godwin, dressed in a costume nearly identical to the one Mills was wearing, arguing with Grilis over the double row of folding chairs that surrounded the playing area. The director complained that unless risers were built for those seats, the spectators in them would miss most of the play because the platform was too high. Grilis pointed out the huge labor costs involved in erecting risers. Eventually, they agreed to rip out the first row entirely and shove
the second as far back as the permanent seating would permit.
The stage manager was calling places, so I hurried back to the auditorium and took a seat. Godwin handed a clipboard and the prompt script to Dana Wynn and ran backstage. Dana and Grilis sat down near me, but Hilary picked a place several seats away.
The overture began. It was a Herrmannesque assault on the nerves: restless, unmelodic bass figures over which the tenor and soprano instruments emitted an irregular series of staccato shrieks that mercilessly stabbed the ear. The house lights began to die.
As the theater grew blacker, I was surprised to see that, contrary to all fire laws, the exit lights went out, too. But then I noticed luminous signs glowing in approximately the same places as the electric ones. Godwin evidently needed a total blackout for the opening scene.
I soon saw why. Bizarre, vaguely obscene shapes drifted out of the darkness, and I realized that the curtain had indetectably risen. Strange forms and presences floated out of the night and disappeared as quickly. Blinding bursts of lightning dazzled the eyes and were instantly gone.
It was Walpurgisnacht, alive with mocking harmony and the restless creatures of Confusion. Hideous entities that were shocking parodies of mundane, wholesome things rose grotesquely, but were so quickly eclipsed that the besieged senses almost rejected what they’d witnessed.
And then the cruel, limping music began to fade, and as it did, the occult manifestations dwindled in potency, sated with their own tumescent blasphemy. Suddenly, a harsh voice, grating to hear, soared over the dying cacophony, and a loathsome face that glowed with eerie incandescence appeared in midair, hovering high above the blasted heath.
When shall we three meet againe?
In Thunder, Lightning, or in Raine?
It was Patricia Lowe, a shy, soulful young woman I’d occasionally treated to a Coke during rehearsals. She was transformed into a gross travesty of femininity, with the suggestions of drooping, lifeless dugs disappearing into the gloom which ringed the features of her puckered, befringed hag’s face.
The remaining witches became visible, also apparently suspended in midair. As a matter of fact, they were standing on the first balcony of the town-house unit, while Patricia was above, on the top level.
The second weird sister replied to the first’s query:
When the Hurley-burley’s done,
When the Battaile’s lost, and wonne.
3. That will be ere the set of Sunne.
1. Where the place?
2. Upon the Heath.
3. There to meet with Macbeth.
A few more portentous lines, and they disappeared as suddenly as they’d come. Flickering red fire glowed at stage level, silhouetting Duncan, his sons, and attendants, all in attitudes of anxious anticipation. The light brightened, and Olin Olvis Oakes pointed imperiously offstage, demanding to know
What bloody man is that? He can report,
As seemeth by his plight, of the Revolt
The newest state.
Bluestone, as the wounded sergeant, staggered on, rivulets of stage blood coursing down his limbs, staining his cheeks and forehead. He began his narration of the savage battle deeds of Macbeth and Banquo, favoring first the title character—
For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that Name)
Disdayning Fortune, with his brandisht Steele,
Which smoak’d with bloody execution
(Like Valours Minion) carv’d out his passage,
Till he fac’d the Slave:
Which nev’r shooke hands, nor bad farwell to him,
Till he unseam’d him from the Nave to th’Chops,
And fix’d his Head upon our Battlements.
—and then he praised both warriors:
Except they meant to bathe in reeking Wounds,
Or memorize another Golgotha,
I cannot tell: but I am faint,
My Gashes cry for helpe.
Duncan dispatched the sergeant to the surgeons, and Bluestone doubtless returned to the dressing rooms to wash off the crimson patches and alter himself to become the drunken porter.
Soon the witches made their second appearance, dancing a binding spell to snare Macbeth with their equivocations. Mills and Godwin entered, exhausted from the butchery they supposedly had just finished with, and the former spoke.
So foule and faire a day I have not seene.
Another moment, and they spied the weird sisters, awesome in their ugliness.
Banquo. What are these,
So wither’d, and so wilde in their attyre,
That looke not like th’Inhabitants o’th’Earth,
And yet are on’t? Live you, or are you aught
That man may question? You seeme to understand me,
By each at once her choppie finger laying
Upon her skinnie Lips: you should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interprete
That you are so.
Macbeth. Speake if you can: what are you?
1. All haile Macbeth, haile to thee Thane of Glamis.
2. All haile Macbeth, haile to thee Thane of Cawdor.
3. All haile Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter.
Mills started to hear the secret theme of his ambitions thus voiced, and from that moment forth, he was a victim of his own imagination. It only remained for Lady Macbeth to pour her poisons in her husband’s ear to drive him inexorably to the horrific climactic scenes of contemplated and accomplished regicide.
For the remainder of the act, I was spellbound. In spite of sickness and misfortune, the cast had pulled through marvelously, and the run-through promised a brilliant opening, once the occasional, inevitable rough spots (mostly technical hitches) were ironed out.
Harry came on shortly before intermission and soon discovered the bleeding corpse of the murdered monarch.
O horror, horror, horror,
Tongue nor Heart cannot conceive, nor name thee.
Macbeth. What’s the matter?
Macduff. Confusion now hath made his Master-peece:
Most sacrilegious Murther ...
The alarum bells clamored, and the Scottish nobles roused and heard of the dread deed. Mills was magnificent in the passage where Macbeth pretends to express grief for Duncan, but really mourns the loss of his own soul. It was a speech I was to recall more than once in the days that followed:
Had I but dy’d an houre before this chance,
I had liv’d a blessed time: for from this instant,
There’s nothing serious in Mortalitie:
All is but Toyes: Renowne and Grace is dead,
The Wine of Life is drawne, and the meere Lees
Is left this Vault, to brag of.
Intermission soon shattered the mood.
The house lights were scarcely up before the curtain rose on organized chaos. Godwin ran back and forth, bestowing a word on one or another thespian, conferring with the electrician as they pointed to some defective lamp hidden up in the flies, trying on built-up boots to bring his height nearer that of Mills. Dana Wynn called the cast onstage and told individual actors which lines they’d blown during the first act. While she did, most of the younger members of the company sat on the edge of the platform, dangling their feet while the senior performers ringed the assistant producer, hoping to escape with few fluffs on their records. In the background, stagehands ambled across the set carrying miscellaneous paraphernalia.
I stretched my cramped legs and walked over to Hilary, but she rose and moved to the edge of the platform, near where Harry was standing. Someone hailed us, and we turned our heads.
It was Godwin. As he approached, I could see a heavy coating of makeup on his face. Onstage, under the lights, I hadn’t noticed it, although I knew it was there, since he looked twenty years younger. But at close range, I could see tiny wrinkles and crow’s-feet cracking the smooth, ruddy patina of artificial coloring, and I also noticed where he’d combed streaks of dark spray thr
ough his white hair.
“Well?” he asked, “Did you ever work out the Third Murderer business?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Hilary, shaking her head.
“Not to feel bad,” he told her. “Nobody else has ever figured it out, either. In fact, I had to go to Washington—”
“When do we find out, already?” I cut in. “Maybe tonight?”
He nodded. “At long last, yes. They’ll enter with huge cloaks wrapped around their bodies, covering their faces, but one by one, they’ll lower them. The Third Murderer will be the last to drop the cloak.”
He might have said more, but just then the stage manager called places, so Godwin blew Hilary a kiss and hurried behind the curtain, which was closing. The lights dimmed. I sat down near Hilary, but she continued to ignore me.
Grilis and Dana Wynn were no longer in the auditorium, having left, presumably, for a business conference. Hilary and I, therefore, were the sole auditors for the second act.
Majestic music sounded. The curtain opened on the coronation of Macbeth, but the effect was a bit odd. Once Godwin had a chance to observe the various makeups under the lights during the first act, he’d announced that it was all right for the cast to take the glop off their faces and get comfortable; it was a concession not uncommon during tech/dress rehearsals. As a result, most of the cast now sported pallid faces, and only those cloaks and other elements of costuming that helped them to “move in style” had been retained.
After the crown was set on Macbeth’s head, the assemblage of nobles moved off, leaving Banquo alone to stare pensively in the direction of the new monarch. The music faded and he began to muse aloud.
Thou hast it now: King, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
As the weyard Women promis’d, and I feare
Thou playd’st most fowly for’t ...
