[Illustration: _“I know,” Peggy said excitedly. “But which airline?”_]
PEGGY LANE THEATER STORIES
_Peggy Plays Off-Broadway_
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 Cast Call 1
2 The Hopefuls 12
3 First Reading 21
4 A Shy Angel 30
5 An Unexpected Scene 39
6 Two Acts of Faith 50
7 An Intermission 58
8 Curtain Fall 69
9 One for the Money 80
10 Two for the Show 93
11 Three to Make Ready 108
12 Which Way to Go? 119
13 A Decision 130
14 Race Against Time 137
15 Act One 152
16 Act Two 161
17 S. R. O. 167
PEGGY PLAYS OFF-BROADWAY
I
Cast Call
“First casting calls are so difficult,” Peggy Lane said, looking
ruefully at the fifty or more actresses and actors who milled about
nervously, chatting with one another, or sat on the few folding chairs
trying to read.
“With only nine roles to be filled,” she continued, “it doesn’t matter
how good these people are; most of them just haven’t got a chance. I
can’t help feeling sorry for them—for all of us, I mean. After all, I’m
trying for a part, too.”
Peggy’s friend and housemate, Amy Preston, smiled in agreement and said,
“It’s not an easy business, honey, is it? But the ones I feel sorriest
for right now are Mal and Randy. After all, they have the unpleasant job
of choosing and refusing, and a lot of these folks are their friends. I
wouldn’t want to be in their shoes.”
Peggy nodded thoughtfully, and reflected that it must, indeed, be more
wearing on the boys. Mallory Seton, director of the new play, had been
an upper-class student at the Academy when Peggy had started there, and
he was a good friend of hers. She had worked with him before, as a
general assistant, when they had discovered a theater. It would not be
easy for him to consider Peggy for an acting role, and to do so
completely without bias. It would not be a question of playing
favorites, Peggy knew, but quite the reverse. Mal’s sense of fair play
would make him bend over backward to keep from giving favors to his
friends. If she was to get a role in this new production, she would
really have to work for it.
And if it was difficult for Mal, she thought, it was more so for Randy
Brewster, the author of the play, for her friendship with him was of a
different sort than with Mal. Mal was just a friend—a good one, to be
sure—but with Randy Brewster, somehow, things were different. There was
nothing “serious,” she assured herself, but they had gone on dates
together with a regularity that was a little more than casual and,
whatever his feelings were for her, she was sure that they were more
complicated than Mal’s.
“Do you think they’ll ever get through all these people?” Amy asked,
interrupting her thoughts. “How can they hope to hear so many actors
read for them in just one afternoon?”
“Oh, they won’t be doing readings today,” Peggy replied, glad to turn
her attention from what was becoming a difficult subject for thought.
“This is just a first cast call. All they want to do today is pick
people for type. They’ll select all the possible ones, send the
impossible ones away, and then go into elimination readings later.”
“But what if the people they pick for looks can’t act?” Amy asked. “And
what if some of the rejects are wonderful actors?”
“They won’t go back to the rejects,” Peggy explained, “because they both
have a pretty good idea of what the characters in the play should look
like. And if the people they pick aren’t good enough actors, then they
hold another cast call and try again. Mal says that sometimes certain
parts are so hard to cast that they have to go through a dozen calls
just to find one actor.”
“It seems kind of unfair, doesn’t it, to be eliminated just because
you’re not the right physical type,” Amy said, “but I can understand it.
They have to start somewhere, and I guess that’s as good a place as
any.” Then she smiled and added, “I guess I’m just feeling sorry for
myself, because Mal told me there was no sense in my trying out at all,
because I didn’t look or sound right for any part in the play. If I
don’t get rid of this Southern accent of mine, I may never get a part at
all, except in a Tennessee Williams play!”
Peggy nodded sympathetically. “But it wasn’t just your accent, Amy,” she
said. “It’s your looks, too. At least for this play. Mal and Randy told
you that you’re just too pretty for any of the parts that fit your age,
and that’s nothing to feel bad about. If anybody ought to feel insulted,
it’s me, because they asked me to try out!”
“Oh, they were just sweet-talking me,” Amy replied. “And as for you, you
know you don’t have to worry about your looks. You have a wonderful
face! You can look beautiful, or comic, or pathetic, or cute or
anything. I’m stuck with just being a South’n Belle, blond and helpless,
po’ li’l ol’ me, lookin’ sad and sweet through those ol’ magnolia
blossoms!” She broadened her slight, soft accent until it sounded like
something you could spread on hot cornbread, and both girls broke into
laughter that sounded odd in the strained atmosphere of the bare
rehearsal studio.
It was at this point that Mal and Randy came in, with pleasant, if
somewhat brisk, nods to the assembled actors and actresses, and a
special smile for Amy and Peggy. In a businesslike manner, they settled
themselves at a table near the windows, spread out scripts and pads and
pencils, and prepared for the chore that faced them. Amy, who was there
to help the boys by acting as secretary for the occasion, wished Peggy
good luck, and joined the boys at the table. Her job was to take names
and addresses, and to jot down any facts about each actor that Randy and
Mal wanted to be sure to remember.
Mal started the proceedings by introducing himself and Randy. Then,
estimating the crowd, he said, “Since there are fewer men here, and also
fewer male roles to cast, we’re going to do them first. I hope that you
ladies won’t mind. We won’t keep you waiting long, but if we worked with
you first, we’d have these gentlemen waiting most of the day. Shall we
get started?” After a brief glance at his notes, he called out, “First,
I’d like to see businessman types, young forties. How many have we?”
Four men separated themselves from the crowd and approached the table.
Peggy watched with interest as Mal and Randy looked them over, murmured
to Amy to take notes, and asked questions. After a few minutes, the men
left, two of them looking happy, two resigned. Then Mal stood and called
for leading man types, late twenties or early thirties, tall and
athletic. As six tall, athletic, handsome young men came forward, Peggy
felt that she just couldn’t stand watching the casting interviews any
longer. It reminded her too much of the livestock shows she had attended
as a youngster in her home town of Rockport, Wisconsin. Necessary though
it was, she felt it was hardly a way to have to deal with human beings.
Slipping back through the crowd of waiting actors, she joined the
actresses in the rear of the room, and found an empty seat next to a
young girl.
“Hi,” she said. “What’s the matter, can’t you watch it either?”
The girl smiled in understanding. “It always upsets me,” she replied,
“but it’s something we simply have to learn to live with. At least until
we get well-known, or get agents to do this sort of thing for us.”
“It sounds as if you’ve been in a few of these before,” Peggy said.
“I have. But not here in the East,” the girl replied. “I’m from
California, and I’ve been in a few little-theater things there, but
nobody seems to pay much attention to them. I heard that off-Broadway
theater in New York attracts a lot of critics, and I thought that I’d do
better here. Have you had any luck?”
“Oh, I’m just beginning,” Peggy said. “I’m still studying at the New
York Dramatic Academy. I hope I can get some kind of supporting role in
this play, but I don’t think I’m ready for anything big yet. By the way,
my name is Peggy Lane. What’s yours?”
“I’m Paula Andrews,” the girl answered, “and maybe I’m shooting too
high, but I’m trying out for the female lead. I hope I have a chance for
it.”
Peggy looked carefully at her new friend, at the somewhat uncertain
smile that played about her well-formed, generous mouth and the
intelligence that shone from her large, widely placed green eyes. Her
rather long face was saved from severity by a soft halo of red-brown
hair, the whole effect being an appealing combination of strength and
feminine softness.
“I think you do have a chance,” Peggy said. “In fact, if you can act, I
bet you’ll get the part. I’ve read the play, and I know the author and
director, and unless I’m way off, you look just the way the lead should
look. In fact, it’s almost uncanny. You look as if you just walked out
of the script!”
“Oh, I hope you’re right!” Paula said with animation. “And I hope you
get a part, too. I have a feeling that you’re going to bring me good
luck!”
“The one who needs luck is me, I’m afraid,” Peggy said. “Being friendly
with Randy and Mal isn’t going to help me in the least, and I’m going to
have to be awfully good to get the part. And it’s really important to
me, too, because I’m getting near the end of my trial year.”
“Trial year?” Paula asked curiously.
“Uh-huh. My parents agreed to let me come to New York to study acting
and try for parts for a year, and I agreed that if I didn’t show signs
of success before the year was up, I’d come home and go back to college.
I’ve been here for eight months now, and I haven’t got anything to show
my parents yet. The part I’m trying for now isn’t a big one, but it’s a
good supporting role, and what’s more, we get paid. If I can show my
mother and father that I can earn some money by acting, I’m sure that
they’ll let me go on trying.”
“But do you expect to make enough to live on right away?” Paula asked.
“Oh, no! I’m not that naïve! But when my year is over at the Academy, I
can always take a job as a typist or a secretary somewhere, while I look
for parts. If you can type and take shorthand, you never have to worry
about making a living.”
“I wish that I could do those things,” Paula said wistfully. “The only
way I’ve been able to make ends meet is by working in department stores
as a salesgirl, and that doesn’t pay much. Besides, the work is so
unsteady.”
“My parents are very practical people,” Peggy said with a smile, “and
they made sure that I learned routine office skills before they would
let me think about other and more glamorous kinds of careers. Daddy owns
the newspaper in our small town in Wisconsin, and I’ve worked with him
as a typist and a reporter of sorts and as a proofreader, too. I’ll
always be grateful that he made me learn all those things. I don’t think
he has much faith in the acting business, but he’s been wonderful about
giving me a chance. What do your parents think of your wanting to be an
actress?”
Instead of answering, Paula suddenly stood up. “Let’s go see how they’re
coming with the actors,” she said. “I think they’re almost finished.”
Not wanting to press Paula further, and feeling that perhaps she had
asked too personal a question on such short acquaintance, Peggy
reluctantly stood too, and joined Paula to watch the last of what she
now could only think of as the livestock show.
As she drew closer to the table, she heard Mal saying, “I’m really
sorry, Mr. Lang, but you’re just not the right type for the role.
Perhaps some other....” and his voice trailed off in embarrassment.
Lang, a short, thin, unhappy young man, answered almost tearfully, “But,
Mr. Seton, looks aren’t everything. I’m really a funny comedian.
Honestly! If you would only give me a chance to read for you, I know
that I could make you change your mind about the way this character
should look!”
“I don’t doubt that you could,” Mal said gently, “but if you did, the
play would suffer. I’m afraid the comedian we need for this must be a
large, rather bluff-looking person, like these three gentlemen whom I
have chosen to hear. The part calls for it. I’m sorry.”
Mr. Lang nodded sadly, mumbled, “I understand,” and walked off, his head
hanging and his hands thrust deep in his pockets, looking less like a
comedian than any man in the world. Peggy watched him go, not knowing
whether to feel sorrier for him or for Mal.
“All right, gentlemen,” Mal called out. “That takes care of the male
roles. All of you who are left will be given copies of the play to
study, marked at the passages I want to hear. Be sure to read the whole
play carefully, so that you understand the workings of the characters
you have been selected to read. You have three days to look it over.
We’ll meet at ten o’clock on Saturday morning at the Penthouse Theater
to hear you. Thank you. And now for the ladies.”
The men left, after being given their scripts, and though they chatted
amiably with one another, Peggy was sure that each was casting rather
hostile looks toward others who were trying for the same parts. Keeping
friendships in the theater was not an easy thing, she thought,
particularly for people of similar physical types!
Mal’s first concern in reviewing the actresses was, of course, for the
leading role. And, of course, it was for this role that he had the most
applicants. More than twenty girls came forward when the announcement
was made, and Peggy thought that she had never seen so many striking and
beautiful faces and figures. It was not going to be easy for Mal to make
a choice. As Paula, her new friend, went forward to join the others,
Peggy whispered a word of encouragement, then stood to one side to
watch.
Mal went down the line, regretfully dismissing one after the other of
the girls, and occasionally asking one to step aside to try for another
role. His tough-looking expression hardly varied as he spoke to each
one, but Peggy thought she saw the ghost of a smile cross his face when
he spoke to Paula Andrews. Another review of the remaining girls
eliminated a few more. Finally, there were only four left, Paula among
them. Mal thanked them, distributed scripts, and asked them to be at the
Penthouse Theater on Saturday at noon.
Paula returned to Peggy with eyes shining. “Oh, Peggy! I think you were
right! I just know I’m going to get the part! I know it!”
“Don’t count too much on it,” Peggy cautioned, “or you may be too
bitterly disappointed if you don’t get it. But,” she added,
enthusiastically violating her own rule of caution, “I’m sure, too! I’ll
see you Saturday. Even if I don’t get a script, I’ll be there just to
hear you read!”
Then, with a smile of farewell, Peggy turned her attention to the
“career woman, early thirties” classification that Mal had called for
next. Once that was out of the way, she knew it would be her turn.
This time, there were not so many applicants and Peggy remembered Randy
telling her that this would be one of their most difficult roles to
cast. Only four actresses came forward, and Mal, with difficulty,
reviewed them all. Unable to eliminate by type, he gave them all scripts
and asked them to come to the theater. Then he called for “character
ingénues” and Peggy joined seven other girls in the “livestock show.”
Mal reviewed them carefully, managing to look at Peggy with complete
lack of recognition. He gently eliminated three of them on the basis of
hair coloring, height or general type. Another, curiously enough, was
eliminated, like Amy, for a Southern accent, and a fifth, also like Amy,
was too beautiful. “The part calls for a pretty girl,” Mal said with a
rare smile, “but not for a girl so pretty that she’ll dominate the
stage! It was a pleasure to look at you, but I’m afraid you’re not quite
right for the part.”
When he was done, Peggy and two others were given scripts and told to
come to the theater on Saturday. Feeling lightheaded and giddy, Peggy
settled herself on one of the folding chairs that lined the back wall,
and waited for Mal, Randy, and Amy to finish so she could join them for
coffee.
Scarcely noticing the rest of the proceedings, she thought only about
the coming readings. She was so familiar with the play that she knew she
had an advantage, perhaps unfairly, over the other two girls. She had
watched the script grow from its first rough draft to the finished text
now in her hands, and had discussed it with Randy through each revision.
She knew she could play the part; in fact, she suspected secretly that
Randy had written it for her, and the thought made her blush. Still, it
would not be easy, she knew. Mal’s sense of fairness and his absolute
devotion to the play above everything else would keep him from making up
his mind in advance.
But despite this knowledge, she could not help looking ahead—all the way
ahead—to the restless stir of the opening-night audience out front, the
last-minute preparations backstage, the bright, hot lights and the smell
of make-up and scenery paint as she waited to go on in Act One, Scene
One of _Come Closer_, Randy Brewster’s brilliant new play in which Peggy
Lane would be discovered!
II
The Hopefuls
The audience consisted of a handful of actors and actresses, and Randy
Brewster and Mallory Seton. The stage lighting was a cold splash
produced by two floodlights without color gels to soften them. The
scenery was the brick back wall of the stage, two ladders, a table and
two straight-backed chairs. Only the front row of house lights was on,
and the back of the theater was dark, empty and gloomy, a shadowy
wasteland of empty rows of seats like tombstones.
On the stage, a “businessman type” was reading his lines. Peggy knew,
after the first few words, that he would not do. He had somehow
completely missed the character of the man he was portraying, and was
heavily overplaying. Mal, being perhaps more patient than Peggy,
listened and watched with great care. Amy, who was acting as Mal’s
assistant for the production, sat in a chair by the proscenium, reading
her script by the light of a small lamp and feeding the actor cue lines.
Mal followed the whole sequence with no visible sign of impatience and,
when the actor was through, said, “Thank you. We’ll let you know our
decision in a day or two.”
The next “businessman type” was better, but still not quite on target,
Peggy thought. He seemed to be playing the part for laughs, and although
there were some comic values to be extracted from the role, it was
really far more a straight dramatic character. Still, he was clearly a
better actor than the first, and with direction might do well.
Following his reading, Mal again repeated his polite, invariable
formula, “Thank you. We’ll let you know our decision in a day or two,”
and called for the next reading.
Peggy watched the remaining actors try for the role, and made mental
notes of which ones were possible, which probable, and which stood no
chance at all.
The same process was then followed for the leading men, and the same
wide range of talent and understanding of the part was displayed. Some
seemed to have no idea at all about the play or its meaning, and Peggy
was sure that these men had read only the parts marked for them. Others
had a clear understanding of the kind of character they were playing,
and tried to create him in the brief time they had on stage. Others
still were actors who had one rather inflexible way of playing, and used
it for all kinds of parts. Their performances were uniform imitations of
each other, and all were imitations of the early acting style of Marlon
Brando. They seemed to forget, Peggy thought, that Brando’s style
developed from the roles he had to play, and that as he got other roles,
he showed other facets of a rounded talent. It made her angry that some
actors thought they could get ahead in a creative field by being
imitative.
Each actor, no matter how good or how bad, was treated with impersonal
courtesy by Mal, and each left looking sure that the part was his. Peggy
was glad that she would not have to see their faces when they learned
that they had not been selected.
“The pity of it,” she whispered to Randy, “isn’t that there are so many
bad ones, but that there are so many good ones, and that only one can be
selected for each role. I wish there were some way of telling the good
ones you can’t take that they were really good, but that you just
couldn’t take everyone!”
“You can’t let yourself worry about that,” Randy replied. “The good ones
know they’re good, and they’re not going to be discouraged by the loss
of a role. And the bad ones think they’re good, too, and most of them
have tremendous egos to protect them from ever finding out—or even
thinking—otherwise!”
The door at the back of the theater opened quietly, and Peggy, turning
around in her seat, saw a few of the actresses entering. They quietly
found seats in the rear and settled down to await their turn.
“I think I’ll go back there with the girls,” Peggy whispered. “I’m
looking for a girl I met at the casting call, and I’d like to chat with
her for a few minutes when she comes. Do you mind if I don’t look at all
this?”
Randy grinned. “Go ahead. I’d get out of here, too, if I could without
getting Mal mad at me. This kind of thing always breaks my heart, too!”
As she went up the aisle as unobtrusively as possible, Peggy glanced at
the actresses who had just come in. She recognized a few of their faces
from the casting call of three days ago, but did not see her new friend
among them. She decided to go out to the lobby to wait for her there. A
new group of girls entered the theater as Peggy was leaving and, as she
passed, one reached out and grabbed her arm.
Peggy turned in surprise to find herself greeted with a broad grin and a
quick companionable kiss.
“Greta!” she cried. “What are you doing here?”
“Come on out to the lobby, and I’ll tell you,” Greta Larsen said, with a
toss of her head that made her thick blond braid spin around and settle
over her shoulder.
“But I thought you were in New Haven, getting ready to open _Over the
Hill_,” Peggy said, when they had reached the lobby. “What on earth are
you doing here?”
“I’m afraid you don’t read your _Variety_ very carefully,” Greta said.
“_Over the Hill_ opened in New Haven to such bad notices that the
producer decided to close out of town. At first we thought he’d call in
a play doctor to try to fix things up, but he finally decided, and very
sensibly, that it would be easier to just throw the whole thing out. I’m
afraid he lost a lot of money, and he didn’t have any more left.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Peggy said. “And it was a real chance for you,
wasn’t it?”
“Not really,” Greta said. “The part wasn’t too good, and I’d just as
soon not be in a disaster. Anyway, it gave me a chance to work for a few
weeks, and an agent saw me and said he thought I was good, so maybe I’m
not any the worse for the experience.”
At that moment, Peggy saw Paula Andrews enter the lobby, and she
motioned to her to join them. “Greta, this is Paula Andrews. She’s
reading for the lead today, and I hope she gets it. Paula, I want you to
meet Greta Larsen, one of my housemates.”
“Housemates?” Paula questioned, a little puzzled.
“Yes. There are about a dozen of us, more or less. We live in a place
called the Gramercy Arms—a wonderful place—and we live like one big
noisy family. The Arms is run just for young actresses, so we all have a
lot in common. I haven’t seen Greta for weeks—she’s been out of town
with a play—and I’m just getting over being stunned at seeing her now.”
“Peggy tactfully neglected to mention that the play flopped,” Greta
laughed, “and now I’m back in town without a job. In fact, that’s why
I’m here.”
“You mean you’re going to read for Mal?” Peggy asked excitedly.
“Uh-huh. I met him on the street an hour or so ago, and he told me he
had a part he thought I should try out for, and that he was thinking of
me for it all along, but assumed that I wouldn’t be available. Well, you
can’t be more available than I am, so here I am!”
“Have you read the play?” Paula asked.
“I’m lucky there,” Greta replied. “I’ve seen it in three different
drafts since it started. Peggy’s friendly with Randy Brewster, the boy
who wrote it, and each time she brought a draft home, I got to read it.
So I’m not at a disadvantage.”
“What do you think of _Come Closer_, Paula?” asked Peggy.
“I think it’s wonderful! I hope more than ever that I get the part! Do
you really think I have a chance?”
Greta nodded decisively. “If you can act, you’re made for it,” she said.
“That’s just what Peggy said!”
Peggy stole a glance through the doors to the theater. “I think we’re
about ready to find out whether or not you can act,” she said. “They
seem to be about through with the actors, and that means you’re on
next!”
Wishing each other good luck, they entered the darkened part of the
house and prepared for what Peggy could only think of as their ordeal.
Afterward, as Peggy, Amy, Paula, and Greta sat at a table in a nearby
coffeehouse waiting for Mal and Randy to join them, each was sure that
she had been terrible.
“Oh, no!” Peggy said. “You two were just marvelous! But I couldn’t have
been worse. I know I read the part wrong. I thought I had the character
clear in my mind, but I’m sure that the way it came out was a mile off!”
“You have a lot more talent than judgment,” Greta said mournfully. “You
were perfect. And so was Paula. As for me....” Her voice trailed off in
despair.
“I don’t know how you can say that, Greta,” Paula put in. “I know you
were the best in your part, and nobody even came close to Peggy. But
I’ve never felt so off in my life as I did reading that part. It’s a
wonder any of you even want to be seen with me!”
Only when Amy started to laugh did the three others realize how much
alike they had sounded. Then they joined in the laughter and couldn’t
seem to stop. When they seemed at the point of dissolving helplessly
into a permanent attack of the giggles, Randy and Mal joined them.
“If you’re laughing at the play,” Randy said gloomily, “I can hardly
blame you. You never know just how badly you’ve written until someone
gets up and starts to read your lines.”
All at the same time, the girls started to reassure him and tell him how
good the play was, and how badly the actors, including themselves, had
handled the lines, but this was so much like their last exchange of
conversation that once more they broke up in helpless laughter.
When they got their breath back, and when coffee and pastry had been
ordered, they tried to explain the cause of their hilarity to the boys.
“... so, you see,” Peggy concluded, “we were each explaining how good
the others were and how bad we were, and when Randy started telling us
how bad he had been as a writer, we just couldn’t stand it!”
It was Mal who got them back to sane ground. With his tough face, like a
movie gangster’s or private detective’s, and his gentle, cultured
English voice and assured manner, he calmly gave his opinion of the
afternoon’s auditions.
“First of all, I think the dialogue plays remarkably well, Randy. It’s a
good play, and I don’t think there’ll be too many changes to worry
about. Secondly, you’re all right and you’re all wrong. I might as well
tell you now that you each have the part you tried out for. I’m very
pleased with you, and proud to have you in the cast.”
Peggy and Greta excitedly embraced each other, and when they turned to
do the same to Paula, were dismayed to see that she was crying. “What’s
wrong?” Peggy asked. “Is anything the matter?”
“Oh, no,” Paula wailed, trying to smile through her tears. “It’s just
that I wanted this so much, and I’m so happy, and I started to laugh and
it came out tears....” She rummaged for her pack of tissues, dabbed her
eyes, and emerged with a radiant smile.
“There, that’s better,” Randy said.
“The tears were all right too,” Mal said. “I feel like doing the same
thing when I’m really happy, but it wouldn’t go with my face. It looks
great on yours!”
By the time the coffee and pastry arrived, Paula’s emotional storm had
so far been put behind her that she fell on the cakes with the appetite
of a lumberjack.
“A little restraint, please, madam,” Mal said, “or you’ll lose your
part. We want a nice, slim leading lady, not a butterball! You’re in
training now!”
“Let me take them,” Greta said. “I have a fat, round face to begin with,
and you wouldn’t have picked me if you wanted a sylph for the part.
You’ll never notice a few ounces more!”
“I’m sorry to tell you that we not only would notice it, but we’d mind
it very much,” Mal said, “but nobody minds a fat director. So....” He
reached for the cause of the debate.
“What I can’t understand,” Greta said, “is how you picked me for the
part. Why did you want me to try for a thirtyish career girl role? I’m
not really the physical type, and those other girls were. Will you tell
me?”
“Just a hunch,” Mal said. “You’ll be the type with your hair out of that
braid and put up, and with a little make-up to age you a few years. I
felt that you had the kind of crisp delivery we wanted, and it looks as
though I was right. As for Peggy, it’s as if the part were written for
her.” This last he said with a sly side look at Randy, who reddened
slightly. “And as for Paula, well....” He broke off and looked at her
intently.
“I don’t know what it is, but the minute I saw you in cast call, I knew
you were our girl. And when I heard you read, I knew that I hadn’t made
a mistake. There’s something about you ... some quality that I seem to
recognize ... I suppose it’s talent. But that’s enough of compliments.
If we don’t get out of here, we’ll soon be writing long epic poems to
each other’s genius.”
So, finishing their coffee with a toast to the success of _Come Closer_,
they said their good nights and parted outside the coffeehouse.
“Don’t forget,” Mal called after them, “rehearsal Monday night. See you
then!” He walked off with Paula, and Randy escorted Peggy, Amy, and
Greta back to the Gramercy Arms.
III
First Reading
Peggy was at stage center, under a bright bank of floodlights. Amy
entered from stage right, crossed down center and turned her back to the
house to look upstage. She paused a moment before speaking.
Her position, back to the audience, would have been unforgivable if
there had been an audience, and her lines, when she spoke them, were
scarcely dramatic.
“You have paint on the side of your nose,” she said, “and there’s a rip
in the seat of your jeans. Now where I come from, no lady....”
“The same to you,” Peggy grinned, looking around from the flat she was
painting. “At least, the same to you as regards the paint on your nose.
I can’t see the seat of your jeans from here!”
Amy put down the bucket of paint that she had brought with her and
stepped back to the apron of the stage to get a better look at Peggy’s
handiwork. It was a small wing flat that was to represent the corner of
a frame house. A window frame had already been installed in it, and
later the suggestion of a back porch would be added. Peggy was busy with
the somewhat tedious work of painting clapboards on the flat canvas.
Each was made with two lines of gray paint drawn across the
white-painted surface; first a dark line, then a somewhat broader
light-gray line. From working distance, it looked like nothing but
striped canvas, but from a few feet away, the dimensional effect was
surprisingly real. Peggy joined Amy at the edge of the stage to get a
look at what she had been doing.
“It looks pretty good, doesn’t it?” she asked.
Amy nodded. “Keep it up, honey child, and you may find a real niche for
yourself in the theater!”
Laughing, the two friends worked together on the flat, each using one of
the shades of gray. The work went much faster now, which pleased Peggy,
because she didn’t want to leave the flat half-finished when it was time
for her to stop and go to her section of the readings.
In the early part of working on a play, the stage is seldom used. First
readings usually take place in small groups gathered in any convenient
spot, and it is not until the actors are fairly familiar with their
lines and with the way the director wants them read that the play begins
to take form on the stage. _Come Closer_ was in the earliest days of
rehearsal, and Mal was still in the first stages of familiarizing
himself with his cast and them with the play.
The Penthouse Theater was ideally suited for the work they were doing.
It was actually a very old theater which Peggy and Amy had discovered,
under exciting and mysterious circumstances, when they had first come to
New York and met Randy and Mal. The theater itself occupied the top
floor of an old loft building, and when Randy and Mal had leased it,
they had rented the whole building. Both the theater and the other
floors below it had seen much alteration since, and it was now a unique
actors’ workshop from top to bottom.
The boys had converted part of the loft space into compact apartments
for themselves, and other rooms into living quarters for young actors
whose rent, although low by city standards, was still enough to pay most
of the costs of operating the building. The ground floor had been turned
into a series of rehearsal studios, which, when not being used by Randy
and Mal for a current play of their own, were rented to other groups. In
its short time of operation, the Penthouse Theater had already become an
off-Broadway institution.
For Randy and Mal it had proved to be the best thing that had ever
happened to them. It not only gave them a theater in which they could
stage their productions, but it gave them enough income so that they no
longer had to work at other jobs while trying to pursue their careers in
the theater world.
Before, Randy had worked in small night clubs as a song-and-dance man—a
way of life for which he had the deepest contempt. Mal had been an actor
in movies and television where, because of his tough face, he had been
type-cast as a gangster. He not only didn’t like gangster roles, he
found it hard to get them because of the cultured English accent that
issued so surprisingly from that face. For both boys, the Penthouse
Theater meant a new life and new opportunity, doing Randy’s plays,
directed by Mal.
Peggy and Amy put the last touches on the clapboard wall, stepped back
to review the work, and smiled with satisfaction.
“It looks perfect,” Peggy said. “Now I just hope that we stretched the
canvas tight enough on the frame in the first place, so that it doesn’t
flutter if somebody bumps into it. If anything looks terrible, it’s a
clapboard wall that flutters!”
“I think it’s tight enough,” Amy said, “and besides, if it isn’t, it’s
too late to think about it now.”
“You’re right,” Peggy agreed. “Not only that, but I think it’s too late
to think about anything right now but my part. I’ve got to clean up and
be downstairs for a reading in five minutes. Do you want to keep working
here, or will you come down to hear us?”
“I’ve got to come to hear you,” Amy said, “whether I like it or not. Mal
asked me to work out the first go-round with you and make notes on the
script as we go. He’ll be in to hear you and the others in about an
hour.”
“Like it or not!” Peggy said in mock indignation. “What makes you think
there’s even a chance you won’t like it? I propose to be brilliant!”
Of course she knew better. Brilliance is not in the picture in these
early readings. A half hour later, in Studio 3, having gone once through
Act Two, Scene Two, she realized wryly just how far from brilliance they
were!
The play, which Randy described as a fantasy, or a “modern morality
play,” was not an easy one for the actors. The parts could, with too
broad a reading, descend into farce or, with not just the right quality
of the fantastic, slide off into dullness. The setting was a resort
which was, in actuality, a sort of rest home for wealthy people who
needed to get away from themselves for a while—or to find themselves.
The point of the play, which gradually emerged, was that each of the
characters had somehow led at least two distinct kinds of lives and had
found both of them unsatisfactory. All the people in the play were
trying, in whatever ways they could, to find some third or fourth kind
of life that might be more pleasant and satisfying than the last; all of
them were getting more confused every day they tried.
Peggy’s part, then, was not easy. She was playing the role of a young
girl of twenty-one who had been a very successful child movie star, but
who had not made a picture since she was twelve. Realizing that she was
through with show business, she had tried to pretend that she was just
an ordinary person who could live an ordinary life. She had gone through
college and started work as a secretary, keeping secret the fact that
she had been a movie star. But shortly before the play opens, she has
suddenly come into the fortune which she had earned as a child, but
which had been held in trust for her. The money confuses her, and the
publicity she gets when the story of the money comes out makes it
impossible for her to continue as a secretary.
The difficulty for Peggy was in making this character seem true and
alive. This meant that the personalities of an ex-child movie star, a
quiet, precise secretary, and a bewildered new heiress must all be
combined in one believable whole.
Each of the other actors had a similar problem of dual personality, and
they all had great difficulty not only in interpreting each role, but in
deciding how any two or more characters were to speak to each other.
Part of the point of the play, cleverly conceived and written by Randy,
was that each character brought out one special aspect of each other
character, so that Peggy had to act quite differently, almost minute by
minute, depending on whom she was speaking to.
Their first efforts in this reading were often so wrong as to be
hilarious. The scene included Peggy, Greta, the “businessman type” who
was an affable, charming man named Alan Douglas, and the comedian, a
roly-poly actor named Gil Mulligan. Their attempts at finding a suitable
kind of relationship for this scene were not very successful, and they
were so intent on establishing character that they often paid very
little attention to their lines, and garbled the words. To make matters
worse, Mulligan had a knack of taking each “fluff,” which is what actors
call a mistake, and carrying it on one step farther toward madness. When
Mal finally arrived to see how the group was doing, they were all
doubled up in helpless laughter.
When they had caught their breath, Amy tried to explain to Mal. “The
characters are so shifting,” she said, “that everybody’s confused about
how they’re supposed to act to whom. Or am I confusing it more? Anyway,
they’ve all been fluffing lines like mad.”
“Of course,” Mal said matter-of-factly. “Wrong approach, and all of you
should have known it. It’s far too early in the game to try to define
your characters. You have more than enough work to do in just getting
your lines down cold. What I want you to do for a while is just to go
over the lines and learn your cues. Read your parts straight. After
you’re easy in what you’re doing, we’ll work at establishing character
and shifting viewpoint and response. Besides—and pardon me if I sound
like a tyrannical director—I’d rather you wouldn’t play around with
character development when I’m not here. Now, have you read the scene
through yet?”
“Nearly,” Peggy answered, “if you can call what we’ve been doing a
reading. I don’t think any of us benefited much by it, though.”
“All right,” Mal answered. “Don’t worry about it. Why don’t you start it
again from the top? I think we have time to go through it at least one
time, just to get the feel of it. Then you can all go off by yourselves
to learn your own sides.”
This time, with no worrying about character, the scene went smoothly.
Almost mechanically, Peggy thought. At first she could not understand
the point of having them all just sit around and read the words of the
scene to each other without any attempt at acting, but gradually she
began to appreciate the value of the method. As each one read in turn,
she discovered that every actor had his own personal style or rhythm of
reading, a rhythm which, by the end of the scene, she was beginning to
catch and anticipate. By the time they were done, she thought that she
could tell fairly accurately in advance how each would read his next
line. Now that they weren’t trying to make themselves fit the parts,
they fell easily into their own natural patterns of speech.
Things went much more quickly in this fashion, and they were able to run
through the scene twice before it was time to call a halt. The second
time around was much smoother, Peggy noticed, and as they worked, the
pattern of the scene and the interplay of the characters began to
emerge. When it was done, all the actors agreed that they now had a much
clearer idea of what they were doing, and would be better able to go
home and study their lines.
As they were on their way out, Peggy fell into step alongside Mal. “I
noticed that you didn’t say a word about how we should read,” she said,
“and I also noticed that the individual reading styles of the people
were pretty clear this time. Is that what you were after?”
“Exactly,” Mal said. “You’re catching on to the tricks pretty quickly,
Peggy. You see, a director has to work with actors, as well as with a
play. I can’t force anyone to fit precisely into my own preconceived
notions of a character, because if I tried, the performance would be
stiff and unnatural. What I have to do first is get to understand the
actors as they are, and then start building from there. That’s why a
Broadway play has a much better chance than an off-Broadway venture.
When you’re working with stars, you have known quantities—and
qualities—and you cast people who already correspond to your own vision
of the part. But when you have to work with unknown actors, you must
remember that they’re unknown to the director as well as to the
audience. Because of this, my first job is to get to know them as they
are, and to get the feel of each one’s natural way of reading a line.
Then I can build on that.”
“My, there sure are a lot of hidden problems in directing a play,” Amy
said. “I used to think of a director as a kind of wild-animal tamer,
standing in the middle of a ring of snarling actors with a whip and a
chair, and making them jump through hoops, but it’s more complicated
than that, isn’t it?”
Mal laughed. “The wild-animal trainer’s life isn’t so simple, either,”
he said with a mischievous grin. “After all, they have to understand the
psychology of lions and tigers, and that must be nearly as difficult as
understanding actors!”
IV
A Shy Angel
Rehearsals had been going on for over a week now, and Peggy was feeling
strangely depressed.
The actors were learning their lines, all right, and cues were not being
missed too often, but somehow, the play showed no sign of coming
together as a whole. What seemed worse to her, the first attempts at
characterization were bad—shockingly bad—and did not correspond in the
least to her ideas about the play.
Unfortunately, neither Mal nor Randy, nor any of the cast did a thing to
cheer her up or make her feel that she might be wrong. Now it was nearly
midnight, and Peggy’s depression was deepened by a sheer physical
tiredness that was the result of working all day at the New York
Dramatic Academy and all night in the rehearsal studios at the Penthouse
Theater.
Peggy, Amy, and Greta, in mutual silent gloom, put on their coats and
prepared to go home to the Gramercy Arms. In the hallway, they saw Randy
and Mal, equally silent and equally gloomy, looking at each other
through a cloud of pipe smoke.
“Is it that bad?” Peggy said.
“It’s not good,” Randy said hollowly.
“I’m sure you’re overstating,” Greta said, in an attempt to cheer them
up. “I’ve seen rehearsals go a lot worse than this for a long time, then
suddenly pull into brilliant shape overnight. After all, it’s less than
two weeks, and it’s not as if this were a simple drawing-room comedy.
It’s a good play, and a complicated one, and it’s not the easiest thing
in the world to do....”
“It may be impossible to do,” Randy said. “But cheer up, girls. We
weren’t concerned about your acting. We’ve got other problems.”
“Not problems. Just problem,” Mal put in.
“What’s wrong?” Peggy asked. “Can you tell us, and is there anything we
can do?”
“You’re going to have to know sooner or later,” Randy answered, “so we
might as well tell you now. Come on in for a cup of coffee and we’ll
tell you all about it.”
Nothing more was said until the three girls were seated in Mal’s
comfortable living room upstairs. Then, while Mal was in the kitchen
getting the coffee ready, Randy told Peggy and the other girls what was
on his mind.
“It’s the age-old theater problem,” he sighed. “To put it in one word,
it’s money. I’m afraid we badly misjudged our budget for _Come Closer_,
and unless we can find a way to raise some more cash in a hurry, we may
have to close up shop.”
“But how can that be?” Amy said. “You were so sure that you had enough,
and it’s not as if this were a high-cost production with a lot of
costumes and expensive sets and all that—”
“No, that’s not it,” Randy said. “We figured the scenery and costumes
and lighting right down to the nickel. What threw us is the salary
expense, and a bad guess about the amount of rehearsal time we would
need.”
“My fault,” Mal said, as he came in from the kitchen, bearing a tray of
cups and saucers, sugar, cream, cookies and an enormous pot of coffee.
“Why do you say it’s your fault, Mal?” Peggy asked.
“I figured the rehearsal time into the budget, and I figured wrong. I
didn’t take into account just how difficult the play is to do, and I
should have known that we would need to go into extra weeks. Actually, I
think we’ll need at least three and maybe four more weeks of rehearsal
than I had first called for, and that’s a big hunk of salary money that
wasn’t figured in.”
“We have twelve actors, all working for minimum scale wages,” Randy
explained. “During the contracted rehearsal period, as you know, they
get paid half of scale. We put aside enough money to pay for that, plus
full scale for two weeks after opening. Unfortunately, when we go into
extra rehearsal weeks, we have to pay full scale for those, just as if
the play were open. What it means is that we’ll be short by about a
month’s full salary money, and although it doesn’t seem as if you’re
getting paid much, when you add it all up, it comes out to be quite a
sum.”
“Three thousand, seven hundred dollars, to be exact,” Mal said.
A moment of silence followed, while the girls took in this disturbing
new fact. They covered their distress by the routine of pouring coffee
and passing cream, sugar, and cookies.
“What about the original group of backers?” Peggy asked. “They already
have a good-sized investment to protect. Won’t they put up the extra
money just to keep from losing what they’ve already put in before the
play even opens?”
“I’ve already approached them,” Randy said, “and they all agree that it
makes sense to put up more money. Unfortunately, none of them has any
more to put in. I’m afraid that the only thing left to do is to find
more money from other people.”
“I should think it would be easier now than it was before,” Greta
observed. “After all, when you started, all you had was a script to
show. Now you have a cast and some scenery and—”
“And that’s all,” Mal interrupted.
“I don’t understand,” Amy said. “Why doesn’t that make it easier?”
“Because at this stage,” Mal explained, “a prospective backer would want
an audition—at least a home reading of the play, if not a stage
performance of a couple of scenes. And we’re not ready for that. You
know yourselves how the readings sound. That’s why we need more
rehearsal time and therefore more money. A backer’s audition at this
stage of the game would be a pure disaster.”
“Couldn’t we change the rehearsal schedule?” Peggy asked. “I mean, if we
all started working just on one particular scene, couldn’t we get it in
good enough shape to be heard in about a week’s time?”
“We probably could,” Mal answered, “but there are a few problems in
working that way. For one thing, we take a chance on throwing the whole
development of the play out of balance by perfecting one scene before
we’ve worked on the rest. My own method is to work slowly on all parts
at once, bringing them into focus at roughly the same time. The second
problem, a smaller one, is that by doing this at all, we let the cast
know that we’re in financial trouble. I’d rather avoid that, if we
could.”
“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” Peggy said. “I’ve gotten
to know them pretty well in this last week or so, and I don’t think
there’s one of them who would panic about money or refuse to go into the
extra rehearsal time and the auditioning. They’re a good group. Don’t
you think so?” She appealed to Greta and Amy.
“Absolutely,” Greta said firmly.
“I’m sure of it,” Amy agreed.