Moose Murdered: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Broadway Bomb (22 page)

It’s that jerk from
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine,
finally giving me his undivided attention
.

I smile demurely and sign my name: “Barbara Stanwyck
.”

The next evening, Sunday, John called a summit meeting at the Dakota. Dennis and I spent some time beforehand going through the entire script, making dozens of notes on focus and a wide range of suggested improvements. We figured it was going to be a long evening, but maybe—just maybe—we’d all be willing to be totally honest with one another for once. I didn’t see the point of opening this show otherwise.

As soon as all the major players had settled in the office “board room,” John gave the floor to me. I hadn’t expected to be the first to talk, but figured what the hell. What have I got to lose at this point? I began to talk about all the basic elements that were missing from the show. The gaps in logic, the inept blocking the overbearing sound of the rain machine, the lack of focus and leadership. John, Lillie, and Ricka stared back at me in shock. There was a lonnnnnnnnng pause after I’d finished. Obviously this was not what they had expected me to say, or even close to the reason we had all gathered here this evening.

Finally Lillie spoke up.

“There’s only
one
culprit here,” she said.

“We’re tired of waiting for miracles,” Ricka elaborated. “Every accommodation has been extended to Miss Arden, from the producers, from me, from each member of the cast.”

“The last scene has never worked.” said John. “Part of that is my fault, yes. And part of it’s yours.” He glanced at me with ever-so slight admonishment.

“I’ve rewritten—”

“Yeah, yeah. We know. You’ve sliced and diced the thing. But it still isn’t working.”

“How much blame to dole out to either the director or the playwright is entirely beside the point,” said Ricka. “Eve is exhausted by the end of the play, and has no energy to make that crucial eleventh-hour transformation. Even if she
did
know her lines.”

“Which she doesn’t.” said Lillie. “She’s totally confused out there.”

“It’s not fair to the rest of the cast,” said John.

“The critics are not going to be kind,” said Ricka. “And it’s her ass on the line, too.”

“Tomorrow,” said John, “we’re going to ask Bret Adams to watch the show.” Bret, Eve’s agent, was one of the biggest, most respected, and
best liked
fellows in the business. “Hopefully, Eve’s feelings will be apparent to him, and he’ll make it easier for her . . . and for us.”

“What happens if he doesn’t?” Dennis said.

“Then we’ll have Eddie get in touch with both Bret and Glenn and drop the bomb. So to speak,” said Ricka.

“I’ll call Stuart Howard tomorrow, too,” John said. “We’re gonna have to find another Hedda in a hurry. When we have one, the previews will be suspended, and we’ll do a week of rehearsals to work her in. That tentatively pushes the opening back to the 22nd of February.”

“In the meantime,” Ricka said immediately, “we resume as normal with our workthroughs. No one will be told. We’re hoping she’ll just step down and not have to be fired. But we
will
fire her if we have to, just to be clear.”

Yes, it was clear. As was the fact that this whole “powwow” had been arranged for my benefit. There wasn’t anything being discussed right now that hadn’t already been decided before Dennis and I showed up. No wonder everybody had been taken aback when I started talking about irrelevant things like
blocking
.

Various names were now dropped as possible replacements. Not one was nearly as recognizable as Eve Arden, and we all knew the box office was going to suffer tremendously.

We were going to need a new advertising campaign to promote the new Hedda as well. That plus the extra weeks of theater rental would deeply cut into the postopening advertising budget. The show that was now being referred to around town as the “Eve Arden Show” would have a complete turnaround.

After the initial shock of losing Eve, John and Ricka were convinced that most of the cast would be relieved and that the play would start to work. Or so they told me.

I must admit that I managed a twinge of excitement imagining a Hedda who could actually move and act at the same time, and one who could maybe vary her tempo a little, pick up her cues, say the lines as written—okay, maybe surprise us a little every now and then—and one who could successfully sell the payoff at the finale.

But mostly it all made me horribly sad. Despite our lack of camaraderie, I knew Eve was a nice person, and—no matter what she thought of the play or me—this was really going to hurt her feelings. Her indomitable spirit had kept her going this far. Her return to California would now be so depressing—all because of a lousy play I’d written that her manager and husband had bullied her into doing. It would have been so wonderful had this experience proved to be a triumph—I couldn’t think of a living soul who’d wanted anything less for her.

How easy it was to be so charitable toward this irrepressible entity, now that I knew we were about to get rid of her once and for all.

Bret Adams was not invited to Monday night’s preview after all. We decided his presence there would have been a surefire alert to Eve that something was up. Joan Copeland, however, was asked to attend, and did so, very discreetly.

The day leading up to this performance was sheer hell. John worked on that infernal last scene, desperately trying to put it into some playable shape.

Damn!” exclaimed Eve after about an hour of this torture. “We never get through this! Not once! We always stop! I’m sorry to be doing this, but I’m just so frustrated!”

“You’ll be fine. Let’s take it again,” said John.

It was a cruel charade for those of us with the knowledge that her days—actually hours—were numbered, and an exercise in painful futility for those who didn’t. Nick and June were cardboard figurines throughout the rehearsal. It was obvious to me that these two were close to suicide—or homicide (whichever was quicker).

Curtain time approached at last and I met Brooks backstage.

“Are you going to sit down this evening?” he asked.

“Nope. I’ll just be somewhere in the back, as usual.” I advised.

“I’ve actually got a seat tonight.” he said. “But it’s on the aisle.”

The house was not as full as Saturday’s. There were barely twenty people upstairs, but the orchestra was full. A few of my friends were there; I smiled but didn’t say a word to any of them, retreating to the shadows in the back instead. Andy Matthews saw me coming.

“Oh, no!” he cried. “I’m not standing next to
you
!”

Lights dim, moose bellows, curtain rises. June is flat. Jokes never happen. The pace is deadly, even before Eve’s entrance. It is almost as if the audience is aware that they are attending a wake
.

After a bad light clue (the malaise is infectious, apparently), Eve makes her entrance. Respects are paid with prolonged applause. From here on, however, it is all downhill. It is
Night of the Living Dead
and Eve is our Leading Zombie. She has no idea where she is in the script or much of an idea who she is playing. She hands all the heavy coats to diminutive Gay rather than Stinky. She calls all the characters by a series of random names. She drops lines, adds a few others, and never once is on time for a cue. The rest of the cast continues to act through a fog, with no conviction. One can sense a group cringe spreading through the audience
.

Remarkably, the slapstick in the second act wakes everybody up, and they begin to have what some may mistake as a good time. When Hedda is left on stage to carry the show with Nelson, however, the good humor turns to bile, and a large section of the audience begins to laugh . . . derisively. Funny how you can recognize immediately when they are laughing at you rather than with you
.

“
The worst is over!” announces Hedda near the final curtain
.

This brings down the house. The audience has learned to know better
.

Eve’s final business is to offer Little Gay—her sole surviving child—the vodka martini the brat has been begging for throughout the entire show. Both the glass she hands her daughter and the one she hands her son-in-law (and recently revealed paramour) are laced with cyanide. So is her own glass, in fact, but at the last minute she is to dump its contents over her shoulder much the same way that Roz Russell disposed of the foul Claude Upson daiquiri several years before in the classic film
Auntie Mame.
As the audience sits dumbfounded, with virtually no idea what they are to make of the past two hours of their lives, Eve delivers her final line:

“
Here we have it, then. To you, Gay dearest. My last remaining child
.
A very special vodka martini…with a twist!
”

Instead of artfully tossing her own drink over her shoulder, Eve stands with the glass in tow for several seconds. Finally, as if recalling her business, she ever so slowly tips the glass and lets its contents spill onto the floor in front of her, in full view of her intended victims
.

It is the perfect final image for Miss Arden to bequeath to us—a moment of metaphorical incontinence
.

The awkward moments continued well after the final curtain descended. Like Laura on the train that is passing through, nobody saw Eve leave. Ricka, John, and I waited in the lobby for Joan Copeland. We had left word with her agent that we would be interested in speaking with her directly after the performance.

We waited.

We waited some more.

Like lost children searching for our mommy, we wandered out onto the street. Miss Copeland was nowhere to be found.

We overheard a woman shrilly addressing a cop passing by:

“Officer! Arrest this show!”

Sure. It’s funny
now
.

Dennis and Lillie joined us and the five of us sat glumly in the back of the house to discuss our next move. Or if, in fact, there was even to be a next move.

“We can’t afford any more bad word of mouth,” warned Ricka. “No more previews. Enough is enough.”

We had learned that many of those in attendance Saturday night had been theatrical folk (some of them, naturally, part of June’s enormous network of “friends”), and that they were already spreading the word that
Moose Murders
was a bomb. Not just Eve, but the play itself. “Unprofessional” was one of the words of critique that had gotten back to us. “Amateurish” was another. We had no idea that these were to be our most flattering reviews.