To Wish or Not to Wish

by Mindy Klasky

  Martina’s self-centered reading consistently failed to capture the meaning behind a single line of the classic script that Tennessee Williams had crafted. She utterly ignored the traditional Laura, the retiring young woman who was so incapacitated by her anxiety that she could not work in a traditional office. Instead, over and over again, Martina burst into scenes with all the energy and confidence of a reality TV star.

  Which, truth be told, she was.

  “There we go,” Shawn whispered to me after Martina had growled spiky defiance at her mother throughout her first two scenes. “I think she’s ready for her close-up.”

  I choked back a laugh, recognizing the allusion to Sunset Boulevard. Shawn had captured the problem with Martina Block in a nutshell. She pictured herself as a big-time Movie Star; she bulldozed her way through scenes, set on one single emotion, as if close-up cameras were waiting to capture her perfectly composed, oh-so-fake facial expressions: Suffering! Angst! Drama!

  Shawn started to goad me into another laugh, but I whispered, “Hush!” I barely made my rebuke audible. We were exposed there, in the back of the room. It wasn’t like we could hide in a darkened theater. Not yet. The show wouldn’t move from rehearsal space to the stage for another two weeks.

  Fortunately, Ken hadn’t heard Shawn’s snarking or my strangled reaction. Our director paced across the front of the room, the picture of unbridled enthusiasm. His every step bounced, as if he were a barely tethered balloon tumbling in a cross breeze. “Okay, Martina,” he said, his voice surging with excitement. “Let’s go back to the beginning of the scene. I want you to focus on the atmosphere, on the mood. Tom is out on the landing, sneaking in late. He’s washed in moonlight. You appear, like a Civil War ghost, pale in your nightgown—”

  Martina snapped her script closed, as if she had just won an argument. “About that nightgown,” she said, tossing back the curtain of her luxuriant blue-black hair. “Don’t you think it would work better if Laura wore something short? A baby doll? With maybe some fur along the bottom hem? You know, to make her…what’s the word? Vulnerable?”

  Ken barely let Martina finish before he shook his head. “This isn’t the musical scene,” he clarified. “This is still the straight dialog.” He sounded like a man explaining basic addition to a first-grader.

  But Martina wasn’t six years old. And Ken had already told her precisely the same thing four other times that afternoon. “I know that.” Martina’s voice turned icy. I sat up a little straighter in my chair, waving my hand to silence yet another snide remark that Shawn was about to whisper. This confrontation was going to be good. Martina went on: “I am suggesting that we take some risks in the straight play. That we lay some groundwork for the changes that come out in the musical numbers.”

  Shawn hissed, “She’s suggesting that she flash the audience at the top of the show. Hit them with her best shot.”

  Martina couldn’t have heard the specific words; Shawn had barely mouthed them. Nevertheless, the sibilance of his whisper must have distracted her—she shielded her eyes and peered toward the back of the room. The gesture immediately annoyed me. The rehearsal room wasn’t that large, and Martina wasn’t that far away.

  “Have you authorized press in here?” she complained to Ken. “My contract specifically states that I get to review all questions from the press before any interview.”

  Ken stopped his bouncing long enough to shake his head. He pitched his voice to a soothing tone, one that I never could have managed under the circumstances. “Those are just the understudies, Martina.”

  Just the understudies. Great. Like my ego really needed more of a beating.

  Ken cast a pointed glance at the stage manager, who chimed in with a perky, “All quiet in the back of the room, please.”

  Shawn rolled his eyes and sank lower in his seat. Martina waited for a painfully long moment, as if she expected to hear us rustling and rattling and otherwise ruining her artistic concentration. When she chose to continue, she looped back to the earlier discussion. “My contract specifically states that I have consultation on all costumes.”

  Once again, Ken managed to temper his voice to the perfect pitch of reason. The guy really should consider teaching seminars on dealing with the insane. “And you will, Martina. As soon as the designs are finalized, you’ll be consulted. For now, though, let’s continue with the read-through.”

  Martina pouted and ruffled through her script. At first, I thought that she was going to refuse to recite her lines. She fooled me, though. She launched into the scene with a soaring passion, with an enthusiasm that bordered on religious zeal. She chewed every word with ferocious energy, chiding her brother for his late-night arrival as if he were a little boy and she an old-time matron.

  After Ken recovered from his shock, he interrupted. “Let’s try something a bit more…demure, Martina. Show us Laura’s vulnerability. Her tentativeness. Her, um, fear.”

  Martina glared at the director. I wondered if I would ever have that much confidence, that absolute certainty that I was right, even when the director had explicitly defined his vision, when the playwright had clearly telegraphed a different direction, when the plain words of the script indicated a reading completely different from the one that I wanted to make.

  Martina sighed dramatically, but she tried to provide Ken with the approach he’d requested. I didn’t need a camera close-up, though, to know that her jaw was set in stubborn defiance. Her teeth grated across each syllable.

  After a single sentence, Ken sighed. “Martina, let’s try—”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and all of a sudden, she was the very model of contrition. She collapsed into her chair, reaching a tragic hand toward the actor playing Tom. The very picture of grace, Martina murmured an apology to her fellow professional. Then, she looked up at Ken through her lashes, stopping just short of hooking her finger into her lower lip in a perfect illustration of little-girl submission to authority. “I am so sorry. I would be able to concentrate better if someone had set up proper craft services.”

  Shawn snorted so loudly that he received another glare from the stage manager. I tugged at his arm and once again said, “Hush!”

  “Craft services?” he whispered in disbelief, barely remembering to keep his shock inaudible to the front of the room. “What does she think this is? A movie set?”

  I tried to sound sympathetic, even though I was every bit as incredulous as my fellow just-an-understudy. “It’s what she’s used to.”

  “Poor baby,” Shawn sneered.

  Ken, though, was offering more sincere sympathy. Or at least something that sounded like it. “We’ll look into setting something up.”

  “I’m not asking for full-scale catering,” Martina said, her voice the perfect mimic of reason. “Just a table. Some snacks. You don’t even have to make it available to non-Equity.”

  Shawn looked like he was going to fly across the chairs, to strangle Martina in one dramatic gesture. That would have been fine with me—her precious Hollywood expectations annoyed me, as well. Besides, if Shawn killed her, I’d land the role I coveted.

  I allowed myself a moment to contemplate the sheer pleasure of that little development.

  Reluctantly, I tugged at Shawn’s sleeve. “Sit down,” I whispered. “Shawn!” He finally relaxed back into his chair, but he didn’t look any more forgiving. “Come on,” I cajoled. “What are you complaining about? You’re a union member.”

  “But I don’t lord it over people who aren’t,” he pouted, loudly enough to warrant yet another stage-managerial glare.

  I bent over my script and tried to appear studious. Ken exploited Martina’s contrition, asking her to go back to the beginning of the scene. With Tom, she plodded through the dialog, providing a barely serviceable imitation of a meek young woman confronting her more worldly brother.

  At last, they arrived at “Fly Free,” the first big ballad of the show. The piano accompanist played the introductory few bars, setting the m
ood for the piece, which had yet to be fully orchestrated. Martina rose from her chair, as if the music moved her so completely that she couldn’t be confined, couldn’t be restrained to one place. She counted out ten bars, nodding her head, and then, when she should have launched into the soaring lyrics, she spoke the words: “‘No one understands me—’”

  I choked. Audibly.

  I knew that Shawn and I were on thin ice, lurking in the back of the room. I knew that we had to mind our manners or we’d be tossed out altogether. I knew that we were supposed to sit there, meek and mild and eternally grateful for the opportunity to observe the master at her work.

  But Martina was being absolutely ridiculous.

  As if she needed to justify herself to me, her angry voice projected to the very last row of chairs. “My contract provides—”

  “Yes, yes,” Ken soothed. “Of course, your contract provides that you can speak your songs for the first three weeks of rehearsal, so that you can protect your voice.” He sighed deeply, and I was suddenly certain that he would never have agreed to that contractual term, if he’d been consulted by the producers. That term, or pretty much any of the others. He shook his head, momentarily deflated by the battle. “Let’s take a break, shall we?”

  “Fifteen minutes,” called the stage manager, biting off each syllable. Martina clearly managed to annoy everyone with her precious demands, even the normally unflappable professional crew. Of course, I had to admit that she’d had her picture on the cover of half a dozen magazines the week before, all blaring her success at being cast in Menagerie! The producers couldn’t buy that sort of publicity. However annoying Martina might be, her pop-star appeal was going to cement our show’s success.

  “Her contract, my ass,” Shawn muttered, as Martina struck up another lament for the lack of craft services.

  “I can’t believe that Ken lets her get away with this crap,” I said, once I was sure there was enough ambient noise to cover my annoyance. Even as I complained, though, I tried to nurture my inner Pollyanna. “He probably just wants to help her ease into the show. That must be it. It’ll get better as we go along. It has to.” I heard the doubt in my voice, though. I was pretty sure that nothing about Martina Block was going to get better with the passage of time.

  Shawn pursed his lips. “Sure it will. And we can put a show on in my effing barn. I’ll make the goddamn costumes!” He sighed in disgust. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll treat for coffee. You look exhausted.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I said, trying to sound offended by his assessment of my appearance, but secretly grateful for the offer of caffeine.

  As Shawn held the door for me, he said, “I hope that he was worth it.”

  My cheeks flamed as I strode down the sidewalk. Of course Shawn matched my pace, step for embarrassed step. “There isn’t any ‘he’!” I protested.

  “Of course not, Little Miss Innocent.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “Oh, no. You just happen to own an entire wardrobe of identical outfits.” I glanced down. “You wore that blouse yesterday, sweetie.”

  I sighed and filled him in on my evening. Somehow, it all came rushing out—kissing Timothy, kissing Teel, Amy’s maniacal plan that had us all dining together on Saturday night. I stopped just short of confessing my commitment to restructuring my life. I knew that if I told him that, I’d never hear the end of it.

  Shawn handed me my coffee, saluting me with his own blue-and-white paper cup. “If only you weren’t stuck as an understudy in Menagerie!” He rested a wrist against his forehead, as if the unfairness of the situation made him grow faint. “You could turn this whole thing into a wildly successful sitcom. Just picture it! Your name in lights! And then you’d have your own coffee on set, fresh and hot, from craft services. Your show would be the comedy hit of the season—I can see the ads now, maybe even the cover of People. Man Number One? Or Man Number Two? Will She or Won’t She? Watch Erin Decide in This Week’s Episode of Erin’s Two Boyfriends!”

  “That’s not funny!”

  He laughed at my indignation as he dumped half of Hawaii’s annual pure cane sugar export into his own cup. “Actually, sweetie, it is.”

  All the way back to the theater, I tried to convince Shawn that I had sworn off men for life. He wasn’t buying a word of it.

  So much for my acting career. And it wasn’t like I was going to learn any great stage tips, watching Martina butcher the role that should have been mine. My caffeine buzz wore off well before my deserved exasperation.

  Suffice to say, the rest of my week didn’t get any better.

  Martina continued to misconstrue the role of Laura Wingfield in every possible way. Ken voted down her suggestion that Laura wear fluorescent dresses (to emphasize her being different), that Laura be followed by a spotlight every instant that she was onstage (ditto), that Laura be the focus of two new scenes and four new songs (ditto, again) and that the entire production be renamed Laura! (Um, ditto.) Perhaps needless to say, Martina argued that her contract gave her the right to make every one of her absurd proposed changes.

  Shawn continued to tease me about the tangle of my love life, despite my increasingly shrill protests that I didn’t have a love life, didn’t want a love life and would never, ever tell him about any love life I might choose to pursue in the future.

  Amy continued to check in every afternoon, more often than not leaving a message when my phone was turned off during rehearsal. Justin had recovered completely, without even a bruise to remind him of the folly of playing Soldierman. Every time Amy called, she put Justin on the line—he was more and more excited about Super Soldier Saturday and his trip into the city. When I heard my nephew’s shrill enthusiasm, I could almost forgive Amy for placing me in an untenable position vis-à-vis Timothy and Teel.

  Almost. But not quite.

  On Saturday afternoon, our rehearsal was cut short by more of Martina’s diva machinations. “I’m sorry,” she said, collapsing into a chair after reblocking the play’s tricky first scene for the sixth time. Martina kept insisting that Laura was being “marginalized,” so Ken changed where all the actors stood. By now, Amanda and Tom were delivering most of their lines from shadowy corners, all so that Martina’s ego remained well fed. Her ego, alas, seemed to be the only thing about her that was receiving ample nourishment. “I just can’t concentrate anymore,” she whined. “My blood sugar’s too low.”

  Even from the back of the room, I caught the stage manager rolling his eyes. He reached for his backpack and started digging around; we had all learned that he kept a stash of granola bars for just such an emergency.

  Martina draped the back of her hand across her brow, as if the lights in the rehearsal room were just too bright for her poor, exhausted eyes to handle. “Please,” she said. “Not another granola bar. All that sugar… I need something healthy. Fresh fruit. Broth.”

  Broth? What world did she live in, where purveyors of consommé lurked in the wings?

  She sighed again. “Craft services would understand.”

  Ken started to say something, but swallowed his words before he could risk annoying his star. He sounded defeated as he announced, “Let’s call it a day, everyone. I’ve got a meeting with the costume designer in half an hour, anyway.”

  “Costume designer!” Martina said, sitting up straight. “I have some ideas I want to share with you!”

  I left, before I said anything I might regret. Fortunately, Shawn wasn’t around; together, we might have killed the woman on the spot.

  Walking home, I tried to tell myself that Martina had given me a present. I could have been cooped up inside the theater. Instead, I was outside, enjoying a fresh breeze, basking in the surprisingly bright sunshine. Clouds floated overhead, as if they were trying to illustrate a children’s book called Erin and the Sunny Summer Day. I had plenty of time before I had to meet Amy and Justin at Garden Variety, before I had to juggle the inevitable chaos as I introduced Timothy to my family. To Teel.
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br />   I rounded a corner, turning south to head down to the Village, and I found myself in the middle of one of New York City’s street fairs. The celebrations roamed from neighborhood to neighborhood all summer long. Typically, they lasted for an entire afternoon, stopping traffic for a couple of city blocks, forcing grumpy drivers to pursue detours while pedestrians commandeered the streets.

  I wandered past dozens of booths offering everything from used books to new spices to practically anything cooked on a stick. One stand boasted dozens of American flags, ranging in size from tiny plastic rectangles to massive, intricately stitched masterpieces perfect for displaying on the skyscraper of your choice. “Happy Flag Day!” the cigar-chomping vendor shouted at anyone who would listen. “Get your flags here! Happy Flag Day!” To bolster his patriotic message, he was blasting Sousa marches from an iPod through speakers the size of the Empire State Building.

  I shook my head, trying to clear my ears, and I hurried past. The next booth, though, snagged my attention. The vendor had set up bowling pins, each painted a different shade of khaki or olive green. One pin in the middle stood out; it was painted a brilliant crimson. The vendor held matching rings, which he tossed from hand to hand as he delivered his patter. “Step right up, ladies and gentlemen! Take your chances! Toss a ring around a pin and take home a prize! Step right up!” As if to punctuate his speech, he threw three rings in quick succession, lassoing a pin with each round.

  I glanced at the prizes that were strung across the top of the booth. Centered above the bowling pins, leaning forward as if he wanted to leap into my arms, was Justin’s Soldierman.

  Okay. The vendor had no way of knowing that he had Soldierman at his beck and call. But the plush figure could have been sculpted with Justin specifically in mind. The thing was at least four feet tall, and he wore desert fatigues. His face was all but hidden behind sewn-on plastic sunglasses, and his hands were covered by leather gloves, as if he’d just marched in from some tricky desert maneuver.