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Authors: Chet Williamson

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BOOK: Reign
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"By psychic residue."

"Uh-huh. You mean like cosmic dung?"

"It's not funny. I mean like psychic residues of mass emotions. Okay, okay, look. When people come to see a play, it's like the old Greeks, right? Like catharsis? Like your emotions get really out in the open and stretched and exposed and all?”

“With Neil Simon?"

"Don't be a smartass. You know what I mean. Especially in live theatre. There's this psychic link between the performers and the audience? And some of that psychic . . .” — she searched for the word — "
stuff
hangs around. And people who are in here, like alone at night or something — or even in the daytime, because it's always dark anyway — their
suggestibility
is heightened. And they start to see things."

"Wait a minute," Dennis said. "You say suggestibility. So does that mean that they make these things up? That they're hallucinations?"

"Well, maybe sometimes. But sometimes they're real too."

"Ally, you're a flake, but I love you." He smiled and kissed her cheek. "And if there are any ghosts in my theatre, I hope you'll be the first to find them."

She grinned. "I don't. Ghosts scare the shit out of me. You remember that movie I made last year,
The Ouija Man
?"

"The one where you took the shower?"

She
pursed
her lips. "That's the part you remembered, huh? Well, when we were fucking around with the Ouija board in rehearsals, I really got freaked out.”

“Why? What did it say?"

"It spoke to
me
."

"Spoke?"

"Oh, you know, it
spelled
to me, okay? Spelled my name. And then it said, 'See me die.'"

"See you die?"

"No. 'Me.' It spelled M-E. Like I was supposed to see it die, you know? And we asked it when, and it said soon, and we asked where, and it said, 'Theatre.'“

“Just theatre? Didn't say which one?"

"Uh-uh. I didn't want to ask it anymore. It was just too weird."

"So what's the end of the story?"

"Huh?"

"So did you see someone die in a theatre?"

"Well, no."

"Then doesn't that prove it was bullshit? I mean, it said soon, didn't it?"

"Oh yeah, but what's soon to us may not be soon to the entities. I mean,
Ranthu
thinks in terms of epochs."

"Great, Ally. So if somebody dies in a theatre you're in within the next epoch, that means the Ouija
board's
real?"

"You don't believe in anything, do you, Dennis?"

"Nothing that originates on the west coast, no."

Before Ally could reply, Tommy
Werton
came up to them, a bottle of Budweiser dangling from one hammy fist. His smile was almost lost in the thicket of black beard that climbed nearly to his eyes. "’
Scuse
me, Dennis. Robin asked me to remind you it's almost eleven. Time to start the show."

"Oh, right. Tommy, you know Ally
Terrazin
? Ally, this is Tommy
Werton
, our ASM."

"ASM?" Ally repeated.

"Poor girl's never been in live theatre, Tommy," Dennis said smiling. "Had to start out in movies."

"It's short for assistant stage manager," Tommy said. "I do all the stuff Curt doesn't want to."

"In short," Dennis added, "Tommy does almost everything that requires getting your hands dirty. So. We've got the multitudes all ready?"

Tommy nodded. "Robin and Sid rounded 'em up. Let 'em in?"

"Is Curt in the booth?" Dennis asked.

"Yeah. Spot's warming up."

Dennis turned back to Ally. "Ready to see the show?"

"You mean there's more?"

"Sure. I've only shown you where we keep our ghost, right here in the inner lobby. And only because you asked. I wouldn't have done this for just anyone." She smiled. "Only west coast flakes."

"You got it. Open the doors, Tommy."

Tommy did as he was ordered, then quickly walked down the left-hand aisle toward the stage, avoiding the surge of drink-laden guests pouring through the inner lobby and then into the theatre proper, after having dutifully
oooed
and
ahhhed
at the complexity and beauty of the mosaics.

Curt had, Dennis thought, done a marvelous job with the lighting. It was too dim to make out any details of the theatre, just bright enough so that you could find a seat. Above, the flat dome of sky was dark in the center, except for the dozens of stars (really 10 and 25 watt bulbs) that peeked through the scudding clouds provided by two half-century old stereopticon machines. Yet a hazy pinkness bloomed on the right side of the ceiling, as though the artificial sky was on the verge of a burgeoning sunrise. The audible responses ranged from the expected "Gorgeous . . .” and "Incredible . . .” to the equally anticipated "I can't see a fucking thing!" from a number of the more
tiddly
guests.

"It looks terrific," Dennis heard Robin say, and felt her hand slip into his. He turned and kissed her lightly. "Here's Mister Microphone." She handed him a
Shure
wireless. "Just flick the switch when you're ready. Curt's got the power on."

"Thanks. You're throwing a wonderful party, love." He squinted across the thirty-four rows of seats toward the stage. "Can you see anything up there?”

“No. Just darkness."

"Good," he said. "That's how we want it. When that fire curtain comes down, they are going to
love
it."

The fire curtain was planned to be the crowning touch to Dennis's spotlight tour of the theatre. The painting that covered it had been done in 1923, and filled nearly the entire proscenium with a scene depicting a ball in the Duke of Venice's palazzo, complete with orchestra, masked dancers and celebrants, and, in the lower stage right section, a wine barrel whose contents poured copiously into the goblet of a laughing, drunken courtier. Decades of lights shining on it had faded it somewhat, and those same years had seen it fall victim to minor staining as well, but it was still a remarkable work.

"Come on, come on, down here." Dennis heard John Steinberg's voice haranguing the guests into sitting down. He and his secretary, Donna Franklin, a tall, bird-like woman in her forties, gathered the guests like mother hens, seating them, as Dennis had requested, in the center of the huge space.

Dennis smiled. John could be a tremendous bitch, but the bitchiness was always leavened with a wry sense of humor, and that was precisely why everyone loved him. Dennis had once met Truman Capote at a party before the writer's death, and had discovered him to be a vicious and far less macho version of Steinberg. While Capote's friends seemed to be cast in the roles of apologists for the man's shortcomings, no one had to apologize for Steinberg.

"For God's sake, Henry, there's a seat here, come on . . . Alice, Peter, don't sit so close, you're too close, come back here . . ."

When all two hundred and fifty were seated, Dennis flicked the switch on his mike and walked down the left center aisle, stopping at the first inhabited row, row K. As he turned toward the crowd, a pin spot caught him perfectly, the light white and blazing in his eyes. Years of experience kept him from squinting, and he smiled at the rows of people he could no longer see.

"I'd like to thank you all for making the effort to be here tonight," he said. "I hope that this evening will mark not only the rebirth of the Venetian Theatre, but the birth of a new era of American musical theatre. Now I suppose we've kept you in the dark — both figuratively and literally — long enough. New American musical theatre, both the people who write it and the people who perform in it, have needed a showcase for a long time, a place that does no revivals, but new works exclusively, seeking out excellent shows and producing them, not on a shoestring, but as they deserve to be produced, with adequate budgets, fine casts, and the best production people and facilities available. Tonight you'll have the opportunity to be part of this project.

"But let me make one thing clear. We're not asking for charity. We're asking for investors, for people who spend their money wisely. And I don't think I exaggerate when I say that you stand a far better chance to earn a profit here than you do on Wall Street."

There was polite laughter, and Dennis went on.

~ * ~

I
will take the boy when he comes on the stage. The curtain will come down. Yes, the final curtain. I'll call him there, call him out. Drop the curtain. And drop him as well.

The first. He will be the first. What an honor. To die for his Emperor
. . .

~ * ~

". . . you've seen the lobbies, and you've seen as much of the theatre itself as we have permitted you. Some of you may remember it from a quarter century ago — if you're willing to admit to it. It was dusty and abused even then, but, as you'll recall, its true beauty shone through nonetheless. Recently, we've given it the cleaning and the tender loving care it deserves. The Venetian Theatre is a revival house only in the sense that it has itself been revived. It's become, we feel, a fitting showcase for the gems we want to display. And we hope that you'll agree."

That was the cue, and Curt, high up in the projection booth, slowly brought up the house lights until the stars and clouds on the ceiling above were invisible, and the interior of the theatre was lit as richly as if by an Italian sun. Balconies, backed by woven tapestries that hid organ pipes and speakers, hung gracefully over the side walls, and castellated towers above glowed warmly. Over the proscenium arched a span of columns reminiscent of an ornate canal bridge, and just below, at the apex of the arch, was mounted a large, golden face of Apollo, whose wide eyes stared out across the auditorium, focused on the top rows of the balcony.

"The Venetian Theatre," Dennis went on, when the appreciative applause finally died down. "Designed by Jonathan Underwood and built by David Kirk. Kirk loved Venice, as you can easily see, and to give you further proof of that, I'd like to draw your attention to the red act curtain . . ."

The heavy red curtain covered the whole of the proscenium. It was in two pieces, a valance that covered the top third of the opening, and a main curtain that hid the rest, both of them fringed at the bottoms with gold tassels. As Dennis spoke, those curtains slowly lifted, opened by Tommy
Werton's
mighty hands on the pin rail, showing only darkness behind.

Then something happened to the lights. All over the house, they flickered, dimmed, brightened again, not at all in unison, but seemingly independently. The lanterns of the huge sconces, the painted glass lights of the beamed balcony ceiling, the rows of bulbs hidden by the overhang of roof and walls — all were blinking randomly, crazily.

Dennis started to speak into the microphone, but found that its power was affected as well, so that only every third word boomed over the speakers. "Excuse me!" he shouted to the audience. "You know opening nights!" He gave a shrug, walked quickly back to the inner lobby, and began the long climb up the flights of stairs to the booth. As he turned a corner of the grand staircase, he saw that Robin had preceded him, and was now passing through the door that led to another series of stairs that eventually reached the booth.

Dennis gripped the useless microphone like a club, and followed her.

~ * ~

"
Tommy!
"

The voice from the speakers was so loud and abrupt that everyone in the audience jerked. Ally
Terrazin
turned to her date, a film director who had worked as an assistant on Dennis's
Up Against It
, and had directed Ally in
Terror Night
, and gripped his arm. "Dennis sounds pissed," she said.

"Tommy
Werton
?" said the voice again, while the lights continued to flicker. "On stage please!"

Tommy's head appeared from behind the stage right wings. He looked around as if trying to find where Dennis's disembodied voice was coming from. "On stage, Tommy," said the voice.

Tommy came out tentatively. He was a backstage person, not used to being in the spotlight, and he looked nervously vulnerable standing in front of two hundred and fifty of the best-known personalities of stage, screen, and television. "Here, Dennis," he said softly, so that only Ally and the others in the first few rows of people heard him.

"A little further on, Tommy. Go ahead."

Tommy waved and sidestepped so that he was a yard further on stage. He dug his hands into his pockets and looked down at the wooden floor, as if waiting for further instructions. Then something offstage seemed to catch his attention. He turned, lowered his head, and stared into the shadows of the stage right wings.

"Dennis?" he said.

Suddenly the lights all went black, except for the beam of a follow spot that struck Tommy full in the face. He threw his head up and back, away from the blinding light. At that exact moment, the fire curtain fell.

The curtain, with its lushly painted scene, was engineered, in the event of fire, to drop instantly to a height of six feet. It did this. Unfortunately, Tommy
Werton
stood six feet four inches in the cowboy boots he was wearing. The bottom of the five ton curtain struck him soundly on the top of the head with a crack that echoed through the acoustically perfect theatre, and he slumped to the floor.

BOOK: Reign
12.08Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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