Moose Murdered: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Broadway Bomb (24 page)

“Don’t worry.” Betty Lee assured Ricka. “Liz will do
fine
by you tomorrow!”

And, sure enough, Friday’s column included a large photo of Holland and the following blurb:

It was amazing how things perked up once the heavens parted and Holland rode down to the stage in her golden basket. Even June, who had let the lousy attitudes of her ubiquitous theater friends influence her tremendously—friends who had lovingly advised her that she was in a bomb and should seek any escape mode she could while she still had use of her legs—threw us for a loop by chirping after Thursday’s first readthrough with Holland: “Hey! She’s terrific! I think we have a shot!”

She’d brought in a bottle of champagne for the occasion, and we all gathered in her dressing room to toast our new arrival.

Holland was very aggressive, more than three decades younger than Eve, and gave the role a vitality we hadn’t even been able to imagine. She provided a blessed panacea for the cast and for the production itself. The cue pickups began to sizzle and spark, and, before long, we had a full blown, action-packed farce on our hands.

Holland was by no means either warm or fuzzy, but I don’t see how those characteristics could have been to anyone’s advantage in this situation. She tended not to let me finish my sentences, but when you really got down to it, who had the time to wait for me? We had to get this sucker moving!

By the second runthrough she was completely off book. Her complaints started about that time, too, mostly about the constant drone of the rain.

“It’s incredibly distracting,” she said. “I can’t hear myself think!”

Those of us in the audience were having a hard time hearing her, too. Maybe this was because we finally
wanted
to hear Hedda.

John’s directing was put to the test as well, possibly for the first time. Certainly nobody had ever been quite so contentious before. And, remarkably, he started to match her vitality, both physically and vocally. Rather than slumping back in his seat, he was jumping all around the stage, talking to all of us, not just Holland. He started clearing up a lot of the congestion that we’d all long since taken for granted. Some of this was inevitable, since the flaccid directions given to Eve to accommodate her limited mobility all needed to be dropped. At one point Holland suggested that Hedda move across the stage to the fireplace as she spoke one of her lines.

“I don’t know,” pondered John. “It’s an awful long way to the fireplace.”

“John,” said Holland sternly. “I can move.”

Hedda could move. Such a profoundly simple and wonderful truth.

We all needed to seriously readjust our thinking to embrace it.

Scott now had his own special problem as Stinky, of course. His attraction to his mother suddenly made some sense.

“How far should I go?” he asked John.

“I don’t know, “said John. “But I’ll tell you when you get there.”

The more active John became, the more his personality began to change, as well—and not always for the better. He was now frequently short-tempered, maybe because he was
just
discovering what hard work directing can be. Personally, I loved this new John—irritability and all. The natives had all been getting a bit restless, including Ricka, and, largely thanks to his efforts, the din of their drums (if not the rain) was getting dimmer.

I cannot say the same for Lillie, who remained rather churlish. She seemed to resent John focusing his attention on anyone other than her—especially Holland. None of us was used to John having a spine or any kind of strong opinion, but Lillie definitely wasn’t at all happy with the transformation. John did pay attention to her, often, in fact, and helped her to achieve some very good moments. But as soon as he moved on to somebody else, she’d drop whatever she’d set, and fall back to wherever she’d been before John’s guidance. Such was the ballet she chose to perform now. And her diction was deteriorating by the moment, as evidenced by Ricka’s new nickname for her: Mush Mouth.

Holland continued to be an inspiration, and her no-nonsense approach to her own business extended to all those around her, as well. There was little or no patience for flubs or missed cues, and the rest of the cast was often jolted by this reversal of roles. Since when did Hedda get to call the shots? What had this farce come to? Even star pupil Mara Hobel unknowingly crossed the line with her new momma, and lived to regret it.

While clinging to Holland during their opening tableau, Mara discovered that she could get quite a few laughs by imitating Holland’s facial expressions. The more she carried on, the louder the laughs became, and John did nothing to stop them—or her. This really wasn’t anything new; the cast had been operating on a pretty basic
every person for oneself
philosophy of acting since long before Holland’s arrival. So it came as a huge surprise to our littlest impressionist when Holland finally rapped her heavy metal ring soundly on the exact center of the young girl’s skull. The shock of this assault, of course, superseded any pain at first, so it wasn’t until well into the scene that Mara suffered her nervous breakdown and ran screaming and sobbing into the wings of the stage and into the arms of her birth mother.

Without flinching a muscle, Holland watched this backstage activity between Mrs. Hobel and her daughter for a moment, and then turned her head back to us and said resolutely:

“She’s young. She’ll learn.”

And, as I believe I’ve previously mentioned, Mara was a very quick learner. She never so much as raised an imitating eyebrow ever again.

Holland took me aside with John later that same day to discuss the dreaded final scene and her own personal problems with the transition. At this point I was seriously tempted to suggest substituting a big Hawaiian number involving the entire cast for this fiasco of a scene, but I furrowed my brow in my best Arthur Miller fashion and tried to concentrate on what Holland was saying.

“It’s a zany play,” she said, “and this idea came to me while I was brushing my teeth this morning. I just don’t think it’s finished when Hedda says ‘with a twist—’ we’re just not sure what’s going to happen to her. So, I thought—what if we see a huge Godzilla-like moose from outside the windows—about to devour the lodge as the curtain falls?”

Here’s the thing. I just copied those words from my journal and I’m thinking…what a
great
idea! A big old mechanical moose literally chews up the scenery and we’re done with the whole stinking mess! Brilliant! Give that woman a raise! Or better yet, let her out of her contract! She’s earned it!

But back then, cramped and exhausted, tired of living and sick of typing, all I could say (apparently) in response to this ingenious deus ex machina was “How funny.” I dismissed this whole episode in my journal by claiming that “we simply haven’t the time for her suggested improvements to materialize to any great degree.”

Don’t get me wrong; I’m sure the play still would have flopped, but just think of the fun the critics could have had if they’d soldiered through Holland’s proposed second act.

And then the play ate itself
.

While we struggled along during this closed rehearsal period, the rest of the theater crowd was understandably beset with curiosity regarding the ill-fated “Eve Arden Show.” Jane got a message one day from her agent, Sheldon, and, thinking it was regarding her upcoming American Conservatory Theater auditions, called him back excitedly from a midtown phone booth.

“So!” said Sheldon when he picked up. “What’s the scoop with
Moose Murders
?”

I think I may have heard her scream all the way down on Fourth Avenue.

My brother Bruce did his best to cheer me up. He met me for lunch one day to relate some irresistible news. “Your poster at My Great Aunt Fanny’s has been desecrated,” he announced. “Eve Arden’s name has been crossed out, and they blacked out the ‘e-r-s’ in ‘Murders’ and put a capital ‘t’ over the ‘m.’You know what that
leaves
you with.”

“Moose Turds.”

“Isn’t it awful? Shouldn’t your producer march in and tear that poster off the wall?”

“He’s kind of busy right now.”

“Oh. Well, then, what
does
a producer do?”

Fair enough question, I thought.

Despite hopeful “buzz” like this, the first preview on Friday was a downer. There was a blizzard in Manhattan which closed several other shows . . . which would have worked to our advantage had people not been advised to “stay in their homes.” Even the elements were against us, it would seem, as we played to less than half a house and the show fell flat.

Saturday went considerably better. It was a sharp, snarky audience that seemed to get off on the inherent irreverence of the play, and actually enjoyed watching the villains get away with their crimes. Gay’s death met with a burst of applause. Take that as you will;
we
became hopeful again.

Monday’s performance was quite animated. This was because the actors, all on their own, mind you, decided to do a speedthrough. I think they managed to cut a good twenty minutes off the show, much to the joy of several people involved—including a major portion of the audience, I’m sure. Tuesday went back to a normal pace (John had apparently “noted” them), and yet another tiny audience responded favorably.

Wednesday’s matinee was our first senior citizen event, complete with walkers, canes, hearing devices, and the endless drone of clutch purses being snapped open and closed. The show seemed to distract them all sufficiently, but it was at this particular performance that I discerned a lack of real form in the production itself. For maybe the first time, I allowed myself to face the fact that it had been directed by a dilettante.

And this horrible realization stayed with me right through Thursday and Friday’s previews, despite the overall improvement of the performances.

Jane, in the audience for the first time on Friday, was understandably obsessed with what she considered to be the “violation of Snooks Keene.”

“Snooks is your
Everyman
in the world of
Moose Murders
,” she said, “and has very little sense of humor other than her sarcasm. Everything is very serious to her. June’s playing her like a slut—that dress is all wrong, by the way—she’s like a Loni Anderson with a foul mouth. She’s an unsympathetic character who’s detracting from the plot rather than helping to put it into focus.”

It’s only fair to say at this point that my feelings about June Gable’s talent had not diminished in the slightest. She appeared to be singularly difficult to control, yes, but I knew others had done it with glowing results. Especially after talking with Jane, I was now throwing most of the blame—if not all of it—on John-not-just-a-dilettante-but-a-fucking-coward Roach. He was helpless, I now understood with the insight of the undead, in the hands of anyone with a will stronger than your average blade of grass. If all of the actors are left to their own devices, doesn’t it stand to reason that at least one or two of these devices might not be the
right
devices? And all of the actors, even the ones making incorrect choices—hell, especially the ones making incorrect choices—deserve to be guided in one—count it, one—direction—and to get the leadership that would at the very least put them all in the same play—working toward the same goal.

I mean, this was basic Stanislavski, right?

After the show, Jane and I sent Dennis home with what was gradually turning into a good solid case of walking pneumonia, and headed for Barrymore’s . . . until I realized that any theater haunt would not be the place to dish the show the way I
knew
Jane and I were about to dish the show. So we ended up at Marc’s, and let loose.

I asked them both if either thought there was any chance that the writing would shine through the messy production.