By Myself and Then Some (11 page)

I slept and dreamed all the right dreams. Up at dawn the next day. I said goodbye to Grandma, Charlie and Rosalie, Jack and Vera, Renee and Bill by phone. Mother and I were a little weepy – after all, it was my first step toward leaving the nest. Not final, but it was the beginning and we both knew it. Yet the truth is that, though I saw myself living alone or sharing an apartment like a big girl, a serious life without my mother had not really occurred to me.

At the station the assistant stage manager was waiting at the appointed gate and the company had begun to gather. There was anticipation in the air – everyone was in high spirits, laughing, joking – even the most experienced performers could only feel optimistic at a new beginning. Anything was possible, and with that happy attitude we boarded the train. A family of actors all going to make it or not, together. Interdependent. No one could do it alone.

We arrived at Wilmington and went to the hotel next door to the Playhouse Theatre. We were to report to the theatre that evening, but I went right over – I didn’t want to miss a minute. They had begun to hang the set. There’s nothing like a theatre as all the pieces of a play are being assembled. There are lights on the stage, the set designer and lighting designer and their assistants are at work, all sorts of technical directions are being given. It is the labor preceding childbirth. The cast was told to go to the lounge downstairs, where we would just run the play for lines. We wouldn’t get on the stage until the next day, when the technical rehearsal would begin. Pictures of the company were to go up the next day – we’d been photographed in costume and make-up at the dress rehearsal in New York. So much was happening and going to happen, how could one sleep? The next day, September 15, was the day before my eighteenth birthday. What was I going to do to celebrate? Nothing, obviously – what better celebration than being in Wilmington, Delaware, doing what I was doing?

The technical went on all day and night. Every time a new character walked onstage he had to be lit – new scene, move from stage left to right, downstage to up. It’s a slow process. When I wasn’t in a scene I sat in the orchestra watching. I loved being there. Of course I wanted
to be around George Kaufman as much as possible. I worshipped him. Finally we were dismissed. George and Sheekman wished me happy dreams on my last night as a seventeen-year-old. I blushed, smiled, and said something funny and fresh, I suppose. I always seemed to be more knowing than I was. I actually knew nothing of life and of relationships – men and women together were a mystery to me. I had never been much exposed to such relationships in my childhood, so what I thought I knew was all imagination.

The next morning I was eighteen years old! I looked in the mirror – same face, same flat chest. But I knew it was a milestone day – I could legally be served a drink in some places at eighteen, I could do almost everything but vote. I hopped out of bed. Usually I slept so soundly not even a fire would wake me, and for the first hour was always grumpy and very slow in coming to. But that day I did hop. Dressed, rushed downstairs for breakfast – there were telegrams from Mother and Grandma, Charlie and Rosalie, Jack and Vera, wishing me happy birthday. Everyone in the company wished me a happy birthday Dorothy and Florence Sundstrom (semi-leading lady and funny) told me Arthur had been kidding George, saying, ‘She’s no longer jail bait – should we invite her out for a drink?’ I was never invited, thank God – I didn’t drink, and in no way would I have lived up to anyone’s expectations.

And then, the next evening, the first preview with an audience. We were in our dressing rooms at 7:30 to start getting ready. Sitting at the make-up table, checking make-up. The voice comes over the loudspeaker: ‘Half-hour, please – half-hour.’ My heart skipped twelve beats – the first call from the stage manager, announcing that we had half an hour until curtain time. Then ‘Fifteen minutes – fifteen minutes, please.’ I was dressed and well on my way to my first set of shakes. ‘Five minutes – five minutes.’ I made sure I had everything, ran to the john at least five times in that half-hour, started toward the wings, stage left, for my props – I was to make my entrance carrying a few books. ‘Places, please – places, please.’ Total silence now – the curtain is raised – the play begins. The sound of dialogue emanating from the stage – audience reactions being heard for the first time – applause for Dorothy Peterson, familiar from films more than from theatre. I peeked through the curtain to see faceless forms in the audience – one always started out with a full house, especially out of town, I was told. My cue
coming up. Maud appeared onstage as a daydreamer, reciting poetry – I think my opening line was ‘The robbed who smiles steals something from the thief.’ I took a deep, deep breath, held tightly to the books, and started to move. Knees knocking, I walked onstage and said my line. The audience began to laugh. I almost died – had I done something wrong? Was my slip showing? Oh God, what was Kaufman thinking? It was a comedy, they were supposed to laugh, but not when I made my entrance, as far as I knew.

I pressed on with the scene. I had to, of course. Everything went fairly smoothly through the first act – introduction of characters, plot. At the interval I was given no answers. Everyone was so busy with costume changes – running to the ladies’ – repairing make-up – general nerves – that there would be no discussion until after the performance. I did tell Florence I was nervous about that laugh – why had they reacted that way? She said not to worry, George would explain it when we all gathered for notes after the performance. ‘Places, please.’ So the second act began – which was more fun and was fraught with the problems of the main characters. All of us young girls got our instructions from the professor in that act, and at one moment when he was demonstrating how to enter a room and curtsy, Maud (me) said, ‘Oh, isn’t he the very personification of grace!’ (Sigh.) The audience laughed at that too – not a belly laugh, mind you, but a laugh nonetheless. That should give a notion of my role. The play went on to the end, we took our calls – and I was just as nervous through those as at any other time. What a relief as we ripped off our costumes and threw on our street clothes to rush onstage for notes. Now I would have the answer to my opening laugh. George was sweet and kind as always – told us we’d done well – gave us the changes he wanted for the next night’s opening – and did we have any questions? I was too shy to ask about my laugh in front of the entire company and decided to wait until the end. But the principals stayed on with George, so there was no opportunity for me. He hadn’t said anything about it, so I assumed it was not disastrous, but I still wanted to know.

The next morning – ‘Tonight will be my first real opening night’ – the combination of nerves, excitement, apprehension, dreams. How wonderful to be an actress. There was nothing about it I didn’t love, now that I had a job.

I went to the theatre – the only place I wanted to be – found George
Kaufman and approached him. ‘Mr Kaufman, could I ask you something, please? I was wondering why the audience laughed when I made my entrance last night.’ He smiled and said, ‘Well, as you know, Maud is a dreamer and you walk onstage, very tall and looking off into space, and say your line and this pleases the audience. It’s a good warm laugh. Don’t worry about it.’ ‘Of course,’ I thought, ‘that makes sense – most people moving around as in a dream can look funny.’ I didn’t know until much later that just the sight of me – this tall, gawky girl with her skirt to above the ankles, high button shoes, long blond hair and flat pancake hat – was funny. So they laughed.

Kaufman, Sheekman, and the Goetzes were almost always together, talking about something to do with the play. I can guess now what it was, but I certainly couldn’t guess then. We got through the day by rehearsing – no time to sit and stew. There was so much to think about that even the shaking didn’t begin until I started my make-up. I checked the mailbox on entering the theatre and found a few telegrams. From the family, of course, and one very unexpected one which read:

Oh, I was ecstatic about that!

I went through the same panic as the night before with one difference: there were critics out front tonight. Which meant there’d be reviews tomorrow. There were – and they were mixed. The experienced actors all had known that some things would be changed as we went along, that’s what tryouts are for. But they all believed in the play. Yet it was clear even to innocent me that there were problems. Of course they would be solved, but something was not quite right. Kaufman seemed preoccupied, and was always meeting with the authors and producers. Some changes were made each day – a new scene, some new dialogue, restaging – but nothing major until Washington, when we would have a day or two without performances while the set was being hung and lit.

Washington was another new world. First of all, it was a large, beautiful city – many hotels, so we wouldn’t all be together. And it had
the White House, in which a man I worshipped, Franklin Roosevelt, resided. As we weren’t due for rehearsal until the following morning, we had a few hours to ourselves. Of course I wouldn’t allow the day to end without at least seeing the Colonial Theatre – the stage, the backstage, the dressing rooms – but I told Joyce and Florence I’d be back in about an hour and then go with them to the theatre. I walked a bit and found a taxi and told the driver I wanted to go to the White House! I’ll always remember seeing it for the first time. It sits far back from the street and isn’t really beautiful, but
he
was in it and it was a hallowed place. I walked toward the gate gazing at the building as if I were in a church, scrutinizing the grounds, thinking, hoping, that maybe I’d see Mrs Roosevelt if not the President. Or maybe even Fala, his Scottie. Each time an automobile drove in or out of the gates my heart skipped a beat, but it was never F.D.R. or Eleanor or anyone recognizable to me. Still, I was thrilled to be walking around as much as I was allowed to – there were guards at every gate and you weren’t supposed to linger for too long. I saw the Capitol dome and the Washington Monument in the distance, but I was saving the Lincoln Memorial for Buzz.

The days passed. I was still happy at being in a play and out of town, but I felt somewhat lost. Monday came as it always does and I felt better. We’d all be together again, working, creating – the nerves would start again and I’d feel alive again. I quickly ate my tiny breakfast and dashed over to the theatre. It was filled with life. The hum of preparation, expectation. Actors were going in and out of their dressing rooms, paper cups were filled with coffee – it was wonderful. George Kaufman arrived – our director, our leader, our security blanket. I felt good when he was there, certain that everything would be all right. We were given new scenes. George told us we would read them through, then work on them roughly, then onstage, then technical. A full rehearsal day. Scenes were passed around to the principals and the principal supporting actors. They sounded better than the old scenes, and as we started to stage them, they seemed funnier. This was what all those meetings had been about. New scenes always, or almost always, make actors feel more solid psychologically. For me at that time it seemed that change was improvement, and that improvement must lead to success. It wasn’t that I’d expected disaster, but things hadn’t seemed quite right. Anyway, the changes were thoroughly rehearsed, and another opening
night was got through. The Washington reaction was not the same as Wilmington’s. A different kind of audience, more sophisticated. They laughed, but in different places and not often enough. But there was still a laugh when I walked onstage. I guess I would have looked funny to anyone who saw the play anywhere.

We went for something to eat and waited for the reviews. Just some of the actors – not George, not Max Gordon or the authors. It was always very nervous-making, waiting for Judgment. Would they like it? Would they mention me? Most of us thinking the same worried thoughts. At long last the important Washington review. This one really mattered, it would affect the New York reception. It was a very mild reaction. The critic was pleased by some of it, but it didn’t measure up to expectations; some good characters in it, and all the students were good, with special mention to ‘Jackie Gately and Betty Bacall.’ My name in a newspaper! Something to cut out and take home to Mother. The other papers didn’t mention me and were far from crazy about the play. It wasn’t terrible, they said – it just wasn’t anything definite enough, didn’t succeed enough in its concept. But with Kaufman’s knowledge and talent it could be fixed.

The next night at the theatre I received a call from Buzz. Had I seen the Lincoln Memorial yet? No. Okay, I’ll take you tonight after the show. I hung up, jumped up and down like a child with a great new toy. Buzz was there! He must just like me a little bit.

No one else was jumping for joy at the theatre. Nothing specific was said, but the more experienced actors were all aware of something. I couldn’t imagine what it might be – perhaps a cast change? No one would tell me anything. The general drift was that the play was in trouble.

Buzz picked me up after the performance, and when we emerged from the theatre, what was waiting but a horse and buggy! What a way to go to the Lincoln Memorial! I laughed, and loved it. Could anything in life be better than the combination of Lincoln, Buzz Meredith, and a horse and buggy? Not for me on that night. We approached the Washington Monument, passed the pool in front of it, and stopped at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial. It was a clear, moonlit night. We started to climb the steps, and as we approached the top, there were shafts of light coming from the inside. There were white marble pillars – it is all white – and what I saw when I reached the top made me gasp.
There, sitting in a chair, was Abraham Lincoln, looking as though he were about to rise. It was awesome – an extraordinary emotional experience. And reassuring. One felt such tremendous pride in America – that everything was possible. Nothing I’ve seen since has affected me the way that monument did. And still does.