The Fourth Wall (3 page)

I told Sylvia her eye make-up was smeared and watched her hurry away to her dressing room. Then I told myself she was still upset about the cat, but I didn't believe my own lie. No, Sylvia was just being her normal snotty self. I didn't believe for one minute that Gene Ramsay had told her the play would close if the second act wasn't fixed soon. Ramsay closed plays only when financial disaster was a certainty; artistic values had nothing to do with it.
Foxfire
hadn't paid back its investors yet, but its advance sales were satisfactory. It wouldn't be smart business to close now. Sylvia had made the whole thing up.

Ian Cavanaugh was arguing with the wardrobe mistress. John Reddick was speaking soothing words to the young girl who played Sylvia Markey's daughter; Hugh Odell was grumbling because the make-up cabinet was locked and he needed more pancake. Leo Gunn was swearing at a control panel lever that was stuck.

Leo had for his assistant a young woman named Carla Banner who'd tried her luck as an actress and then decided her real talent lay in backstage work. I'd seen her perform once off-off-Broadway and I applauded the wisdom of her decision. There was a tentativeness about her performance that made audiences uncomfortable, the way parents get uncomfortable at the senior class play—praying that Johnny doesn't forget his lines. Carla Banner seemed quite happy working as an assistant stage manager, but even here her tentative approach sometimes got in the way.

Right now she was standing uncomfortably by the open door of Sylvia Markey's dressing room. Carla had a message for Sylvia from Leo Gunn, but Sylvia was talking on the phone. Sylvia turned in her chair and saw Carla waiting to speak to her; but instead of covering the mouthpiece of the receiver and asking Carla what she wanted, Sylvia deliberately
prolonged the conversation
. Carla stood first on one foot and then on the other until Hugh Odell came along and dragged her away to unlock the make-up cabinet.

Meanwhile, Jerry the prop man was nervously opening the attaché case one more time.

“Relax, Jerry,” I told him. “It won't happen again.”

“How do you know? You don't know it won't happen again!” He was
very
nervous.

I spread my hands. “No more cats backstage, are there?”

“It doesn't have to be a cat. It could be something else.”

“Like what?”

“How do I know, like what? I don't know! Something else!” Jerry threw up his hands and hurried away.

I sighed and got myself out of there. Once I'd taken my seat in the auditorium, I steeled myself for a somewhat less-than-perfect performance.

And got the surprise of my life.

Tonight's audience was the antithesis of the cretins who'd attended the matinee. They were alert and attentive and
with
the play from almost the opening line. The actors sensed immediately they had a good audience and proceeded to give them their money's worth. I had never seen Sylvia Markey perform better—she was strong and graceful and a thousand per cent believable. Hugh Odell was
up
, filling the air with electricity every time he entered. In fact, everybody was good. But once again it was Ian Cavanaugh who made me sit there with my mouth open.

Bravura acting and ensemble acting are about as opposite as any two kinds of acting can be. Bravura acting is powerful, full of risks, elevating when it's done right but mere scenery-chewing when it isn't. It's a play-length solo, food for any actor's ego. But in ensemble playing the actor must suppress his ego; he must make himself one part of a larger whole, a piece of a pattern. He must never sacrifice the stage picture for the temporary gratifications of drawing attention to himself.

Within a few hours Ian Cavanaugh had switched from one type of actor to the other without missing a beat. That very afternoon he'd given the bravura performance of his life, in a play not written for bravura acting—and now here he was fitting into the ensemble as snugly as if he'd never been away. What discipline the man had! I'd always looked on Ian as an attractive man I liked to watch on stage, but definitely a lightweight. I was wrong, dead wrong. The man was an
actor
. A real one.

This was a performance to renew any disgruntled playwright's faith in the theater. Even the laggy part in Act II didn't seem too bad. At the end the audience was on its feet applauding with abandon.

Backstage was charged with excitement. So many strangers came up to me with kind words about the play that I had to give up trying to remember all their names. Sylvia was having the time of her life playing queen bee, Ian was surrounded by admiring ladies, and John Reddick was talking a mile a minute to a group of starry-eyed youngsters.

Gradually the visitors drifted away and the actors were able to get out of their costumes and make-up. Except for Leo Gunn, the crew had already left. Ian and John stood grinning at each other like two small boys who'd just hit back-to-back home runs.

“Well, Abby?” asked Ian. “What do you think? How did you like it tonight?”

Ian didn't fish for compliments often, so I gave him one. “How would you like to be in my next twenty plays?”

He laughed and looked pleased.

Jake Steiner appeared to collect Sylvia, who made her exit trilling good nights. John Reddick and a few of the cast and I trooped off to a nearby watering place to congratulate ourselves on being such clever and talented people.

3

It took me over a week to rewrite the opening of the second act—it was even trickier than I'd thought. But at last I was satisfied. The new version moved faster, got to the point sooner. A cough suppressant for the audience.

John Reddick had to reblock the first half of the act. Then on Sunday morning we met with the cast and understudies to rehearse the changes. Why Sunday? I wondered. There'd be more time on Monday—no performance that night.

“We'll be rehearsing tomorrow too,” said John, “but we have a slight problem. Cavanaugh won't be available during the day this week. He's taping an episode of ‘Murphy's Law.'”

“It's in my contract,” smiled Ian.

What rotten timing. Because of some asinine TV show, our leading man would be showing up at the theater exhausted every night at a time he'd need to be especially alert. Also, he'd miss the Wednesday matinee. Ian's understudy was making no attempt to hide his delight with this arrangement.

“I thought that show taped in California,” I said.

“It does, normally,” said Ian. “But this season they're shooting two episodes in New York.”

“You're not in both of them?” I asked, alarmed.

“No, just this one.”

“Murphy's Law” was a phony-tough cops-and-robbers show in which the characters all spoke that clichéd street talk in which things don't
happen
, they
go down
. The series used a guest villain every week, and this week it was Ian.

“What dastardly deeds do you perform?” Hugh Odell asked him.

“Oh, a couple of murders, fraud, drug distribution, illegal sale of firearms. A little wife beating. Nothing special.”

He wasn't exaggerating. For “Murphy's Law” that was just an average episode.

“Could we please get on with the rehearsal?” asked Sylvia Markey in icy tones.

It wasn't really a rehearsal. The cast had to go on later in the day and perform the second act in the old way, and John Reddick was afraid that rehearsing now would simply confuse them. So he contented himself with explaining the changes I'd made and the new blocking he'd drawn up. They read it through once, walking out the new blocking. Tomorrow during the day they'd rehearse in earnest, with Ian's understudy. Monday night they'd rehearse again, with Ian. Tuesday night the new second act would be introduced into the performance.

It should be enough. With the exception of one young girl in the cast, they'd all been through this before. It was all part of the business.

Tuesday night wasn't exactly a shambles, but it tried. “Murphy's Law” had had technical troubles and ran into overtime. Ian Cavanaugh's understudy was getting into make-up when Ian himself finally rushed in, twenty-five minutes before curtain. “Glad you could make it,” everyone said with frost in their voices. Our leading man, tired and harassed-looking, made it through the first act without any trouble, but the changes in the second act were his undoing. He blew several of his lines, and the rest of the cast weren't sure enough of
their
parts to cover for him with any authority. The audience knew something was wrong.

I was angry. I thought they should have done better. Even Ian. They were professionals, after all.

“It'll be all right,” John Reddick said soothingly. “You'll see. Next week you won't remember they ever performed it any other way.”

“I won't be here next week,” I snapped. “And I'd like to see it done right once before I leave.” I had to get back to Pittsburgh; I'd already made my flight reservation.

Wednesday's matinee went much better. Ian's understudy played the performance, and understudies rarely blow lines. Especially now, when the whole cast knew John Reddick was auditioning actresses to replace Sylvia Markey's understudy.

Ian's understudy was a Southerner named Philip Carter (no, no relation) who'd gotten rid of his southern accent by substituting a quasi-British one for it. I thought Phil was an interesting actor, and his performance that Wednesday afternoon did much to smooth my ruffled feathers.

I went directly home after the performance, determined not to go back to the theater for a couple of days. I'd wait until Saturday or Sunday and then take another look.

I switched on the television and watched an automobile burst into flames. I changed channels and saw a car drive off a cliff and
then
burst into flames. On a third channel two cars ran into each other and
both
burst into flames. I sighed and turned off the set. If the automobile is indeed America's favorite phallic symbol, what are we to make of this wholesale destruction of cars? Nationwide castration fears?

I hadn't done any reading for almost a week and was beginning to suffer withdrawal symptoms. I was always twenty or thirty books behind anyway, so it was time to settle down to an orgy of other people's words.

But I had a little chore to perform first. There has never, never, been enough shelf space in my life. The books pile up on the floor, in the kitchen, in the bathroom. Periodic weeding out was necessary to maintain some semblance of organized living. The shelves in my workroom were now holding almost twice as many books as they were designed to hold. Books were thrust in sideways on top of other books, they were stacked in piles leaning precariously against the walls, they even took up needed space on my worktables. I found a large cardboard carton and got to work.

When I'd finished, I had collected a hundred and sixty-one books to get rid of. I looked around my workroom. The weeding out had made no appreciable difference whatsoever.

Friday morning the phone woke me from a sound sleep shortly before ten o'clock (
Shakespeare's English Kings
had kept me awake until five).

It was John Reddick. “Abby, what do you think of Vivian Frank?”

I wasn't completely awake yet. “Wha'?”

“Vivian Frank. To understudy Sylvia.”

I thought a moment. Vivian Frank was a good actress who'd never quite made it to leading-lady status. Every performance I'd ever seen her do had been strong, but I had no idea whether she could sustain a role as heavy as the one Sylvia played every night. “Don't know,” I said. “Maybe she could do it.”

“Come to the theater,” said John. “I've got Phil Carter coming in at eleven. Let's see how the understudies play together.”

I told him I'd be there and hung up. The more I thought about it, the better I liked the idea. Vivian Frank had played a supporting role in
The Bo Tree
, one of two of my plays that had been produced by the repertory company I'd belonged to some years back. She'd brought an intelligence to the role that made
me
look good, and I was curious to see what she could do with Sylvia Markey's role in
Foxfire
. We'd be taking a chance—Vivian Frank might turn out to be one of those performers who can make invaluable contributions in smaller roles but who can't carry a lead.

A small group had gathered at the Martin Beck Theatre by the time I arrived. John Reddick was there with his assistant, a severe young woman named Griselda Gold—at least that's what she said her name was. She'd told everyone to call her Gee Gee but nobody did.

It was something of a running joke to speculate on where John found his assistants. They were always unknowns with little or no experience whom John would “train” as a way of launching their careers. They all had one thing in common: they worshipped the ground John Reddick walked on. Right now Griselda Gold was clutching a clipboard and listening with an intensity worthy of prayer to something John was saying to her.

Several rows back sat Gene Ramsay, our producer, and a few of his minions. Ramsay looked as if a thunderstorm were about to break. I stopped to speak to him.

“I'm not completely convinced Sue should be let go,” was the first thing he said.

Sue was the actress we were replacing. It had been Ramsay who had insisted on Sue to understudy Sylvia Markey in the first place, in spite of her inexperience. The first thing you think of in a case like that is whether the actress had got her job via the casting couch or not. But I'd decided Ramsay was too money-oriented to risk the box office just to satisfy a little lust.

“She can't handle it, Gene,” I said. “She has the voice of a bird. She doesn't have stage weight. She telegraphs everything. It's just not her kind of role,” I added in a belated attempt at diplomacy.

Ramsay grunted. “You should have caught it during tryouts.”