Dance While You Can

by Shirley Maclaine

  Still blinded by the spot, I could only rely on my ears. So I listened to the applause, waiting for it to die down, hoping my eyes would adjust. I looked out over the audience. Everything was black, except for the stream of light rays trained, it seemed, directly into my eyes. I couldn’t find the horizon in the blackness and began to feel disoriented, as though I would lose my balance. Even the exit signs had disappeared. I saw no human faces, although I could hear people. The edge of the proscenium dropped off into darkness.

  I inched my way downstage, afraid I would step over the line, remembering that Marlene Dietrich had once fallen into the orchestra pit and broken her arm.

  The applause subsided, and I heard the musical vamp emerge from the orchestra behind me. When there was silence in the house, I began to sing the lyrics to the opening song. I was wearing a body mike in a choker around my neck, designed to look like a piece of jewelry.

  As I sang my lyrics, I realized I couldn’t hear myself. I sang louder. I still couldn’t. I reached up and touched the mike. Where I should have been concerned only about how to play the number, I was completely distracted about whether the audience could hear me or not. I couldn’t ask the sound man because he was located upstage, off stage right, and I couldn’t see him. The conductor was looking down at his music, not yet familiar with the show. I felt absolutely isolated, trapped in the spotlight with no support system to tell me whether I was coming across or not.

  I finished the number, tense and miserable, singing blind and deaf about how much I loved being on the stage again.

  For the entire first act I could have phoned in my performance as far as I was concerned. I couldn’t hear myself at all. The band was too loud. The musicians couldn’t hear me either. I finished the first act with “Rose’s Turn,” and after the blackout I left the stage for my dressing room and intermission.

  I clawed at the microphone around my neck. What was going on? If performers can’t hear themselves through their own stage monitors, there is trouble. Stories abound about such troubles. Some sound crews are fired on the spot. Sound guys for Engelbert Humperdinck had T-shirts made up that read “I survived Humperdinck—again and again.” Other performers put earpieces in their ears until the sound people got it right.

  The balance of sound on the stage is twofold. The audience and the performer do not hear the same thing. There is a sound mixer out in front mixing audience sound and a mixer offstage mixing performance sound. I was learning that using omnidirectional body mikes was a problem, because they pick up all ambient sounds on the stage. In other words, the band was leaking through my mike so badly that I couldn’t be heard. It was better in the house than on the stage, but what matters to a performer is what they hear. And I was drowned out. When that happens you force, you push. It’s an automatic response, guaranteed to make you lose your voice.

  I tried to stay calm in my dressing room as I simultaneously dried off and warmed up my legs for the dance number in the second act. I thought ahead. How could I use a hand mike without destroying the effect? It would be too much like Vegas, and mine was a theatrical show, not a saloon show. Besides, I did three long acting sketches where props and costumes were necessary. How could I hold the mike while acting with props and costumes? I couldn’t find a solution in between plies and hamstring stretches. Mary put me through a fifteen-minute warm-up before we heard the band take their places again.

  I was wearing a leotard for the second act, which contained the battery pack for the microphone in my crotch. I hoped it would survive the splits. The microphone itself was nestled in my bosoms, lifting them even further. I had to laugh at the preposterous glamour we performers presented on stage, while actually being connected and wired and screwed and glued into every sophisticated mechanical device known to the audio business. Which still didn’t produce results.

  I wondered if sweat from my crotch would leak into the battery pack and electrocute me. A show biz first.

  I found my way back to center stage and began to warm up at the bar constructed around the bandstand. I lifted my leg in a stretch that I knew was impressive to the audience, but really to test whether the battery would fall out—and was not reassured. Nothing to do but get on with it. I lowered my leg and did a few pliés.

  The number began. Being heard was not an issue during the dancing; staying upright was. I was working with new shoes. Suddenly the snap across my ankle strap came undone. I didn’t feel it—I saw it. In that intuitive way dancers have of knowing that doom is impending, something told me to look down. If I hadn’t seen it, my shoe would have flown off.

  Instead I bent down and resnapped the shoe. During the bend the battery pack came loose. I reached up under the backside of my leotard and positioned it. Jesus. Who said once you’re out there everything works?

  I finished the number, happy to have survived in one piece, and went on to the next hunk of material. I had no idea whether the people in the audience were enjoying themselves or not. The music, the lights, the salty sweat in my eyes, the stretched muscles, controlled breath, wet hair, precision movement, and the last wrenching steps that brought the twenty-five-minute dance number to a close were finally over. It had come together somehow.

  The dancers took their bows and left the stage. I quickly changed into a silver and black beaded gown over my soaking leotard. It weighed a good twenty pounds. But not for long. As I stood regally in the subdued spotlight, having earned the right to some quiet moments with the audience, I felt something on my sleeve. A line of sequins had torn loose, and the dress was coming unraveled. The more I pulled, the more it unraveled. Perhaps this was symbolic of things to come. Holding a handful of stringed sequins, I finished the show, which the audience seemed to like in spite of everything. How could one prepare for this in a rehearsal hall? Only by remembering that audiences love to see that performers are just like they are—participants in the fall from grace.

  On top of the problems with the sound, which would certainly have to be solved, I had decided to travel without a personal assistant this time. I wanted to be responsible for what went on around me, and I never did like people who hovered. That meant I would have to get up early the morning after the last show and pack myself. We traveled on our day off, in order to open the next city the following night. Since I slept on a magnetic mattress I had brought with me, I couldn’t pack it the night before. Mike Flowers would collect the luggage in the hall in front of our rooms by nine o’clock. Falling into bed at three o’clock in the morning (we were all on that schedule now) wouldn’t leave much time to sleep. I was beginning to see some of the attendant hardships that touring would involve—no day off, really, following two shows a day on both Saturday and Sunday.

  As I woke on Monday, the last morning in San Antonio, my body felt as though it had been hit by a truck. I slipped into an Epsom salts bath and tried to stretch and relax.

  I found myself ordering chocolate truffles and waffles and pancakes for breakfast, just as a consolation-reward I suppose. Besides, I needed the carbohydrates to get me going. My voice was shot from the pushing during performance—the room service operators asked if I had a bad cold. They weren’t far wrong. The cold happened as soon as we opened in Dallas. And, of course, it started with a sore throat. Again I couldn’t hear myself during performance, the band couldn’t hear me, so I shut my throat down.

  I was miserable—wheezing and coughing and stuffed up. I found it metaphysically interesting that the problems I was having related to communication. I couldn’t communicate properly. No one could hear me. I wondered what that was really saying to me. Yes, I was concerned about being understood, relative to confusion that might have developed as a result of my writing. But would that concern actually translate to a manifested reality on the stage? Of course it would, but I couldn’t see that until later. I just blamed it all on the sound guys and their unproductive equipment.

  I found something else happening to me that was probably relevant. The Hotel Crescent Court had set
aside a presidential-looking suite for me. But I didn’t want it. It had nothing to do with the expense (we had an extraordinary discount). It was about coziness and convenience.

  I just wanted one bedroom like everyone else had—one room, no living room-dining room suite, no kitchenette with a refrigerator expected to house cold champagne and caviar, and no running from room to room to answer the phone. All I wanted was a bedroom that was quiet with color TV and a window that opened.

  The manager of the hotel was subtly shocked, as though I would suffer needless inconvenience. But I had long since learned that when you travel alone, you want to be near the front door when room service comes, able to drag your telephone with you as you open it. I also suspect I needed to feel more in control of my surroundings. I had no control on the stage, so at least I wanted it where I slept.

  The manager had trouble with my pragmatic point of view but nevertheless found me a small room with an open window and a long telephone cord. I was happy.

  Despite the sound problems and my bad cold, opening night went quite well.

  The Texas audience response was bombastic. They gave me a five-minute standing ovation, which people said was unusual for subscription opening night audiences. I was thrilled. Maybe we’d be all right after all. The critics were a different story.

  Since I had said that my show was a work in progress, because I was touring until I reached New York, I guess they felt called upon to be creatively helpful. They saw it as a Vegas show with legs, flashy dancing, and energy. They didn’t like the sketches in which I played Sousatzka, Ouiser, and Aurora from three of my films, charging that it was self-serving of me to act these characters on a stage when one could easily go out and buy the real thing in a video store. Accusations of self-celebration always bothered me, because I knew it related to my philosophy of “love yourself before you can love anybody else.”

  The sketches were actually very well done, with costumes, hair, and makeup that were almost exact replicas of those in the movies. The audiences seemed to like them, always applauding as soon as they identified a costume, even before I launched into the character. Audiences seem to appreciate the celebratory aspects of a performer’s life. They come to see you because of who you are and what you’ve done. The critics somehow have a problem with performers having a good time with themselves (reflection on their own thwarted creativity?). Were the critics reflecting what audiences secretly felt but were too polite to express? Surely not. You can always tell when an audience is “in the cellar.” It worried me.

  My creative team left right after the opening in San Antonio, figuring the show was set. The critical reviews resulted in extended telephone conversations that continued when we played in Dallas, all of a personally defensive nature settling to the view that critics don’t know what they’re talking about anyway. Nevertheless, tempers flared and creative defensiveness lurched into full swing. If I cut out the acting sketches, I wouldn’t have a long enough first act. The “people” loved them. Why should I be affected? And then finally, “Let’s wait and see what they say in Denver,” which was our next stop. I agreed.

  But the sound problem still had not been solved, and no end seemed in sight. After each show, there was a technical meeting about dials and new microphones from Germany and other mechanical wonders I couldn’t understand. With the escalating frustration of the sound on stage came problems from the musicians, which served once again to amplify how each department in a live show is dependent on every other.

  Our conductor was an excellent musician who had expertly programmed the synthesizers with sounds that replicated a thirty-piece orchestra. He was a very laid-back individual, Oriental, and with his stoic personality, one could never tell what he was thinking.

  I could see the musicians were longing for more fiery leadership. In that respect our drummer, Cubby O’Brien, took charge. Someone had to do it. However, the focus of leadership then became diffused. I knew the conductor was not entirely familiar with the music yet, so his creative freedom and experimentation had not yet emerged. Live performers love to feel harmonious musical risks coming from the band, since each member is basically a soloist. This wasn’t happening. They were having trouble simply playing what was expected of them, because they couldn’t see any directive arm movements, which, in fact, may not even have been there.

  I asked myself whether I should call in my old conductor, Jack French, who was a real leader and creative too. Jack knew very little about synthesizers, but the new man had already accomplished that transition.

  I was now faced with firing him, going to hand mikes instead of body mikes, cutting the acting sketches, and eliminating the intermission, which had given me an opportunity to warm up my body for the twenty-five-minute dance number in the second act. My team was helpful, but I knew the decisions would ultimately be mine.

  Just as we were going into the double-show weekend, I came down with the flu. I couldn’t believe I was doing such a thing to myself. But I did. I could hardly breathe. I lost my voice, which was hard enough to find on stage anyway. My joints and muscles ached. My anxiety mounted, and I wondered what the hell I was doing in show business. I’d rather drive the Wonder bread truck for a living.

  Every four hours I sniffed warm salt water up my nose. It’s very healing. It’s guaranteed to clear up nasal congestion the natural way. I soaked in Epsom salts every chance I got. I drank enough water to sink a ship and took vitamin C until I had heartburn.

  I mentioned my problem with the conductor to Mike Flowers. He had worked with him before and couldn’t understand the change in how he was with the band. I knew that once I said anything to anybody else, regardless of how discreet I was, the word would get around. Our business is so small that all it takes is one musician in Dallas to tell another in Los Angeles, and everyone on both coasts knows there is trouble. And the news is guaranteed to move faster if you insist on keeping it a secret.

  Then just as I was ready to let the conductor go, he suddenly took charge. It happened on the last double-show day in Dallas. With his improvement, I felt it would be unfair to fire him. Mike, in the meantime, had arranged for Jack French to meet us in Denver.

  Because of the flu, my fading voice, and my discomfort in general, I took off my body mike and went with a hand-held. That meant breaking the proscenium immediately, but I would make it work somehow. I had a long conversation with Otts Munderloh, the leading sound man in the country who did all the Broadway shows, and he said I was foolish to ever expect a sound balance as long as I had my band on stage behind me and used body mikes. The decision was clear. With a little rechoreographing, I could do it.

  The only problem would be what to do with the acting sketches. I couldn’t do them and hold a hand mike. It would destroy the illusion, and besides I’d have to redo them without props and without changing costumes. It seemed that the decision to cut them out was being made for me. But I still wanted to see what the critics in Denver would say about the acting sketches.

  I decided to use the hand mike for the songs and the original body mike for the sketches. Finally I could hear myself when I sang. The band could hear me too, so we could relax about that.

  The microphone remained sewn into my choker necklace for the acting so that I could change costumes without brushing up against it. Some women have the mike sewn into their hair if they are wearing wigs. I couldn’t because of the perspiration from dancing. The problem with mikes in the hair is that the audience can see the wires from the mike to the battery pack cascading down the back. If a woman’s hair is long enough it’s okay, but I had short hair. So the wardrobe man sewed the wires underneath the backstraps of my costume. During the acting sketches I couldn’t move my head in any direction because the sound changed, calling attention to the location of the body mike. Illusion is everything on the stage. I wanted to retain it as much as possible.

  I dragged myself through the final Dallas weekend, packed up my mattress and clothes on Monday morning, and moved
on to Denver, where we would open the following night.

  I thought a lot about the performers who do one-night stands and travel and sleep in buses. The buses are like luxurious hotel rooms with double beds, wet bars, and TV; but I could never do that. I remembered going to a party years ago when I walked into the host’s bedroom and put my coat on top of all the others piled on the bed. Someone moved underneath. A small dark-haired woman smiled up at me. It was Margot Fonteyn. She was in town with Ballet Theater and that was her night off. I wondered if I’d ever be able to discipline myself to sleep and rest in those conditions and still perform.

  I left the Hotel Crescent Court in Dallas with fond memories of my comfortable little room and the specialties I had come to love from the room service menu. My favorite there had been their homemade bran muffins. In San Antonio it had been the tortilla soup. All the favorites in a traveling show business company are consumed at around one o’clock in the morning. A company wouldn’t last one week without twenty-four-hour room service.

  We’d be going from eighty-degree sun in Texas to snow in Denver. High altitudes necessitate oxygen masks in the wings and chromium pills just before each performance. Chromium helps explode the oxygen in the bloodstream. I had often taken it in Lake Tahoe and Mexico City.

  When altitude sickness hits during a performance, you feel it first in the extremities. The fingers, lips, and feet begin to tingle. That’s the warning. From that moment on it’s up to the individual how to handle it. Taking deeper breaths can cause hyperventilation, which brings on fainting even faster. I usually decrease the muscular intensity with which I work. I don’t do the steps quite so full out. I don’t sing with quite as much diaphragm force. I’ve never fainted on stage, but in Mexico City I once fainted after a show. Still, I think that was due more to an irregular diet than anything else.