Centre Stage

by Judy Nunn

  ‘It is Douglas Mackie, actually,’ he’d told her, and he was infuriatingly calm. ‘But it doesn’t really matter, does it, whether I’m Douglas, Donald or David? Take your choice, call me what you like.’

  ‘Right. You’re a bastard.’ And she’d walked to the door of her apartment, opened it and waited for him to leave.

  He didn’t. ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘Why?’ She stared at him incredulously. ‘For lying to me. For leading me on. For—’

  ‘I didn’t. I didn’t lie to you and I didn’t lead you on. My name is Douglas Mackie and I care very much for you.’ She stared back at him as he continued, totally unperturbed. ‘I sometimes need to assume a different identity for business purposes, Madeleine.’ He held up his hand as he saw her about to interrupt. ‘And don’t ask me what business-it’s not necessary that you know. Suffice it to say that not everyone leads a life as simple as yours.’

  That was when Maddy exploded. ‘Simple!’ Not only was he a two-faced lying con man, he was a smug, pompous shit into the bargain. ‘What the hell makes you think acting is simple! It’s one of the hardest, most competitive professions one can—’

  ‘I didn’t say it was “easy”.’ There was a slight edge to his voice but he maintained his patience. ‘I said it was “simple”. Your job is simply to learn your part and arrive at the theatre on time. I grant you,’ he admitted, ‘after that it’s a case of whether or not you have the talent …’.

  ‘And whether or not you can get the job in the first place,’ Maddy muttered rebelliously. And, as she did, she was amazed that he’d managed so successfully to steer her away from the original argument.

  ‘Exactly.’ It was if he was awarding her points in a debate. ‘A difficult job, certainly, but a “simple” one—one that doesn’t require subterfuge and false identities.’ He smiled winningly as he crossed to her. ‘A job for single-minded, ambitious people with tunnel vision.’

  He was being charmingly insulting, probably to distract her even further, but it gave Maddy momentary food for thought. He wasn’t far wrong, was he? She lived, breathed, ate and drank the theatre and she always had.

  ‘I respect you for it, Madeleine, and I don’t want to change you.’ He kissed her. ‘Just as you don’t want to change me, remember? I’m going now; we’ll only talk around in circles if I don’t. I’ll see you in a couple of months.’ He kissed her once more and then he was gone.

  Maddy agonised for a day or two before she realised it was pointless. He was right. Piqued as her curiosity was, she knew she’d have to take him as she found him; he obviously wasn’t going to tell her about himself. Her only other alternative was to finish the relationship and she didn’t think she could do that.

  As always, the theatre was a total distraction, and then there was Jenny. Jenny arrived in London for her holidays, they had a special birthday dinner and Maddy presented her with the return tickets to Sydney.

  ‘First class! Wow!’ Jenny’s eyes were like saucers. ‘Can we afford it, Mum?’

  ‘Of course we can, darling.’ Maddy crossed her legs, mimed a cigarette holder and blew imaginary smoke into the air. ‘Your mother’s a West End star, don’t you know.’

  ‘What happens if you have a big offer next April?’ There was no condemnation in the child’s voice, but there was doubt, and it was fearful.

  Tears sprang instantly to Maddy’s eyes and she looked down at the food that she’d long since finished eating and pretended to toy with another mouthful. ‘Then I’ll say no, won’t I?’

  ‘But if it was a really big offer, you wouldn’t be able to.’

  A sudden rush of anger quelled Maddy’s tears as quickly as they’d risen. ‘Oh yes I would, Jen. Believe me I would.’ Douglas had been right when he’d accused her of tunnel vision, she thought, and she wondered briefly how many times Jenny must have suffered because of it. She took the girl’s hands in her own. ‘Nothing is going to stop us going to Sydney next April, I can promise you. Nothing!’

  It was only a fortnight later that a huge bouquet of flowers arrived backstage at the theatre. The card read: Congratulations on an excellent performance. I look forward to meeting you after the show. And it was in the florist’s handwriting.

  ‘You could at least have written the card youself,’ she said, as Bob the doorman showed Douglas into her dressing room.

  ‘Didn’t want to break the tradition, did I?’ he said.

  ‘It’s been less than three weeks. What happened to the two months?’

  Douglas shrugged. ‘I couldn’t stay away. Besides, I wanted to meet Jenny.’

  Maddy looked to the sofa in the corner where Jenny sat quietly watching them. ‘Jen, this is Douglas.’

  ‘Hi. Mum’s told me about you.’

  Over the next twelve months Douglas continued to be unforthcoming about his work and his background and his regular ‘business trips’. Maddy tried not to pry. She tried to ‘take him as he was’, but there was a basic mistrust inside her which left her unrelaxed and wary.

  Douglas remained touchingly vulnerable in their lovemaking but wore his customary guard up at other times and to Maddy, who loved him deeply, it was very frustrating. They seemed to have reached an emotional stalemate.

  Jenny was also confused by Douglas’s nonchalance. She liked the way he treated her as an equal and an adult but she was confused when, for no apparent reason, he’d become distracted and pay her no attention at all. Or when he’d suddenly disappear for weeks on end without even saying goodbye.

  It was very confusing for everyone, Maddy thought; much as she knew she would miss Douglas, she was looking forward to the trip to Sydney. Perhaps the distance, being home again, would give her the courage to end the relationship. She felt she should, if only she could find the strength.

  And now, with less than a week to go, there was the contact from Julian and Harold. And with it the reminder of Alex. Yes, life was bloody complicated these days, Maddy thought.

  Life wasn’t complicated for Alex. It was frustrating, disappointing and downright unfulfilling.

  Big changes were called for, he decided. He’d had enough of producing short seasons of established plays and praying that Susannah’s theatre following would pull in sixty per cent houses. He wanted a brand-new smash hit that would run for a year, play to capacity houses, tour the capital cities and make him a fortune. It wasn’t just the money he wanted, although the lifestyle he insisted on maintaining certainly required it. It was the stimulation and the power—above all the power.

  But first he needed a play. He needed a bold playwright. He needed Julian Oldfellow. And he knew he’d get him. After all, Julian had taken his year off to spend time with his poofter friend, and that relationship was dying its death, according to Harold. ‘I’ll give it a year at the most,’ Alex could remember himself saying. And he’d been right. Time to come back to the fold, Julian.

  It didn’t bother Alex at all that Julian’s last two plays had flopped. He knew that in some strange way he himself was Julian’s inspiration. And he knew for a fact that, as a duo, their work was dynamic. The thought that their relationship was sorely in need of repair also didn’t bother Alex. One evening was all he needed. One evening with Julian would do the trick, and Harold had already extracted Julian’s promise to come to supper next week after Hedda had opened.

  Hedda. Oh God! Alex put all thoughts of Julian aside. One thing at a time, he told himself. Hedda Gabler was in a mess. Tonight was their final dress rehearsal, they opened the next day—and Alex had big reasons to worry.

  Until three days ago he had kept his customary distance from the company. But when he attended the first full dress rehearsal he decided it was time to interfere. The show wasn’t good enough.

  Alex cancelled the three scheduled public previews, called day and night dress rehearsals instead, and had endless rows with Roger Kingsley over the changes he wanted made.

  ‘For God’s sake, Roger, just shut up and do as you’re told,’ Alex fina
lly snapped.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ said Roger, looking down his nose with queenly indignation, ‘but I am the director around here.’

  ‘No you’re not. You’re sacked.’

  ‘What?’ Roger dropped the queenly act and stared back in disbelief.

  ‘I said, you’re sacked.’

  ‘But I have a contract. You can’t—’

  ‘I can. You’ll be paid out in full.’

  Alex hadn’t taken much notice of Susannah’s complaints about Roger over the past several weeks. Susannah always had a whinge about a fellow actor, or a stage manager or a director when she was working. She was such a perfectionist herself that she overreacted to any imperfections in the work of others. Alex had long ago decided it was also her way of letting off steam.

  Not this time. This time she’d been right. ‘His blocking and general staging’s up to shit, he’s turning it into a Victorian melodrama and he’s totally confused all of the cast except Harold and me about character relationships and balances. Honestly. You ask Harold.’

  Alex had heard complaints along similar lines from Harold already. ‘The man’s doing his own personal rewrite of Hedda Gabler, dear boy. Nothing whatsoever to do with Mr Ibsen.’

  Actors, Alex thought, God save me from them. ‘He’s just trying to put his personal stamp on the production, Harold. Give him a chance. God knows we accused him of playing it too safe for years at The Way In.’

  ‘Well, he’s revenging himself upon us now, I can tell you. He—’

  ‘Can’t stay, got a meeting with the party booking organisers. You want those bums on seats, don’t you?’

  If only he’d listened, Alex now thought as he tried to pick up the production pieces. And if only he hadn’t given Roger so much power. The man’s choice of music was funereal and his lighting was so dismal that even the stills photographs taken for front-of-house were morbid and boring and would have to be reshot. Why signal a tragedy from the beginning?

  The biggest worry of the lot, however, was the set. Roger had changed the original design to suit his gloomy and Gothic version of the play. When the set designer argued that he would need the producer’s permission for such a radical change, Roger waved the man aside with the assurance that Alex had granted him full authority in all artistic areas. On phoning Alex, the set designer had found this was indeed the case. ‘Roger’s the boss in that area, Steve, go for it.’

  Alex groaned at the memory. It hadn’t occurred to him that Roger was designing a Gothic monster. A few minor set changes, he’d thought. Just another example of Roger wanting to put his personal stamp on things, he’d thought. But you didn’t think, did you, Alex, he now told himself, you just didn’t bloody think.

  It was an expensive lesson. Now, three days after Alex had given Steve the order to return the set to its original design, Steve was insisting his team needed a further twenty-four hours to finish it.

  Christ! We could all do with a further twenty-four hours, Alex cursed. He still hadn’t found the music he wanted and he wasn’t altogether happy with the new lighting design and, since his changes in blocking and his performance notes, the actors could all do with more rehearsal. How am I going to do it? he wondered. How the hell am I going to buy myself twenty-four hours? That very night, at the end of the dress rehearsal, the answer came to him.

  ‘Yes, that is what you are looking forward to, isn’t it, Mr Brack?’ Susannah’s voice rang out from behind the curtains of the drawing room alcove, centre stage. ‘You, the only cock in the yard.’

  There was a pause while the three actors on stage waited for the gunshot. The stills photographer zoomed in on the alcove to capture the discovery of Hedda’s suicide.

  There was no gunshot. A further pause. Still no gunshot. Damn, Harold thought, the props gun must have jammed.

  Alex, sitting in the stalls with his notepad and pencil, was thinking exactly the same thing. He added to his list of notes that an ASM was to stand by in the wings with a second props gun in case of emergency. It should have been the duty of the stage manager to start with, he thought, irritated that Susannah had demanded she fire the gun herself.

  Harold waited several seconds until the pause started to feel a little uncomfortable. Then he rose from the table and looked upstage to the drawing room alcove. In true tradition, the dress rehearsal was to be played as per performance and any mishaps had to be taken in the actors’ stride. Besides, there were twenty people out front, friends and family of the front-of-house staff.

  ‘Did you hear a sound, Tesman?’ Harold asked, trying to stay in character. ‘A strangled sort of sound?’ And he crossed to the alcove curtains. The drawing room alcove was mocked up from several wardrobe racks draped with black tabs. It was the major part of the set currently under reconstruction by Steve and his gang.

  ‘A strangled sound, Judge? Why yes, I believe I did.’ Neville, the actor playing Tesman, picked up his cue admirably and joined Harold at the curtains.

  ‘Madam Hedda, are you all right?’ Harold called, praying that Susannah was able to find something to strangle herself with. Then he remembered. Of course, she had the sash of her gown. He gave a nod to Neville, a signal that they needed to buy more time for Susannah.

  ‘Answer us, Hedda,’ Neville called obligingly.

  Harold waited two seconds. No answer from Hedda. Plenty of time for the sash around the throat. He drew aside the curtains.

  Hedda’s body was not sprawled upon the sofa, the gun by her side and the blood-stained cushion beneath her head as the stage directions dictated. Susannah was lying unconscious in a crumpled heap on the floor.

  ‘Susannah!’ Harold exclaimed as he knelt beside her. ‘Alex! Quick! She’s fainted.’

  The stills photographer, poised to capture the discovery of Hedda’s body, had clicked away the moment Harold drew the curtains. Now he guiltily stepped aside as Alex knelt beside his wife and lifted her head.

  Susannah’s face was deathly pale beneath the make-up and there were dark circles of fatigue under her eyes. She looked fragile and beautiful, her head resting on Alex’s knee, her rich auburn hair splayed across his thigh.

  It wasn’t a deep faint and she was already stirring. Harold gestured to the ASM for a glass of water.

  ‘What happened?’ Susannah murmured.

  ‘You fainted, darling,’ Alex explained and, as he did, he knew with a surge of gratitude and relief that he’d found his way out.

  ‘Oh God, how embarrassing.’ She struggled to lift her head.

  ‘No, no, don’t try and get up.’ Alex eased her head back onto his knee and gave a sharp nod to the photographer.

  The photographer, incredulous, opened his mouth to speak but Alex’s second nod and his gesture for silence were unmistakable.

  Oh well, you’re the boss, the photographer thought, as he surreptitiously raised his camera.

  ‘Harold, you look after her,’ Alex instructed when he was sure that the photographer had taken at least three shots. ‘I’m going to call an ambulance.’ He got up and Harold immediately took his place.

  ‘You’ll do no such bloody thing, Alex,’ Susannah snapped. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me—I’m tired, that’s all.’

  ‘All right, no ambulance, so long as you stay where you are,’ Alex snapped back. ‘I don’t want you fainting again. We’ve got a show to open tomorrow.’ When Susannah got tough the only way to handle her was to get tough back. ‘But I’m calling a doctor in.’

  ‘Oh, no you’re not.’

  ‘A doctor or an ambulance: take your choice.’

  ‘All right, all right.’ Susannah gave in gracelessly. ‘So long as it’s Les.’

  Alex nodded agreement. ‘Stay where you are till you get your breath back.’ Then, as he left to make the phone call, he muttered to the photographer. ‘Get some wide shots with the company too.’ The other cast members and stage management crew were gathered around, Rosie Lee protectively preventing them from crowding Susannah.

  Wh
en Alex returned several minutes later he was irritated to find Susannah comfortably settled on the sofa, but a nod from the photographer assured him that Susannah’s collapse on the stage floor had been well and truly captured on film.

  ‘Les is on his way,’ Alex announced. ‘Everyone can go home. I’ll be in touch about rehearsal time tomorrow morning.’

  Dr Les, as he was affectionately known in the industry, was a ‘tame’ medical practitioner who understood the problems that beset actors and treated and prescribed accordingly. He didn’t do anything illegal but his methods were certainly unorthodox. He could be relied upon to administer a cortisone injection backstage between the opera company’s matinee and evening show to enable an asthmatic singer to get through the night. Or a quick vitamin B shot for an actor suffering from fatigue. Minor fractures could be strapped and pain killers prescribed on the spot to enable performers to struggle through the show.

  Unlike many practitioners, Dr Les understood the meaning of that old adage, ‘the show must go on’. Actors were bloody stupid, he thought, but if they were prepared to stagger through performances in agony or in a state of near collapse, who was he to tell them to take two days off work and rest up? They wouldn’t listen anyway, so he might as well be on call to make things easier for them.

  ‘Pulse and blood pressure normal.’ He lifted Susannah’s eyelids and examined each eye. ‘Have you been eating properly, Susannah?’ he asked.

  Susannah nodded and Dr Les looked at Alex for confirmation as he took the thermometer from her mouth.

  ‘Yes, she has,’ Alex agreed.

  ‘I’m just tired, that’s all,’ Susannah insisted. ‘A quick vitamin shot and I’ll be fine.’

  Dr Les read the thermometer. ‘No temperature. Periods normal?’

  ‘No, but they never are when I’m working.’