Centre Stage

by Judy Nunn

  ‘I know, I know, Madeleine,’ Ned agreed testily. ‘It’s a problem inherent in the translation. You’re not unique: every English actress who’s played the role in the last eighty years has had to cope with it.’

  ‘So what do I do?’ she wailed.

  ‘How the hell do I know?’ Ned screamed back at her. ‘Play it in French! The audience won’t understand a word of it, but play it in French!’

  Ned Forsythe, the director, was a huge, hairy bear of a man: physically gentle, but with a tendency to roar when he lost his temper. He and Maddy had worked together before and, although they sometimes clashed, it was Ned who had insisted on casting Maddy as ‘The Shrimp’.

  ‘But it’s the title role,’ Bernard, the obtuse producer insisted. ‘We need a name, like Veronica Chisolm—the public love her.’

  Veronica Chisolm had starred in Bernard’s last three productions and it was a well-known fact to everyone but his wife that they were having an affair. Whether they would still be having an affair if he discontinued casting Veronica was a case of conjecture and Bernard didn’t want to take the risk.

  Ned decided someone had to. The thought of directing the overtly British, handsome but horsey Veronica Chisolm as ‘The Shrimp’ was more than he could bear. Besides which, Veronica was forty if she was a day.

  ‘I tell you what, Bernard, why don’t we cast her as the wife? It’s a wonderful part.’

  ‘Good grief, no.’ Bernard was horrified. ‘Vonnie wouldn’t accept anything but the leading female role. I mean, the wife’s a “heavy” for God’s sake; she should be played by a forty year old character actress.’

  Exactly, Ned thought. ‘Look, Bernard,’ he said. ‘Victoria was a wonderful Donna Lucia: no one has ever said “Brazil, where the nuts come from” quite like her. But Charlie’s Aunt and The Lady From Maxim’s require very different styles of performance and, believe me, “The Shrimp” is not her.’ Bernard was shaking his head. ‘We need someone petite,’ Ned insisted, ‘someone gamine.’ Bernard was still shaking his head. ‘Someone else, for God’s sake!’

  ‘Ned, I really think—’

  ‘Or I walk!’ Ned held his breath. This was the biggest production he’d been offered to date and he didn’t want to lose the job. But the punt paid off.

  ‘We’ll audition her,’ agreed Bernard. And Maddy did the rest.

  It took the cast a little while to realise that Ned’s yelling was not only harmless but quite therapeutic. For him anyway. ‘I’m Aries,’ he’d say dismissively, ‘I need to get it off my chest.’

  It was true that, once he’d erupted, he was as gentle as a lamb. Every now and then, though, Maddy decided not to let him get away with it and she screamed back at him. Afterwards she would smile sweetly and shrug, ‘I’m Aries too.’ It became a running gag.

  The production was physically exhausting for each of the leading actors and, by the final curtain, they were all bathed in sweat, despite the midwinter temperatures. But it was rewarding and, after several previews, they were relatively sure they had a successful show. As relatively sure as they could be, of course.

  ‘It’s all in the hands of the critics now,’ Ned announced after notes following the final preview.

  ‘Pray, everyone. Pray,’ Gerald O’Dougherty urged and they all laughed. Gerald was a talented and very popular leading man, of the lightweight, debonair variety. His faint Irish brogue lent colour to the comedy and farce roles in which he specialised.

  ‘Home time,’ Ned announced. ‘Lots of rest and I’ll see you at the warm-up tomorrow night, forty-five minutes before the half. For those who wish to attend,’ he hastily added to the collection of elderly ladies who played the duchess’s cronies in the all-important Act Two garden party scene. Ned prayed that opening night zeal would not tempt any of them to participate in the warm-up—it would probably kill them.

  Maddy set off for the theatre a good three hours before the half the following day. She was far too restless to stay at home. It was a fifteen-minute walk and she enjoyed the icy chill in the air as she swung her arms briskly and exercised her diaphragm, drawing in deep draughts of breath to her lungs.

  ‘Hands on ribcage, feel those diaphragms.’ The image of Jonathan Thomas flashed briefly through her mind. Poor man. Don’t think about it—look at the theatres. She was in Charing Cross Road now; it was getting dark and the neons were on. The titles of plays and the names of the stars and the writers blazed gaudily in the gathering dusk.

  She turned the corner. There it was. In bright lights THE LADY FROM MAXIM’S. Her name wasn’t above the title yet, but it was getting a lot closer. It said: Gerald O’Dougherty in … Then, underneath the title, … with Madeleine Frances as ‘The Shrimp’.

  Maddy was quite happy with that. There were wonderful stills in the street display boxes and the foyer, including two lifesize shots of her, mid cancan. She’d been trying desperately to act nonchalant for the whole week they’d been up but it was difficult. Maddy felt a thrill every time she saw the photos and her name in lights. The films she’d made paled into insignificance. This was what she’d aimed for.

  What an age it seemed to have taken. But she’d made it. The title role. The West End. And here it was—her opening night. All she needed to do was prove she was good enough to stay.

  The cue for the cancan was coming up. Maddy braced herself. Act One had been a breeze. Here came the test. The opening chords sounded. She was on.

  She lifted up the skirt of the heavy velvet dress, grabbed a fistful of petticoats with each hand and bounded onstage with a gleeful shriek. Chin up, head back, chest out, the Lady from Maxim’s strutted her stuff before the duchess’s guests in their demure garden party ensembles complete with their parasols and picture hats.

  The music became more frantic and the gathering more shocked as ‘The Shrimp’ exposed her fishnet-clad thighs and her lacy knickers for all to see. She took off her black satin garter and snapped it over the bald pate of a marquis; she cartwheeled through a group of society matrons; she flaunted her uplifted bosom in front of a group of youths.

  By now the sweat was pouring down Maddy’s face (fortunately the audience was too far away to notice) and, several wild minutes later, after three more cartwheels and a killing series of high kicks, came the finale.

  She squealed, threw herself in the air, yards of red velvet and petticoats held aloft for one last glorious display of fishnet, satin and lace. Then there was the familiar crunch of the floor against her right knee, left leg extended in front as she cheated the splits.

  There was a gasp of admiration. Peggy had been right. No one knew it was a cheat and the bruise she’d worn on her right knee since the start of rehearsals was worth it.

  The audience erupted into spontaneous applause. Maddy rose, sashayed over to the huge wicker garden seat centre stage, cocked a leg saucily over the arm and said, ‘Cheer up, darling’ to the duchess. The cancan was over—it was on with the play.

  There was no reply. The old bitch is asleep—again! Maddy realised, aghast. The ancient character actress who played the duchess had fallen asleep through every dress rehearsal and two of the previews. But she couldn’t have fallen asleep on the opening night! Dear God, not the opening night!

  She had.

  Maddy kicked the chair.

  ‘Hhrm … oh … ah …’

  ‘Cheer up, darling,’ Maddy repeated as she saw recognition dawning in the rheumy eyes behind the inch-long false lashes. The painted mouth wreathed into a thousand smiles and there was a gay and girlish laugh. The duchess lived once more and on they went with the show.

  There were a few other hiccups during the performance, as there always were on opening nights, but who cared? The audience was already rising to its feet as Gerald O’Dougherty took his curtain call with the cast members lined up on either side of him. But when he turned upstage to acknowledge ‘The Shrimp’ and Maddy cartwheeled over to join him, the entire house leapt to its feet.

  When Gerald called a halt
after nine curtain calls the applause was still thundering. ‘Leave them wanting more,’ he muttered to Maddy as he kissed her hand again, smiled dazzlingly at the audience and gave the signal for the last curtain to the stage manager.

  Ned had suggested, very tentatively, that the final walkdown in the curtain call should go to Maddy and he’d been quite taken aback when Gerald agreed. ‘Good grief, man, of course; she’s the star of the show.’ Unlike many highly successful actors, Gerald had no pretensions about star status. He certainly agreed it was good business that his name be publicised above Maddy’s—his huge theatrical following put bums on seats, after all—but the star of the show was an altogether different matter. And the star of this show was Maddy. Ned hadn’t worked with Gerald before and he was surprised and delighted by the man’s generosity. He knew it was a rare quality in a West End star.

  Gerald’s insistence that he was a ‘working actor’ was genuine but he nevertheless exercised the power of his position in controlling the curtain calls. In full company calls, all actors were to take their bows from him and the number of calls were to be solely at his discretion. It wasn’t ego; it was total professionalism. Gerald’s timing was impeccable and, if there was one thing he couldn’t stand, it was sloppy timing in others: whether in directors, in actors, or in lighting and sound cues—but, above all, in curtain calls.

  ‘You were stunning, my darling, simply stunning.’ He put his arm around her and kissed her and, as usual, the embrace lasted a little too long and the hand was a little too close to her breast to be ignored. Gerald had been trying to get her to bed since the first day of rehearsals.

  ‘Thanks, Gerald,’ Maddy said, sliding his hand down to her waist. ‘Thanks for everything.’ And she meant it. She was grateful not only for the generosity of the curtain call, but for the support his performance gave her. It was a joy to work with such an accomplished actor. ‘You were pretty stunning yourself.’ And, as the hand progressed back to her breast, she wriggled out of his embrace and headed for her dressing room. Amusing, talented and charming as he was, there was just a touch of the sleaze about Gerald. If only he could learn to take ‘no’ for an answer. But Gerald never could. Even though his success rate was barely fifty-fifty, he never accepted resistance as genuine. Gerald had been a debonair working roué for as long as he’d been a debonair working actor and the two had become entwined.

  ‘Thanks, Jess,’ Maddy heaved a sigh of relief as her dresser finished unlacing her boned corset. The period costumes were a real killer. The cancan would be a breeze if she didn’t have to do it in a heavy velvet dress with petticoats that weighed a ton, a saucy little hat with lace that obscured her vision and the dreaded corset that restricted her breathing. Even though the corset was made of elasticised fabric to give her as much freedom as possible, it had to look strictly authentic for the Act One bedroom scene when she appeared in her underwear, and it had to keep her bosom fully uplifted throughout the play. It certainly worked. The mounds of her breasts were most attractively evident in the beautiful Edwardian gowns that had been designed for her. Yes, the corset was worth it, thought Maddy, but it was a bloody relief to get out of it.

  There was a tap at the door. Jess opened it a fraction. ‘She decent?’ It was Ned.

  ‘Decent enough for you,’ Maddy called as she wrapped a towel around herself.

  ‘Fan-bloody-tastic, sweetheart.’ Ned swept her off her feet in a huge bear hug. She lost the towel and hugged him back naked except for her panties, thinking nothing of it—there was no modesty in the theatre.

  Jess was poised ready to throw a robe over Maddy as soon as possible. There certainly used to be modesty in the theatre. Jess had been a dresser for forty-five of her sixty years and she didn’t approve of the slack modern standards.

  Despite his healthy heterosexuality and despite Maddy’s highly desirable body, Ned barely noticed she was seminaked. He was too excited. ‘Back in ten minutes,’ he said as Jess threw the robe around Maddy and hastily closed it over the offending breasts. ‘There’s a mass of people waiting to congratulate you.’ And he was gone.

  The rest of the night was a whirl. A crowd of them went on to Joe Allen’s, the actors’ hangout in Covent Garden, for supper. Maddy was on a personal high, giddy with praise and champagne.

  The next morning she awoke with a mild hangover and a hefty sense of reality. If the critics hadn’t liked the show and if the word of mouth wasn’t good, the night before had meant nothing.

  As it turned out, the critics had some reservations about the translation and adaptation (exactly along the lines of Maddy’s own reservations at the outset of rehearsals), but they voted the production a winner and were unanimous in their praise of Maddy’s performance. As to the word of mouth, within a week the bookings soared and, within a month, Bernard informed the company they were assured of a full year’s run. The Lady from Maxim’s was most certainly a hit.

  It was the night Bernard made his announcement that Maddy met Douglas Mackie. He wasn’t anything like she’d expected him to be, but then what had she expected anyway? She had no idea—she’d never been pursued by a real ‘Stage-door Johnny’ before.

  Certainly, admirers gathered at the stage door after performances. On matinee days there were kids with autograph books and on Saturday nights there were the inevitable young men besotted by the corset, the breasts and the cheeky charm of ‘The Shrimp’. But the huge bouquets of flowers that had arrived three times a week for the past month were another thing altogether, as was the enigmatic note that always accompanied them: Congratulations on an excellent performance. I look forward to meeting you in the near future. Douglas Mackie.

  After the first half-dozen bouquets Maddy had to admit that she was intrigued, as was the rest of the cast.

  ‘A pimply-faced adolescent with access to Daddy’s credit card,’ was Gerald’s opinion.

  ‘A sophisticated theatre-goer with a great knowledge of tradition,’ was Meg’s opinion. Margaret Ailwood played Gerald’s religious zealot wife and, to those who knew her, it was a prime case of type-casting. Meg’s obsession with theatre superstition and her insistence that the rules be adhered to had definitely reached fanatic proportions.

  Meg changed her views about Douglas Mackie when the sixth bouquet was delivered. ‘Quick, quick!’ she gasped. ‘Bring it outside.’ Once in the side lane, she started ripping the white lilies out of the arrangement. ‘Well, he certainly has no knowledge of theatre tradition,’ she admitted. ‘Lilies of the valley! Fancy sending lilies of the valley!’

  ‘What’s wrong with lilies of the valley?’ Maddy asked, feeling very ignorant. She knew about not whistling in the dressing rooms and never quoting from Macbeth—they were both very bad luck indeed—but lilies of the valley? That was a new one to her.

  ‘Death, dear.’ Meg was obviously astonished that Maddy didn’t know. ‘Death to the show.’

  ‘Oh.’ Maddy felt duly chastened and immediately agreed that Bob the doorman be instructed to remove any lilies of the valley should they be present in future bouquets.

  ‘I’ll come with you, dear, to make sure he understands properly,’ Meg insisted.

  ‘And don’t just put them in your rubbish bin, Bob,’ she stressed when he nodded agreement. ‘They’re to go outside the theatre altogether. There are bins in the side alley.’

  ‘Sure, Miss Ailwood, I’ll see to it, don’t you worry.’ Bob was used to strange demands from actors, but Miss Ailwood wasn’t a bad old stick, not up herself like some of the others.

  Then there came the night, two weeks later, when the message on the card accompanying the bouquet read I look forward to the opportunity of meeting you after the performance tonight. Douglas Mackie. My God, Maddy thought, what’ll I do? She immediately rang Rodney who agreed to go to supper after the show.

  ‘A Mr Mackie at the stage door for you,’ the assistant stage manager said. ‘Shall I show him up?’

  The curtain had been down for exactly fifteen minutes. Just the rig
ht amount of time had been allowed for her to have showered, cleaned off her make-up and changed. Damn, Maddy thought, he obviously expects me to go out with him.

  ‘No thanks,’ she called back. ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’ Hurry up, Rodney, for God’s sake, hurry up.

  ‘Miss Frances? Douglas Mackie. How do you do.’

  ‘How do you do.’ His handshake was firm—if anything, just a little too firm. ‘Thank you for the flowers.’

  Maddy couldn’t think of anything else to say. Douglas Mackie was incredibly attractive. Or was he? She couldn’t be sure. He wasn’t conventionally handsome. Maddy was confused. There was something disturbing, something confronting about him. The only thing Maddy was sure about was that she was immediately and magnetically drawn to him.

  ‘It’s my pleasure,’ Douglas Mackie was saying. And his voice, too, with its faint Scots burr, was attractive. ‘I was quite overwhelmed by your performance and I wanted very much to meet you.’

  Did he mean to send her up? Why did she get the feeling he was laughing at her? But then was he? Was that mockery in his eyes or was it genuine admiration?

  ‘Sorry I’m late.’ It was Rodney, out of breath. ‘Awful trouble parking the car.’ He noticed Douglas. ‘Hi,’ he said, offering his hand. ‘Rodney Baines. We’re just on our way out to supper.’

  ‘Hello. Douglas Mackie. Of course you are.’ Damn, Maddy thought. The twinkle was still there as Douglas turned back to her. ‘I wondered whether, once I’d introduced myself, you might have supper with me? Maybe one evening next week?’

  ‘Um … well …’ Maddy floundered.

  Rodney was about to ‘save’ her once more but fortunately Douglas interrupted. ‘Why don’t I just arrive on … say, Thursday … and you can decide then and there?’

  ‘All right,’ Maddy agreed hastily before Rodney could save her again. ‘That’d be fine.’