[Illustration: _Randy was, as Peggy had suspected, a fine dancer_]
PEGGY LANE THEATER STORIES
_Peggy Finds the Theatre_
By VIRGINIA HUGHES
Illustrated by Sergio Leone
GROSSET & DUNLAP _Publishers_
NEW YORK
© GROSSET & DUNLAP, INC., 1962
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
1 Dramatic Dialogue 1
2 Dramatic Decision 9
3 In the Wings 20
4 Two Auditions 33
5 Starting a New Role 46
6 Cast of Characters 57
7 The Biggest Stage 69
8 First Act 77
9 Theater Party 89
10 Peggy Produces a Plot 102
11 Rehearsals 110
12 Intermission 119
13 The Hidden City 127
14 The Hidden Theater 135
15 The Stage Door 145
16 Understudies for Danger 154
17 Backstage Fright 160
18 Forecast—Fair! 171
PEGGY FINDS THE THEATER
I
_Dramatic Dialogue_
“Of course, this is no surprise to us,” Thomas Lane said to his daughter
Peggy, who perched tensely on the edge of a kitchen stool. “We could
hardly have helped knowing that you’ve wanted to be an actress since you
were out of your cradle. It’s just that decisions like this can’t be
made quickly.”
“But, Dad!” Peggy almost wailed. “You just finished saying yourself that
I’ve been thinking about this and wanting it for years! You can’t follow
that by calling it a quick decision!” She turned to her mother, her
hazel eyes flashing under a mass of dark chestnut curls. “Mother, you
understand, don’t you?”
Mrs. Lane smiled gently and placed her soft white hand on her daughter’s
lean brown one. “Of course I understand, Margaret, and so does your
father. We both want to do what’s best for you, not to stand in your
way. The only question is whether the time is right, or if you should
wait longer.”
“Wait! Mother—Dad—I’m years behind already! The theater is full of
beginners a year and even two years younger than I am, and girls of my
age have lots of acting credits already. Besides, what is there to wait
for?”
Peggy’s father put down his coffee cup and leaned back in the kitchen
chair until it tilted on two legs against the wall behind him. He took
his time before answering. When he finally spoke, his voice was warm and
slow.
“Peg, I don’t want to hold up your career. I don’t have any objections
to your wanting to act. I think—judging from the plays I’ve seen you in
at high school and college—that you have a real talent. But I thought
that if you would go on with college for three more years and get your
degree, you would gain so much worth-while knowledge that you’d use and
enjoy for the rest of your life—”
“But not acting knowledge!” Peggy cried.
“There’s more to life than that,” her father put in. “There’s history
and literature and foreign languages and mathematics and sciences and
music and art and philosophy and a lot more—all of them fascinating and
all important.”
“None of them is as fascinating as acting to me,” Peggy replied, “and
none of them is nearly as important to my life.”
Mrs. Lane nodded. “Of course, dear. I know just how you feel about it,”
she said. “I would have answered just the same way when I was your age,
except that for me it was singing instead of acting. But—” and here her
pleasant face betrayed a trace of sadness—“but I was never able to be a
singer. I guess I wasn’t quite good enough or else I didn’t really want
it hard enough—to go on with all the study and practice it needed.”
She paused and looked thoughtfully at her daughter’s intense expression,
then took a deep breath before going on.
“What you must realize, Margaret, is that you may not quite make the
grade. We think you’re wonderful, but the theater is full of young girls
whose parents thought they were the most talented things alive; girls
who won all kinds of applause in high-school and college plays; girls
who have everything except luck. You may be one of these girls, and if
you are, we want you to be prepared for it. We want you to have
something to fall back on, just in case you ever need it.”
Mr. Lane, seeing Peggy’s hurt look, was quick to step in with
reassurance. “We don’t think you’re going to fail, Peg. We have every
confidence in you and your talents. I don’t see how you could miss being
the biggest success ever—but I’m your father, not a Broadway critic or a
play producer, and I could be wrong. And if I am wrong, I don’t want you
to be hurt. All I ask is that you finish college and get a teacher’s
certificate so that you can always find useful work if you have to. Then
you can try your luck in the theater. Doesn’t that make sense?”
Peggy stared at the faded linoleum on the floor for a few moments before
answering. Then, looking first at her mother and then at her father, she
replied firmly, “No, it doesn’t! It might make sense if we were talking
about anything else but acting, but we’re not. If I’m ever going to try,
I’ll have a better chance now than I will in three years. But I can see
your point of view, Dad, and I’ll tell you what—I’ll make a bargain with
you.”
“What sort of bargain, Peg?” her father asked curiously.
“If you let me go to New York now, and if I can get into a good drama
school there, I’ll study and try to find acting jobs at the same time.
That way I’ll still be going to school and I’ll be giving myself a
chance. And if I’m not started in a career in one year, I’ll go back to
college and get my teacher’s certificate before I try the theater again.
How does that sound to you?”
“It sounds fair enough,” Tom Lane admitted, “but are you so confident
that you’ll see results in one year? After all, some of our top stars
worked many times that long before getting any recognition.”
“I don’t expect recognition in one year, Dad,” Peggy said. “I’m not that
conceited or that silly. All I hope is that I’ll be able to get a part
in that time, and maybe be able to make a living out of acting. And
that’s probably asking too much. If I have to, I’ll make a living at
something else, maybe working in an office or something, while I wait
for parts. What I want to prove in this year is that I can act. If I
can’t, I’ll come home.”
“It seems to me, Tom, that Margaret has a pretty good idea of what she’s
doing,” Mrs. Lane said. “She sounds sensible and practical. If she were
all starry-eyed and expected to see her name in lights in a few weeks,
I’d vote against her going, but I’m beginning to think that maybe she’s
right about this being the best time.”
“Oh, Mother!” Peggy shouted, jumping down from the stool and throwing
her arms about her mother’s neck. “I knew you’d understand! And you
understand too, don’t you, Dad?” she appealed.
Her father replied in little puffs as he drew on his pipe to get it
started. “I ... never said ... I didn’t ... understand you ... did I?”
His pipe satisfactorily sending up thick clouds of fragrant smoke, he
took it out of his mouth before continuing more evenly.
“Peg, your mother and I are cautious only because we love you so much
and want what’s going to make you happy. At the same time, we want to
spare you any unnecessary unhappiness along the way. Remember, I’m not a
complete stranger to show business. Before I came out here to Rockport
to edit the _Eagle_, I worked as a reporter on one of the best papers in
New York. I saw a lot ... I met a lot of actors and actresses ... and I
know how hard the city often was for them. But I don’t want to protect
you from life. That’s no good either. Just let me think about it a
little longer and let me talk to your mother some more.”
Mrs. Lane patted Peggy’s arm and said, “We won’t keep you in suspense
long, dear. Why don’t you go out for a walk for a while and let us go
over the situation quietly? We’ll decide before bedtime.”
Peggy nodded silently and walked to the kitchen door, where she paused
to say, “I’m just going out to the barn to see if Socks is all right for
the night. Then maybe I’ll go down to Jean’s for a while.”
As she stepped out into the soft summer dusk she turned to look back
just in time to see her mother throw her a comically exaggerated wink of
assurance. Feeling much better, Peggy shut the screen door behind her
and started for the barn.
Ever since she had been a little girl, the barn had been Peggy’s
favorite place to go to be by herself and think. Its musty but clean
scent of straw and horses and leather made her feel calm and alive.
Breathing in its odor gratefully, she walked into the half-dark to
Socks’s stall. As the little bay horse heard her coming, she stamped one
foot and softly whinnied a greeting. Peggy stopped first at the bag that
hung on the wall among the bridles and halters and took out a lump of
sugar as a present. Then, after stroking Socks’s silky nose, she held
out her palm with the sugar cube. Socks took it eagerly and pushed her
nose against Peggy’s hand in appreciation.
As Peggy mixed some oats and barley for her pet and checked to see that
there was enough straw in the stall, she thought about her life in
Rockport and the new life that she might soon be going to.
Rockport, Wisconsin, was a fine place, as pretty a small town as any
girl could ask to grow up in. And not too small, either, Peggy thought.
Its 16,500 people supported good schools, an excellent library, and two
good movie houses. What’s more, the Rockport Community College attracted
theater groups and concert artists, so that life in the town had always
been stimulating. And of course, all of this was in addition to the
usual growing-up pleasures of swimming and sailing, movie dates, and
formal dances—everything that a girl could want.
Peggy had lived all her life here, knew every tree-shaded street, every
country road, field, lake, and stream. All of her friends were here,
friends she had known since her earliest baby days. It would be hard to
leave them, she knew, but there was no doubt in her mind that she was
going to do so. If not now, then as soon as she possibly could.
It was not any dissatisfaction with her life, her friends, or her home
that made Peggy want to leave Rockport. She was not running away from
anything, she reminded herself; she was running _to_ something.
To what? To the bright lights, speeding taxis, glittering towers of a
make-believe movie-set New York? Would it really be like that? Or would
it be something different, something like the dreary side-street world
of failure and defeat that she had also seen in movies?
Seeing the image of herself hungry and tired, going from office to
office looking for a part in a play, Peggy suddenly laughed aloud and
brought herself back to reality, to the warm barn smell and the big,
soft-eyed gaze of Socks. She threw her arm around the smooth bay neck
and laid her face next to the horse’s cheek.
“Socks,” she murmured, “I need some of your horse sense if I’m going to
go out on my own! We’ll go for a fast run in the morning and see if some
fresh air won’t clear my silly mind!”
With a final pat, she left the stall and the barn behind, stepping out
into the deepening dusk. It was still too early to go back to the house
to see if her parents had reached a decision about her future. Fighting
down an impulse to rush right into the kitchen to see how they were
coming along, Peggy continued down the driveway and turned left on the
slate sidewalk past the front porch of her family’s old farmhouse and
down the street toward Jean Wilson’s house at the end of the block.
As she walked by her own home, she noticed with a familiar tug at her
heart how the lilac bushes on the front lawn broke up the light from the
windows behind them into a pattern of leafy lace. For a moment, or maybe
a little more, she wondered why she wanted to leave this. What for? What
could ever be better?
II
_Dramatic Decision_
Upstairs at the Wilsons’, Peggy found Jean swathed in bath towels,
washing her long, straight red hair, which was now white with lather and
piled up in a high, soapy knot.
“You just washed it yesterday!” Peggy said. “Are you doing it again—or
still?”
Jean grinned, her eyes shut tight against the soapsuds. “Again, I’m
afraid,” she answered. “Maybe it’s a nervous habit!”
“It’s a wonder you’re not bald, with all the rubbing you give your
hair,” Peggy said with a laugh.
“Well, if I do go bald, at least it will be with a clean scalp!” Jean
answered with a humorous crinkle of her freckled nose. Taking a deep
breath and puffing out her cheeks comically, she plunged her head into
the basin and rinsed off the soap with a shampoo hose. When she came up
at last, dripping-wet hair was tightly plastered to the back of her
head.
“There!” she announced. “Don’t I look beautiful?”
After a brisk rubdown with one towel, Jean rolled another dry towel
around her head like an Indian turban. Then, having wrapped herself in
an ancient, tattered, plaid bathrobe, she led Peggy out of the steamy
room and into her cozy, if somewhat cluttered, bedroom. When they had
made themselves comfortable on the pillow-strewn daybeds, Jean came
straight to the point.
“So the grand debate is still going on, is it? When do you think they’ll
make up their minds?” she asked.
“How do you know they haven’t decided anything yet?” Peggy said, in a
puzzled tone.
“Oh, that didn’t take much deduction, my dear Watson,” Jean laughed. “If
they had decided against the New York trip, your face would be as long
as Socks’s nose, and it’s not half that long. And if the answer was yes,
I wouldn’t have to wait to hear about it! You would have been flying
around the room and talking a mile a minute. So I figured that nothing
was decided yet.”
“You know, if I were as smart as you,” Peggy said thoughtfully, “I would
have figured out a way to convince Mother and Dad by now.”
“Oh, don’t feel bad about being dumb,” Jean said in mock tones of
comfort. “If I were as pretty and talented as you are, I wouldn’t need
brains, either!” With a hoot of laughter, she rolled quickly aside on
the couch to avoid the pillow that Peggy threw at her.
A short, breathless pillow fight followed, leaving the girls limp with
laughter and with Jean having to retie her towel turban. From her new
position, flat on the floor, Peggy looked up at her friend with a rueful
smile.
“You know, I sometimes think that we haven’t grown up at all!” she said.
“I can hardly blame my parents for thinking twice—and a lot more—before
treating me like an adult.”
“Nonsense!” Jean replied firmly. “Your parents know a lot better than to
confuse being stuffy with being grown-up and responsible. And, besides,
I know that they’re not the least bit worried about your being able to
take care of yourself. I heard them talking with my folks last night,
and they haven’t got a doubt in the world about you. But they know how
hard it can be to get a start as an actress, and they want to be sure
that you have a profession in case you don’t get a break in show
business.”
“I know,” Peggy answered. “We had a long talk about it this evening
after dinner.” Then she told her friend about the conversation and her
proposed “bargain” with her parents.
“They both seemed to think it was fair,” she concluded, “and when I went
out, they were talking it over. They promised me an answer by bedtime,
and I’m over here waiting until the jury comes in with its decision. You
know,” she said suddenly, sitting up on the floor and crossing her legs
under her, “I bet they wouldn’t hesitate a minute if you would only
change your mind and decide to come with me and try it too!”
After a moment’s thoughtful silence, Jean answered slowly, “No, Peg.
I’ve thought this all out before, and I know it would be as wrong for me
as it is right for you. I know we had a lot of fun in the dramatic
groups, and I guess I was pretty good as a comedienne in a couple of the
plays, but I know I haven’t got the real professional thing—and I know
that you have. In fact, the only professional talent I think I do have
for the theater is the ability to recognize talent when I see it—and to
recognize that it’s not there when it isn’t!”
“But, Jean,” Peggy protested, “you can handle comedy and character lines
as well as anyone I know!”
Jean nodded, accepting the compliment and seeming at the same time to
brush it off. “That doesn’t matter. You know even better than I that
there’s a lot more to being an actress—a successful one—than reading
lines well. There’s the ability to make the audience sit up and notice
you the minute you walk on, whether you have lines or not. And that’s
something you can’t learn; you either have it, or you don’t. It’s like
being double-jointed. I can make an audience laugh when I have good
lines, but you can make them look at you and respond to you and be with
you all the way, even with bad lines. That’s why you’re going to go to
New York and be an actress. And that’s why I’m not.”
“But, Jean—” Peggy began.
“No buts!” Jean cut in. “We’ve talked about this enough before, and I’m
not going to change my mind. I’m as sure about what I want as you are
about what you want. I’m going to finish college and get my certificate
as an English teacher.”
“And what about acting? Can you get it out of your mind as easily as all
that?” Peggy asked.
“That’s the dark and devious part of my plan,” Jean answered with a
mysterious laugh that ended in a comic witch’s cackle and an
unconvincing witch-look that was completely out of place on her round,
freckled face. “Once I get into a high school as an English teacher, I’m
going to try to teach a special course in the literature of the theater
and maybe another one in stagecraft. I’m going to work with the
high-school drama group and put on plays. That way, I’ll be in a spot
where I can use my special talent of recognizing talent. And that way,”
she added, becoming much more serious, “I have a chance really to do
something for the theater. If I can help and encourage one or two people
with real talent like yours, then I’ll feel that I’ve really done
something worth while.”
Peggy nodded silently, not trusting herself to speak for fear of saying
something foolishly sentimental, or even of crying. Her friend’s
earnestness about the importance of her work and her faith in Peggy’s
talent had touched her more than she could say.
The silence lasted what seemed a terribly long time, until Jean broke it
by suddenly jumping up and flinging a last pillow which she had been
hiding behind her back. Running out of the bedroom, she called, “Come
on! I’ll race you down to the kitchen for cocoa! By the time we’re
finished, it’ll be about time for your big Hour of Decision scene!”
It was nearly ten o’clock when Peggy finally felt that her parents had
had enough time to talk things out. Leaving the Wilson house, she walked
slowly despite her eagerness, trying in all fairness to give her mother
and father every minute she could. Reaching her home, she cut across the
lawn behind the lilac bushes, to the steps up to the broad porch that
fronted the house. As she climbed the steps, she heard her father’s
voice raised a little above its normal soft, deep tone, but she could
not make out the words.
Crossing the porch, she caught sight of him through the window. He was
speaking on the telephone, and now she caught his words.
“Fine. Yes.... Yes—I think we can. Very well, day after tomorrow, then.
That’s right—all three of us. And, May—it’ll be good to see you again,
after all these years! Good-by.”
As Peggy entered the room, her father put down the phone and turned to
Mrs. Lane. “Well, Betty,” he said, “it’s all set.”
“What’s all set, Dad?” Peggy said, breaking into a run to her father’s
side.
“Everything’s all set, Peg,” her father said with a grin. “And it’s set
just the way you wanted it! There’s not a man in the world who can hold
out against two determined women.” He leaned back against the fireplace
mantel, waiting for the explosion he felt sure was to follow his
announcement. But Peggy just stood, hardly moving a muscle. Then she
walked carefully, as if she were on the deck of a rolling ship, to the
big easy chair and slowly sat down.
“Well, for goodness’ sake!” her mother cried. “Where’s the enthusiasm?”
Peggy swallowed hard before answering. When her voice came, it sounded
strange, about two tones higher than usual. “I ... I’m trying to be
sedate ... and poised ... and very grown-up,” she said. “But it’s not
easy. All I want to do is to—” and she jumped out of the chair—“to yell
_whoopee_!” She yelled at the top of her lungs.
After the kisses, the hugs, and the first excitement, Peggy and her
parents adjourned to the kitchen, the favorite household conference
room, for cookies and milk and more talk.
“Now, tell me, Dad,” Peggy asked, her mouth full of oatmeal cookies, no
longer “sedate” or “poised,” but her natural, bubbling self. “Who was
that on the phone, and where are the three of us going, and what’s all
set?”
“One thing at a time,” her father said. “To begin with, we decided
almost as soon as you left that we were going to let you go to New York
to try a year’s experience in the theater. But then we had to decide
just where you would live, and where you should study, and how much
money you would need, and a whole lot of other things. So I called New
York to talk to an old friend of mine who I felt would be able to give
us some help. Her name is May Berriman, and she’s spent all her life in
the theater. In fact, she was a very successful actress. Now she’s been
retired for some years, but I thought she might give us some good
advice.”
“And did she?” Peggy asked.
“We were luckier than I would have thought possible,” Mrs. Lane put in.
“It seems that May bought a big, old-fashioned town house and converted
it into a rooming house especially for young actresses. She always
wanted a house of her own with a garden in back, but felt it was foolish
for a woman living alone. This way, she can afford to run a big place
and at the same time not be alone. And best of all, she says she has a
room that you can have!”
“Oh, Mother! It sounds wonderful!” Peggy exulted. “I’ll be with other
girls my own age who are actresses, and living with an experienced
actress! I’ll bet she can teach me loads!”
“I’m sure she can,” her father said. “And so can the New York Dramatic
Academy.”
“Dad!” Peggy shouted, almost choking on a cooky. “Don’t tell me you’ve
managed to get me accepted there! That’s the best dramatic school in the
country! How—?”
“Don’t get too excited, Peg,” Mr. Lane interrupted. “You’re not accepted
anywhere yet, but May Berriman told me that the Academy is the best
place to study acting, and she said she would set up an audition for you
in two days. The term starts in a couple of weeks, so there isn’t much
time to lose.”
“Two days! Do you mean we’ll be going to New York day after tomorrow,
just like that?”
“Oh, no,” her mother answered calmly. “We’re going to New York tomorrow
on the first plane that we can get seats on. Your father doesn’t believe
in wasting time, once his mind is made up.”
“Tomorrow?” Peggy repeated, almost unable to believe what she had heard.
“What are we sitting here talking for, then? I’ve got a million things
to do! I’ve got to get packed ... I’ve got to think of what to read for
the audition! I can study on the plane, I guess, but ... oh! I’ll be
terrible in a reading unless I can have more time! Oh, Mother, what
parts will I do? Where’s the Shakespeare? Where’s—”
“Whoa!” Mr. Lane said, catching Peggy’s arm to prevent her from rushing
out of the kitchen. “Not now, young lady! We’ll pack in the morning,
talk about what you should read, and take an afternoon plane to New
York. But tonight, you’d better think of nothing more than getting to
bed. This is going to be a busy time for all of us.”
Reluctantly, Peggy agreed, recognizing the sense of what her father
said. She finished her milk and cookies, kissed her parents good night
and went upstairs to bed.
But it was one thing to go to bed and another to go to sleep.
Peggy lay on her back, staring at the ceiling and the patterns of light
and shade cast by the street lamp outside as it shone through the leaves
of the big maple tree. As she watched the shifting shadows, she reviewed
the roles she had played since her first time in a high-school play.
Which should she refresh herself on? Which ones would she do best? And
which ones were most suited to her now? She recognized that she had
grown and developed past some of the roles which had once seemed
perfectly suited to her talent and her appearance. But both had changed.
She was certainly not a mature actress yet, from any point of view, but
neither was she a schoolgirl. Her trim figure was well formed; her face
had lost the undefined, simple cuteness of the early teens, and had
gained character. She didn’t think she should read a young romantic part
like Juliet. Not that she couldn’t do it, but perhaps something sharper
was called for.
Perhaps Viola in _Twelfth Night_? Or perhaps not Shakespeare at all.
Maybe the people at the Academy would think she was too arty or too
pretentious? Maybe she should do something dramatic and full of stormy
emotion, like Blanche in _A Streetcar Named Desire_? Or, better for her
development and age, a light, brittle, comedy role...?
Nothing seemed quite right. Peggy’s thoughts shifted with the shadows
overhead. All the plays she had ever seen or read or acted in melted
together in a blur, until the characters from one seemed to be talking
with the characters from another and moving about in an enormous set
made of pieces from two or three different plays. More actors kept
coming on in a fantastic assortment of costumes until the stage was
full. Then the stage lights dimmed, the actors joined hands across the
stage to bow, the curtain slowly descended, the lights went out—and
Peggy was fast asleep.
III
_In the Wings_
When Peggy awoke in the early-morning sunshine that slanted into her
room, it was not yet six o’clock. She reached over to shut off the alarm
so that it would not ring at seven, the time she had decided to get up
for her big day.
“People say that actors live in a dream world,” Peggy thought with a
smile. “Maybe that’s why I seem to want so little sleep. I get enough of
dreams when I’m supposed to be wide awake!”
Recognizing that it would be useless to try to doze off again, she
quickly slipped out of bed and quietly set about her morning routine of
washing and dressing. The extra time gained by her early awakening would
give her an opportunity to select her reading for the Academy, Peggy
told herself as she stepped into the shower. But first things first;
before she could think about the reading she would need a clear mind,
and that meant that all the many details of packing and dressing must be
taken care of. As she wrapped herself in an oversized bath towel, Peggy
was already mentally choosing her clothes.
An hour and a half later, when Mr. and Mrs. Lane came downstairs for
breakfast, they discovered Peggy, dressed and ready for the trip,
sitting surrounded by books at the big desk in the “library” end of the
living room. Her suitcase stood fully packed in the front hall, a large
traveling purse leaning next to it like a puppy sleeping by its mother.
“My goodness!” Mrs. Lane said. “What did you do, stay up all night? Why,
you’re ready to board the plane this very minute!”
“Not quite, Mother,” Peggy answered with a smile. “I still haven’t
settled on what to read tomorrow, and I want to do that before I go.
Otherwise I’ll be carting so many books with me to New York that we’ll
have to pay a fortune in extra-baggage charges!”
“Oh, I’m not worried about you,” her mother said. “You’ll have your mind
made up and your part memorized before we even leave, if I remember the
way you go at things! Now you can just put the books away until after
breakfast, because I’m going to need some help in the kitchen.”
As Peggy stood up, her mother looked approvingly at the costume she had
chosen for the flight. It was a smart beige suit with a short jacket
that was well cut to accent Peggy’s trim figure, and its tawny color was
the perfect complement for her even summer tan and her dark chestnut
hair. A simple pearl choker and a pair of tiny pearl earrings provided
just the right amount of contrast.
“Is it all right?” Peggy asked. Noting her mother’s admiring nod, she
added, “I packed my gray silk suit and two dresses—the green print and
the blue dress-up, in case we go someplace. I mean someplace dressy, for
dinner or something. And I have the right shoes packed, too, and
stockings and blouses and toothbrush and everything,” she added,
anticipating her mother’s questions.
Mrs. Lane smiled and sighed. “Well, I suppose there’s no use my
pretending that you’re not all grown up and able to take care of
yourself! You pass inspection with flying colors! Now, let’s get that
jacket off and get an apron on—we have some work to do!”
Peggy and her mother went into the kitchen to prepare what Mr. Lane
always called his “traveling breakfast,” a huge repast of wheat cakes,
eggs, sausages and coffee, with plenty of orange juice to start, maple
syrup to soak the wheat cakes in, and more coffee to finish up on. While
breakfast was cooking, Mr. Lane was on the phone, confirming their plane
reservations and, when this was done, arranging for hotel rooms in New
York. The last phone call was finished barely a minute before the first
steaming stack of wheat cakes was set on the kitchen table.
“Well,” he said, sitting down to look with satisfaction at his plate,
“everything’s under control. We leave at two this afternoon, which
should have us in New York by five. That gives us plenty of time. We’ll
leave the house about one.”
“Plenty of time!” Peggy wailed. “What about my reading? I’ve got to get
started right away!” She gave a fairly convincing performance of someone
who must get started right away, except for the fact that she showed not
the least sign of moving until she had finished her breakfast.
During the meal, the talk was all of reservations, changing planes at
Chicago, what kind of rooms they would have at the hotel, and all the
many little details of a trip, but Peggy hardly heard. She was still
sorting out plays and roles in her mind and trying to make a decision.
By the second cup of coffee, her decision was made. “I’ve got it!” she
announced in triumph and relief. “I’ll prepare three short readings
instead of one long one! That’ll give them a chance to see the kinds of
things I can do, and if I’m bad in one, I’ll have two more chances!”
“Makes sense,” her father agreed. “What three parts do you think you’ll
try?”
“I’m not completely sure,” Peggy said, “but at least I know what kinds
of parts they’ll be, and that will make the job easier. One of them will
surely be Viola in _Twelfth Night_ because I’ve done it, and I’ve always
felt that it was me, and besides, it’s Shakespeare, and I think I ought
to have one Shakespeare anyway.”
“That’s a good choice,” Mrs. Lane said. “Now I think you’d better pick
out one that’s more dramatic and another that’s something of a comedy or
a character part, don’t you?”
“Exactly what I had in mind,” Peggy answered. “It shouldn’t be too hard
to select, now that I know what I’m looking for.”
But it wasn’t easy, either. Peggy spent the whole morning carefully
looking over her collection of play scripts. Every time she thought she
had the right role, she found there was no single scene that seemed to
be right for a short reading. There was no trouble over Viola, because
Shakespeare always wrote good scenes and speeches, and because there was
no need to sketch in what had led up to the scene in the play, since
everyone was sure to be perfectly familiar with it. But everything else
seemed to be a problem. It was not until her parents were all packed and
there was only half an hour before leaving, that she finally made up her
mind.
For the comedy reading, she determined to do Sabina in the first scene
of _Skin of our Teeth_, which had much more to it than simple comedy.
The business of Sabina’s stepping out of character to talk directly to
the audience as a disgusted actress criticizing the play and its author
gave added dimension to the reading. For her dramatic role, Peggy chose
the part of Miriamne in the last scene of _Winterset_, a hauntingly
beautiful tragedy. She selected this, she explained to her parents as
they drove to the airport, because it was one of the few dramatic,
poetic parts written for a girl of her own age, and she felt that she
could identify with the character. Then, book in hand, she started to
study.
[Illustration: _They waited for the passenger call_]
Peggy continued to read all through the arrival at the airport, the
business of checking in and loading baggage. They waited for the
passenger call, then walked up the steps into the plane. When she was
settled in her seat by the window, she lowered her book and turned,
wide-eyed, to her mother.
“Do you know,” she said in slow, awed tones, “that this is my first time
on an airplane, and I’m just sitting here reading?” She closed the book
on her lap. “That’s just going to wait for a while, until I see what’s
going on!”
Looking out the oval window, she saw the steep steps being wheeled away
from the plane. A red fuel truck drove under the wing and sped across
the wide concrete runway. Then the plane’s engines whirled, coughed once
and started, and the plane lumbered down the runway slowly. Reaching the
end, it deliberately turned, stopped for a moment, then suddenly
gathered up strength, leaped forward and sped into the wind. Peggy
watched, fascinated, as the ground dropped away and the shadow of wings
below grew smaller and smaller as the plane rose. She watched until the
tiny farms, winding ribbons of highway, and gleaming rivers disappeared
beneath a puffy layer of cloud. Then she looked back to her mother.
“Well,” she said, “it looks as if my new career is off to a flying
start! Now I’d better study these plays, or I’m in for an unhappy
landing.”
Reluctantly tearing her eyes from the fantastic cloud formations that
floated past, Peggy once more opened her book and was soon deep into the
even more fantastic world of Thornton Wilder’s _Skin of Our Teeth_.
The quick flight to Chicago, the change of planes, the landing and
take-off, scarcely attracted her notice, and the three hours flew by at
faster than air speed. Peggy had finished reading and marking Sabina’s
role, and was deep into Miriamne’s when her mother interrupted her.
“They want us to fasten our seat belts again,” she said. “We’re coming
into New York now.”
This time Peggy noticed! Spread below her, stretching out as if it would
never end, was the maze of streets and avenues, rivers and islands,
towers and bridges, that was the city of New York. The late afternoon
sun touched the windows of skyscrapers with fire, gilded the steelwork
of the bridges, cast deep, black shadows into the streets and over the
rooftops of low buildings. Giant liners stood tied at docks; others
steamed sedately up or down the river, pushed or pulled by tiny tugs.
Even from their soaring height above the scene, New York refused to look
small or toylike. It stubbornly looked only like the thing it was—the
busiest, tallest, most exciting city in the world!
Turning in a great, slow arc, the plane descended until it was skimming
only a few feet above the waters of a broad bay. Peggy wondered if they
had flown in on a seaplane, and if they were to land in the water and
have to take a boat to shore, but even as the thought occurred to her,
the rocky shoreline suddenly appeared beneath her, and the plane swiftly
settled down on the long, concrete runway of New York’s LaGuardia
Airport.
It was the rush hour, and parkways and streets were jammed with
homebound cars, but their cab driver knew his way around back streets,
and turned and twisted around one corner after another until Peggy lost
all sense of direction. Her father, though, seemed to know exactly where
they were at all times, and kept pointing out buildings and parks and
bridges to Peggy and her mother, telling the name of each and how it
figured in his memory. People, trucks, cars, buses, cabs, motor scooters
and little foreign autos filled the streets. Mr. Lane called out the
names of famous avenues as they came to and crossed them: Park Avenue
... Madison Avenue ... Fifth Avenue....
The taxi passed by store after store, their windows like so many stage
sets. By the edge of Central Park, they drew up in front of their hotel.
Bewildered, excited, dazzled, delighted, Peggy stepped out of the taxi
and stood for the first time on the sidewalks of New York!
The temptation had been strong to give in to all the glamour of the
city, to go for dinner in one of the famous restaurants, to ride in a
hansom cab through Central Park behind a plodding old horse, to race
through the bright streets and gather in all the excitement of New York
in one whirling evening. The temptation had been strong, but Peggy had
bravely fought it off. She had work to do before her tryout the next day
at the New York Dramatic Academy.
After a fine but hurried dinner in the hotel’s handsome, formal dining
room, Peggy and her parents went upstairs to work on her readings. She
read first the passage she had marked out from _Twelfth Night_, since
Viola was a familiar role for her and she needed only a short time to
work on it. The speech she selected was the best known in the play, and
for that reason it was probably the hardest to do, for everyone who
would hear it would have his own idea of how it should sound. Any actor
knows how hard it is to put new life into old, familiar words, and Peggy
was well aware of this. Still, because this short speech gave her a
chance, in only a dozen lines, to indicate the whole character of Viola,
she thought it was worth the risk.
Viola, pretending to be a boy, tells the Duke Orsino of a sister she
never had, and by so doing, confesses her own love for the Duke. The
first difficulty of the speech lay in making Viola seem both a boy and a
lovesick girl at the same time. The second difficulty was to make the
imaginary sister of the speech seem like a real person.
Mr. Lane began, reading the Duke’s lines, in which he says that no woman
can love as deeply as a man. When the speech was done, Peggy spoke,
sounding at first completely feminine, “Ay, but I know—” She broke off
the phrase in well-acted confusion, as Viola quickly realizes that she
has spoken as a woman, rather than as the boy she is supposed to be.
“What dost thou know?”
“Too well what love women to men may owe,” Peggy answered firmly, saying
the line with boyish confidence. Then she went on, in a confidential,
man-to-man tone: “In faith, they are as true of heart as we./My father
had a daughter loved a man,/As it might be, perhaps were I a woman,/I
should your lordship.”
“And what’s her history?” Mr. Lane said.
Now Peggy subtly shifted the character, and when she replied, after a
short pause, it was not in the manner of either the lovesick girl or the
confident, manly boy. Now she spoke dreamily, a story-teller, a poet, as
Viola fell into her own pretended character, half-believing in the
“sister” she had created.
“A blank, my lord. She never told her love,/But let concealment, like a
worm i’ the bud,/Feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought,/And
with a green and yellow melancholy/She sat, like Patience on a
monument,/Smiling at grief—”
She was interrupted by a round of applause from both her parents, and
responded with a start, suddenly realizing that she was in a hotel room,
not in the court of the Duke Orsino or even on a stage.
“But there’s more to the speech!” she said. “You shouldn’t have
applauded yet!”
“Couldn’t help it, Peg,” her father said. “Besides, I’m afraid that if
you work on that any more, you might ruin it. As far as I’m concerned,
it’s perfect just the way it is. You can do the whole speech tomorrow.”
“Oh, you’re just being a loving father,” Peggy answered, in pleased
confusion, but she knew that there was more to his comments and
compliments than this. She remembered how, during the weeks when she
first struggled to breathe life into the character of Viola, her father
had read lines with her and criticized sharply every time she did
something not quite true to the role. Remembering this, her pleasure now
was doubled. Even so, Peggy insisted on reading the whole speech, then
doing it several times over, before she would go on to her next marked
reading.
Sabina, in _Skin of Our Teeth_, was a complete change of pace. Peggy
worked on the satirical, comic, sometimes silly-sounding lines for two
hours before she felt she was ready to go on. Then, two more hours went
swiftly by as she developed the poetic, passionate lines of Maxwell
Anderson’s Winterset, working on Miriamne’s death scene.
When at last she was satisfied, it was a little after midnight, and
Peggy felt exhausted, as if she herself had died with Miriamne.
“I should have done Sabina last,” she said. “Maybe I wouldn’t feel so
much as if I had just been murdered after three acts of blank verse!”
“On the other hand,” Mrs. Lane said, “you might not have been so ready
for sleep as you are now, and sleep is what you need most, if you’re
going to do as well in the morning as you did tonight.”
“That’s right,” added Peggy’s father. “We have just time for eight good
hours of rest and a decent breakfast tomorrow before you go to keep your
ten-o’clock date with destiny. Let’s go.”
Peggy didn’t argue. She kissed her parents, went to her own adjoining
bedroom and, in three minutes, was curled up between the crisp, fresh
sheets. Tonight she was too tired to think about the excitement to come.
She had barely settled her head on the pillow before she was deep in a
dreamless sleep.
IV
_Two Auditions_
Peggy hadn’t really known what to expect of the New York Dramatic
Academy, but whatever it was, it wasn’t this!
The Academy was housed on two floors of an ancient office building only
a few blocks away from their hotel. On either side of a tall door that
led into a long, dim hallway was an assorted collection of name plates,
telling passers-by what to expect inside. One somewhat blackened brass
plaque, about a foot square, gave the name of the Academy. Other
plaques, some brass, some plastic, some polished and others almost
illegible, announced that the building also provided offices for a
dentist, studios for two ballet schools and a voice teacher, and the
workshop of a noted costume designer. Other trades represented included
theatrical agents, song writers, an export-import company, an
advertising agency, and a custom bootmaker specializing in ballet
footwear.
At the end of the hall, two old elevators wheezed and grunted their way
up and down in grillwork shafts. Over the ornate elevator doors were
indicators telling on what floors the elevators were. Neither of them
worked. But, when one car landed with a sigh of relief and its gates
slid open with a creak, Peggy found that the operator was, surprisingly,
a young man, quite good-looking and smartly uniformed. He greeted her
courteously and took her to the top floor with the air of a man who was
giving her a lift in his own chauffeured limousine.
The minute Peggy looked around her, any misgivings she had about the
building vanished. The atmosphere was ageless, shabby, and completely
theatrical. The elusive smell, both indefinable and familiar, but which
was nothing but the smell of backstage, perfumed the hall. Through a
closed door to her left, Peggy heard a chorus reciting in unison some
lines from a Greek play she could not identify. Directly in front,
through an open door in a wall of doors, Peggy saw a tiny theater of
perhaps one hundred seats. A few people lounged in the front seats while
on the bare stage, under a single floodlight, two young men acted out
what sounded like a violent quarrel. To the right, where the long
hallway was crossed by another hall, a boy appeared, swinging a fencing
foil. He turned the corner out of sight.
“This must be where I go,” Peggy thought, starting for a nearby door
marked OFFICE. She took a deep breath, opened the door, and walked in.
The pretty receptionist, greeting her by name, said that she was
expected and that Mr. Macaulay, the director of the Academy, would see
her right away.
The first thing that Peggy noticed was the office, in the elaborate
clutter of which Mr. Macaulay seemed to have disappeared. It was a
large, square room, its walls paneled from the Oriental rugs to the
high, carved ceiling. Two tall windows draped in red velvet showed
glimpses of rooftops and river through lace curtains. Every available
piece of wall was covered with pictures: photographs of people who were
surely actors and actresses, paintings of people and of places, heavily
framed etchings, newspaper clippings, book jackets, theater programs,
old theater posters, magazine articles and, apparently, everything else
that could possibly fit into a frame. Where there were not pictures,
there were books, except for one narrow wall space between the windows,
where there was a small marble fireplace, over the mantel of which rose
a tall mirror. The mantel itself was a jumble of pipes, tobacco tins,
more pictures in small frames, china figurines, candlesticks and boxes
assembled around a pendulum clock which stood motionless under a
bell-shaped glass cover.
In one corner of the room was a heavily carved black grand piano,
covered with a fringed cloth and stacked high with ragged piles of sheet
music, play scripts, books, more pipes, more pictures.
In the opposite corner stood an immense desk, also heavily carved, and
behind its incredibly cluttered surface rose the tall back of a
thronelike chair. In the chair, almost lost from view, sat Mr. Macaulay.
When Peggy first realized he was there, she almost laughed, thinking of
various animals whose protective coloration lets them melt into their
natural backgrounds, the way the dappled coat of a deer seems merely
more of the forest pattern of light and shade.
Mr. Macaulay was as ornate as his room. He was a small, round man who
concealed a cherubic smile beneath a pair of curly, white handlebar
mustaches. His red cheeks and white hair made the perfect setting for
bright blue eyes that glittered behind an old-fashioned pair of
pince-nez glasses perched precariously on his nose. A black ribbon from
the eyeglasses ended in a gold fitting secured in his lapel. The round
expanse of his shirt front was covered by a brocaded, double-breasted
vest such as Peggy had never seen except in movies set in the Gay
Nineties, and when Mr. Macaulay rose in smiling greeting and came around
the end of the desk, Peggy could not help looking down to see if he wore
gray spats. He did.
“Welcome!” Mr. Macaulay boomed in a surprising bass voice. “Now let’s
sit down and talk this over.” He motioned Peggy to sit on one of a pair
of straight-backed chairs, while he stood by the other with one foot up
on its petit-point seat.
“Now,” he said abruptly, “what makes you think you can act?”
Taken aback, Peggy stammered a little. “Well ... well, I’ve been in a
lot of plays in college and high school and ... and I always got good
reviews ... I mean, everybody always thought that I was....”
“Won’t do.” Mr. Macaulay cut in decisively. “You’re telling me why other
people think you can act. What I want to know is why _you_ think you can
act.”
This time, Peggy answered with more control. “I don’t really think I
can, Mr. Macaulay,” she said calmly and earnestly, “even though I did
get those good notices. But I know that I want to, and I hope that I can
learn here.”
“A good answer!” the little director thundered happily. “Now tell me
_why_ you want to act, and how you _know_ it’s what you really want to
do, and we’ll be well on the way to a lasting friendship.”
Peggy thought for a minute before answering. She sensed that her answer
would be important in deciding whether she would be accepted as a member
of the Academy or not, and she wanted to be sure that the words were a
true reflection of what she wanted to say.
“Mr. Macaulay, I want to act for the same reason that I grew up in
Rockport, Wisconsin. It just happened. I didn’t choose it; it chose me.
And I know it’s what I really want because when I’m acting, I feel about
one hundred per cent more alive than when I’m not—and it’s a wonderful
feeling.”
Mr. Macaulay nodded solemnly, removed his foot from the chair and walked
twice around the room in silence, neatly dodging the chairs and tables
that filled the place. As he seemed to be starting a third circuit of
the room, he stopped, turned and replaced his foot on the chair.
“Young lady,” the little director said softly, “if you’re any more alive
on the stage than you are right here in this room, you’ll light up the
audience like an arc lamp!”
Then he strode rapidly to the door, opened it, and turned to smile
warmly at Peggy. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you,” he said.
“But, Mr. Macaulay,” Peggy said, “won’t you even give me a chance to
read for you? I’ve got three short selections prepared, and—”
“Not for at least six months,” the director cut in. “I never hear
readings from beginners.”