We fully understand the need for inter-dome discussion and cooperation at a time when the tide of anti-dome sentiment is on the rise, but we hope the mayors in Seattle will also find time to debate the wisdom of establishing anew a bureaucracy that could grow again unchecked into the overweening burden that made the Dissolution inevitable in the first place.
The Open Sky anarchists and the Outside are not the only threats to our prosperity and peace of mind.
THE DESIGN:
But life and work went on. Mark came dutifully to Marie’s studio every morning and went back into hiding as soon as the day was done. Jane pulled her work over her head like the proverbial ostrich. Even a mention of Bela was forbidden.
The simple eloquence that Micah was striving for in his design for The Gift did not come easily. His first impulse toward bold abstraction required thoughtful articulation, and Howie needed weaning from the literal-minded habit of his normal directorial style. Between the first rough model and the final design, the two of them ransacked and devoured six working models. Progress on any other front—the Willow Street piece or Don Pasquale—slowed to a crawl as we raced to have construction drawings and a presentation model of The Gift finished by first rehearsal.
Every so often Micah would call Sean to ask if he’d discovered how to accomplish the downstage center magical disappearance we were counting on. Micah was convinced that the success of the design as well as the play relied on that single piece of business.
“Got some ideas,” Sean would say. “Just working out the details.” Meanwhile, the rumor mill reported that the Arkadie’s shop was in way over its ears with Crossroads.
But we were too busy to worry about that right then.
The design that at last evolved was so spare and elegant that it took me awhile to see how truly brilliant it was.
It took its textural inspiration from Tuatua’s volcanic bedrock, but the overall lines were as sinuous and lyrical as jungle mists and sunrise. Micah played a lot of French Impressionists as he worked. He said there was more of himself in this design than in anything he’d done in a long time, and that he understood how the clansman felt in the play, offering up his most precious private magic to public view. His eloquence convinced me, and Howie too.
“Well. No bullshit here,” said Howie finally. “It’s… it’s truly humble.”
And he looked at Micah and smiled.
I put all of us to work on the final model, even Crispin. We reproduced Micah’s sweeping collage of texture and color in the finest degree of finish. Jane spent a whole week on the backdrop alone, incising fine strata lines and pebbly grit into its undulating surface with the precision and tireless patience that was her most remarkable asset. The model cost a fortune in time and materials, but Micah said it must represent the finished set exactly.
“Translating models is a learned skill,” he worried. “We don’t want the Eye thinking they’re getting anything less than our best.”
We set the completed model in a fully detailed scale replica of the theatre, to show its dynamically eccentric placement within the space. Micah always said, if you want to grab their attention from the start, focus the space so that the seating is an element in the total composition. This draws the audience “into” the set, without doing something pretentious like putting them onstage with the actors.
It was completed the day of first rehearsal, with minutes to spare. Jane remained at my elbow all morning as scrub nurse, handing me tools. We crated it up like the precious object that it was and just before noon, hurried off to Fetching to meet the Eye.
PHASE II
Rehearsal
THE EYE:
Gift rehearsals were not to be at the Arkadie itself. Both theatres had shows playing in them, and all the in-house rehearsal space was taken up by the complications of Crossroads. The secondary space was a small and ageing warehouse on the edge of Fetching’s commercial district. Howie rented it for a nominal sum from Campbell Brigham, the chairman of his Board of Trustees. Cam owned a prestigious print gallery in Lorien and apparently needed a tax break.
The Ark staff called it “the Barn.” Micah explained this was a nostalgic gesture to the mythic days of summer stock, which even he couldn’t remember. It didn’t remind me much of the gleaming white metal tunnels in Harmony’s farm domes. It was rectangular, with a peaked and girdered roof and lots of columns breaking up the space, which made it hard for the stage managers to tape out the ground plan on the floor. Also, it needed a good coat of paint. But it had great, tall windows along two sides, and stood on an open corner that got lots of light.
At noon, the Barn was empty, except for the stage managers. Micah strolled in and immediately began rearranging the furniture.
“We’ll use this table for the model. Pull the big one over here longways so they can look at the set while they read.”
The production stage manager, Liz Godwin, a freckled, smiling woman with an outrageous mop of curly red hair, watched calmly while her assistants raced to replace disordered chairs and water pitchers and rescue their careful arrangement of clean scripts, pads, and pencils that Micah had shoved aside in his search for the right table to show off the model.
“It’s only because you’re cute that I’m allowing you to get away with this,” Liz called after him from the production table.
Micah pulled his chosen model stand a fraction closer to the long central table where the cast would sit to read through the play for the first time. He stood back, contemplating.
“Fine,” approved Liz. “It’s fine, it’s perfect! Gwinn, get that thing over here before the mad decorator changes his mind!”
Micah smiled, but distractedly. He hovered like a mother hen as we set our precious package down on the table.
“How’d it do?”
“Good,” said Cris. “We only dropped it twice.”
Jane flashed Micah a look saying she understood there were some things that just should not be joked about.
Most actors see scenery as simply a backdrop for their own work, so a model of the set only has to be pretty to keep them happy. But with The Gift Micah was presuming to create within a foreign, exotic culture. He wanted the Eye to take one look at his model and know he understood exactly what their play was about.
Cris lifted the model out of the crate, and we freed it from its packing one layer at a time like archaeologists unwrapping a mummy. The stage managers clustered around to watch. Our peace and quiet ended when Howie bustled into the hall with Marie Bennett-Lloyd. Marie had finally agreed to coordinate the clothes and design whatever the Eye had not brought with them. She and Howie were nodding and gesticulating like a pair of tandem robots. Rachel and Kim followed more sedately, with Mark behind them, alone and solemn.
“Just find me an hour sometime, okay?” Marie was insisting. “I’m not telepathic.”
“Funny. I always thought you were.” Howie wheeled away to confer with Liz. Marie descended on us as the last fold of plastic wrap slid off the model.
“Have you seen them yet?” she demanded cheerfully. Marie was tall and a bit of a whirlwind, always in motion within her many layers of clothing. I felt dowdy and reserved standing next to her. Today she wore a flowing, skirted wrap in tie-dyed blues reminiscent of water. I thought Marie and the Eye should get along very well in matters of dress.
“I haven’t a clue what they’ve brought!” she exclaimed. “We weren’t allowed to unpack the trunks. Then no resumé photos, no one could get measurements! Honestly, sometimes I wonder about Howie!” She glanced expectantly at the door, as we all were doing. “I just hope they’re cooperative!”
Mark eased up beside me. “Did you wear it?”
“No, but…” I pulled my bead and leather necklace partway from my pocket. “For good luck.”
A wan smile was still the best he could manage. “I wouldn’t have been able to, either, not right out in front of them.”
“Now we’ll finally hear what happened,” I murmured.
Marie drew Micah aside to talk about color. Sean sauntered in, a roll of blueprints under his arm. He saluted us from across the hall but chose a route that would take him past the greatest number of pretty women. Kim snagged him briefly when he paused at the coffee table to load up with goodies. I watched them both turn on the flirty charm. Sean’s stubby, sensuous hands always caught my eye. He handled a piece of machinery or a woman’s body with the same sure respect and appreciation. When Sean moved on to his next stop, Kim came our way, noting my amusement.
“He’s got to get in his quota of suggestive remarks to the stage managers,” she offered wryly. “Otherwise his ass will be grass when he needs stage time come tech week.” She greeted the model with enthused circlings of her arms. “Micah, it’s a beauty! At last, scenery that won’t cost us the entire season’s budget!”
“It is beautiful,” agreed Marie hastily, having forgotten in her preoccupation with the lack of measurements even to look. “It’s so clean, so simple, so… exposed. You’re very brave, Mi. Wait ‘til Lou sees it! Looks like you designed it just for her!”
Louisa Pietro was the lighting designer, and this particular set was a lighting designer’s wet dream.
Micah searched the crowd vaguely. “I don’t suppose she’ll be here?”
Kim snorted. “You gotta be kidding.”
Louisa was a constant globe-trotter and characteristically unavailable until the final week of rehearsals. But she caught on fast once she arrived and she was well worth the wait.
More Arkadie staffers drifted in, the publicity and subscriptions departments and the head of the costume shop. They cruised the model table, nodding and smiling, then moved on. I noted a few raised eyebrows.
“They don’t know what to say.”
“They’ve never seen so little scenery in their lives,” whispered Crispin. “They’re wondering if he’s forgotten something.”
The Barn filled up with people and shop talk. A noisy clot formed around the coffee urn for the usual exchange of gossip. Howie’s voice boomed at the stage managers’ table. The hubbub seemed louder than usual, the laughter shrilled by more than the normal first-rehearsal excitement. I was about to get coffee for Micah and myself when Hickey Kirke slouched up, wearing his habitual sober face and a striped pullover that looked like he’d slept in it.
He surveyed the model. “So where’s the props?”
Micah was fussing, arranging and rearranging some little half-inch-scale rocks, unable to settle on a way that suited him. He waved one in front of Hickey’s long nose. “Here.”
“Unh-unh,” said Hickey. “Carpentry does rocks.”
“These rocks get moved about like furniture.”
“Props does rocks at the RoundHall,” teased Crispin.
“No way.”
Micah bent his head to hide his grin. “I really think these’d be a good project for you.”
“Sean and I will have a discussion about this.” Hickey moved around to peer into the rear of the model, putting his back to a nearby conversation. “Any more word on who caused the Incident?”
Micah shrugged, noncommittal.
“Reede,” murmured Hickey. “He benefits the most.”
I had to lean in close to hear. “You’re saying they planned it? The gun and everything?”
“Reede,” said Hickey. “It’s not Howie’s style.”
Cris had suggested the Incident had been staged, but I couldn’t believe that. “But someone was actually hurt!”
“Did you see any blood?” Hickey inquired loftily.
Micah turned his head to gaze at him. “In fact, I did.”
Hickey blinked. “You did? Really? Jeez, he’s worse than I thought.”
Sean finished his rounds and joined us, coffee and donut in hand. He pointed a sugared finger as Micah again bent over the model. “Uh-unh, Mi. Too late. The drawings are in. You can’t change it now!” He eyed Hickey drolly. “Friggin’ designers! Never leave well enough alone! This guy’s worse than Eider!”
Micah straightened with a wounded look.
“Only a joke, Mi. I remember, this here’s the one where we all get to go home at four o’clock.” Sean held out his cup. “Coffee?”
His laugh seemed strident, but only because the loud shop talk and gossip had fallen suddenly away. Reede Chamberlaine stood murmuring into Howie’s ear. People were staring while pretending not to. The staffers were as curious about our imported producer as they were about the Eye. I certainly gave him a closer look, after what I’d just heard.
He was a handsome man, tall and impressive, but it was his polish you noticed, his clear, expensively ageless skin, the tight grays of his palette. His precise business tailoring made Howie’s brightly casual director suedes look self-conscious, almost frivolous. I was so intent on trying to overhear his conversation that I didn’t notice the small crowd that slipped in behind him.
Then the undercurrent of chatter died into real silence, and there they were. Ten of them, sticking close together.
I didn’t want it to be them, no fanfare, no grand entrance. Just, you know, walking in like that.
“Well.” Crispin’s murmur was flat with disappointment.
They were tall and short, dark and light, four women, six men, in blue jeans and mirrored sunglasses, with classy dance bags slung over their shoulders. They wandered into the room not like magical strangers at all but like any other actors walking into any other rehearsal hall. One already sported a T-shirt that read, Harmony Sings in rainbowed letters, the one where a W was careted in above the S and the I. The women wore chic, luxuriant hairdos. The men sported the latest and most expensive athletic shoes. They all looked healthy, rested, well-fed, and extremely up-to-date.
“Not quite what I expected…” I heard Marie hiss to Micah.
I wondered what Micah had expected. Feathers and nakedness? Like I’d assumed that they’d all be black? I felt premature envy of the troupe’s white members, that they should be included in the mystery and not me. But what mystery? No matter how much I’d said about them being actors and such, I hadn’t expected them to look so… normal.
By now no one was pretending not to stare. The pause in the room lengthened uncomfortably, we hoping they’d do something weird to satisfy our heightened expectations, they no doubt awaiting some reassuring gesture of welcome. It was the urbane Reede Chamberlaine who broke the impasse. He gestured grandly toward the ten. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you, the Eye.”
With equal ceremony he led Howie over for the introductions that had never taken place in the confusion of their arrival. When fluent, crisply accented English accompanied the actors’ smiles and handshakes, the long breath held in the hall relaxed.
Then I noticed one of the young women had her arm in a sling.
“I’ll let the troupe introduce themselves.” Chamberlaine had taken complete charge, but Howie didn’t seem to mind. “Don’t worry about remembering names—you’ll get to that later, and Tuatuan names are a little complicated at first.” He nodded to the woman standing nearest him. “Omea?”
She dropped him a playful curtsy, then smiled around the room with perfect poise, to Howie, to the office staff hovering at the coffee urn, to the production staff clustered around the model. She was a buxom, pleasant-looking woman of about forty-five, with crackling black eyes, a cloud of dark wavy hair, and a resonant performer’s voice. “I am Pirea-Omealeanoo, but as Reede says, don’t worry about names. Call me Omea.” Her smile invited our complicity. “I’ll know who you’re talking about.”
She flattened her palms together in a way that might have been personal mannerism or ritual gesture. “I will be your translator and encyclopedia. I will speak of and for the Eye… that is, when it isn’t speaking for itself.”
Polite laughter rose and fell.
Omea continued, “And my first job is to say how grateful we are for the chance to work in an atmosphere that supports creativity and experiment. Your welcome for th
ese few months will allow us to grow into the richer, more dramatic material we have been longing to try our hand at.” She saluted the gathering with her joined palms. “Our deepest thanks. And now to our introductions.”
She turned to her right, where a sober and beautiful young man stood beside a shorter, somewhat crabbed older fellow with a dark, mobile face.
“This fine one here is Te-Cucularit, who we call Cu. I will tell you our titles with our names, though you will find we all do a little of everything. Cu is named our archivist and company historian.”
Proof of strong links with the past, I noted. Domers were not often into preserving the past. It was a bad memory to them. Even a theatre as large as the Arkadie didn’t have a company historian.
The young man nodded silently and looked down.
“And this gentleman: our choreographer, No-Mulelatu.”
“No gentleman,” grinned the older man. “I’m Ule the Mule.” He did a little leap and kick. “You’ll know me.”
Next was a sultry girl-woman who already had the eye of every straight man in the room and some of the women.
“And this, Telea-Muatamuatua,” Omea supplied.
“Just Tua,” smiled the girl with lowered lids and a willowy toss of thick black hair. She was the sort of girl men always say reminds them of a deer or perhaps a flower, but I suspected steel and ambition beneath her silky brown skin.
“Guess they don’t list ‘sexpot’ as a job title,” muttered Sean aside to Hickey.
“Bet she’s high on the Muchee Taboo list,” Hickey returned.
Omea moved on. “Pili-Peneamanea, or Pen.” She grinned maternally. “Our movie star. Pen has given up a big holo contract to be with us on this tour. For the play, you see, because he feels it’s so important to do.”
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