Читать книгу Cue the Dead Guy - H. Mel Malton - Страница 13

KEVIN: Everybody tells you when you’re young how to behave/Like ‘wipe your nose, say thank you, save the world, kid, and be brave.’

-The Glass Flute, Scene iii

“You’ll probably find this useful,” I said, pulling the cast and crew contact list off the callboard and handing it to Becker on our way through the lobby. He gazed at it suspiciously, as if I’d just typed it up for him as a kind of step-by-step guide to who might’ve dunnit.

“It’s standard procedure,” I explained. “When you’ve suddenly got twenty or so new people to deal with, it helps to have a list. This is everybody who works here, what they do and where they’re staying. If you need to talk to the cast, we’re upstairs in the rehearsal space.” I introduced the policemen to Kim Lee, whose calm efficiency seemed to reassure Becker.

“You’re the one who called us?” he said.

“Yes, I did. I’m Steamboat’s general manager. Jason McMaster, our stage-manager, is pretty conscientious, and his disappearance is odd, so we thought you’d appreciate a call. You’ll want to see the shop, I expect. Polly, why don’t you go upstairs and tell Juliet the OPP is here and keep the cast occupied.” She turned to Becker with an apologetic grin. “They’re all a bit freaked out by this, officer. You know theatre people.” Well, Becker didn’t, actually, but her attitude was right in line with his own, and he grinned back at her. I felt a twinge of jealousy, which was patently ridiculous, as I wasn’t the slightest bit interested in him any more; I suppressed it as soon as I recognized it for what it was.

“Lead the way, Ms. Lee,” he said, and followed Kim to the shop stairs. Morrison rolled his eyes at me and fell into step behind Becker, doing a hunch-backed, Igor-impression. I turned my snort of laughter into a sneeze, but I needn’t have bothered. Becker didn’t even turn around.

“The cops are here,” I said, walking into the rehearsal space. Ruth was the only one there, leafing idly through Jason’s prompt book.

“Good,” she said. “The video’s over and Juliet’s got them in the wardrobe room trying on their costumes. We’ve wasted the whole morning and they’re getting antsy. Let’s send our fearless leader downstairs and get some work done.” I handed her the amp cables and left her to get her equipment set up for the sing-through.

There would probably be no complaints about a music rehearsal at this point. The first rehearsal day is generally a full one, scheduled to the hilt, with non-stop business and a feeling of suppressed excitement and anticipation. With only one frantic week of rehearsal before the first performance, it was essential that the first day set the tone for the rehearsal period. Wasting a morning lolling around watching videos and playing dress-up would not be good for cast morale in the long run.

“Geez, these are attractive,” Bradley was saying, surveying his rotund figure in a full length mirror. The outfits worn by the puppeteers in the Flute couldn’t exactly be called costumes. The gear was known as “blacks,” which is what they are. The idea was to cover every inch of skin, so that the actors in the black playbox would disappear completely under the ultraviolet light, and the puppets and props would spring magically into view, glowing. Both men and women wore skin-tight black body stockings and tights, with black cotton turtlenecks over top. To cover their arms and hands, they wore tight black wool gloves with elbow-length velour cuffs. The lower extremities were masked with black socks and dance slippers, and their heads were covered with black velour hoods. The hoods were the worst part. Like the rest of the outfit, the hoods left no skin exposed, and visibility was poor through the square of black screening that fell from the peak of the baseball cap around which the hood was built. The hems of the hoods were fitted with snap fasteners, which corresponded to snaps around the collars of the turtlenecks to keep the headgear securely in place. After a few minutes in full blacks, the cast of the Flute would sweat buckets.

“There’s no doubt about it,” Bradley said, sadly. “Dance tights are not my best look.” The turtleneck stretched over his belly and stopped just short of modesty, an inch or two above his crotch.

“Dancewear only looks good on dancers, darling,” Juliet said. “If you like, we can have someone sew an extra length of velour around the bottom of your shirt so it falls lower.”

“Don’t bother, Brad,” Meredith said. “More material will just be hotter. As long as it covers your skin, that’s all you want.”

“You will, however, need a dance belt,” Juliet said, leering. “A size large, it looks like.” A dance belt is the arts-world equivalent of an athletic supporter. Required gear for men in tights, believe me. Bradley went very red but leered back, which was the only way to deal with Juliet at times like these. “Come and help me pick one out, Juliet,” he said.

I told the director that the police were downstairs, so she said “carry on” in a breezy way and swooped out.

“Good save, chum,” Meredith said to Brad. “But you will need a dance belt, you know. Don’t know where you’ll get one around here, though. I’m going to need an extra pair of tights as well. The backups they gave me have holes in them.”

“There’s a dance supply place in Laingford,” I said. “If you guys can figure out what extras you’re going to need, I’ll order them tomorrow.” Everyone would need two sets of everything, in order to be able to get through two shows a day without stinking up the playing area.

Meredith, having done the show before, had brought her own body leotards, top-quality cotton things that would be a lot more comfortable than the cheapo synthetic ones the rest of the cast had to wear.

“How come she gets to wear cotton?” Shane said, reaching out a hand to pinch Meredith’s sleeve. She jerked away.

“Because I have seniority,” she said. It was close to a snarl. Our Meredith was obviously underwhelmed by Shane’s charm. He had come out from behind the changing screen, looking manly, somehow, in the bizarre get-up. He was wearing a dance belt. I checked.

Amber made her entrance timidly. She held the turtleneck in one hand and the hood in the other, perplexed. The leotard was a bit too small for her, producing a décolletage of magnificent proportions.

“You’ll have to cover those up, kid,” Meredith said. “They’ll glow in the dark.”

Amber, to her credit, just smiled. “I can’t figure out how this stuff goes,” she said and handed Meredith the hood and shirt. Faced with such direct acceptance of what was plainly her need to be top dog, the older actress became motherly. She helped Amber get togged up, snapping the hood fasteners down and then getting into her own hood. They trooped out into the rehearsal space, Meredith leading, like a broody hen with her chicks.

“You can’t see much, eh?” Shane said. There they were, four black-clad figures, ranged in a row, gazing at themselves in the studio mirrors that lined the walls. Now that they were all dressed the same, you could hardly tell them apart.

“We won’t rehearse in costume till later,” I said, “but you should know what you’re up against. We’ll put you in the box and kill the lights so you have some idea.”

“I have done this before, Polly,” Meredith said. “I’ll sit this one out.”

“Solidarity, Meredith. I know it’s torture. You might as well get back into the habit, so to speak, and you can help the others get their bearings,” I said. “We’ve only got a week, remember.”

The cast made their way backstage, into the black box puppet theatre which was their performance space. The box was about sixteen feet wide, nine feet high and five feet deep. The frame was made out of steel pipes, held together with key clamps (the kind of fittings that require an Allen key to tighten and loosen them), over which were draped several acres of black velour curtains, or masking. At the front of the playing area was a shelf about three feet high and two feet deep, which was essentially the “stage” where the puppets would strut their stuff. Extending out from the sides of the box were two curtains, which served to mask the backstage area from the audience.

Suspended on a pipe above the playing shelf were the “magic” lights, six full-strength ultraviolet tubes that cast what appeared to be no light at all, until one of the fluorescent puppets or props came into view.

The whole contraption was designed to break down into dozens of portable bundles, for ease of loading and unloading them from the van, and for carrying them up and down school staircases. Once the cast got good at it, the stage could be ready to go in about forty minutes. I explained this to the cast, who, with the exception of Meredith, refused to believe me.

The props and puppets themselves were stored under the shelf, behind the masking curtains and littering the backstage area. Every single item had a specific place to be, part of the “pre-set,” which was crucial to the smooth running of the show. If you’ve got to make a flower appear at a precise musical moment, two minutes into the show, the flower had better be where you expect it to be, because the backstage area is very dark and you’re squinting through black netting. All this stuff would become obvious to the cast as we rehearsed, but I could hear Meredith telling them anyway, issuing dire warnings, as if they were all entering enemy territory.

Once they were standing in the playing area, Ruth turned out the rehearsal room overheads, and I flipped the switch on the UV lights. Immediately, the cast disappeared. If you were standing close, you could see the faint blue outline of each figure, but from five feet back, the playing area was empty.

“Meredith, can you bring up the flute, so we can see how this works?” I said. Meredith reached under the shelf and brought out the glass flute, a larger-than-life prop made of clear plastic, painted with a wash of fluorescent pink to make it glow. All the props were equipped with black handles or dowel sticks, so that they appeared to be floating in mid air. Meredith made the flute float around and everybody went “oooh, aaaah.” It really is a cool effect, even if you’re a grown-up.

“To make it disappear,” Meredith said, obviously getting into her Vanna White role, “you take one of these black flags, and just move it in front, like this.” A square of black velour mounted on a dowel, the flag was one of the “tricks” that made audiences gasp. She shooed the rest of the cast out of the box to watch the effect from an audience perspective.

“I wondered how that was done when we were watching the video,” Shane said.

“This is going to be fun,” Amber said.

“Can we take these off now?” Shane said. “I’m cooking.”

“Just wait till you’re halfway through the second show and you can hardly breathe,” Meredith said primly from the box. “Don’t think you can stop just because you’re hot.”

“Meredith, we knew what we were getting into when we signed our contracts,” Shane said, losing his cool with alarming speed. “You don’t get any extra medals just because you did it before, so stop acting like such an asshole.” To be honest, I agreed with him. Meredith’s know-it-all attitude was bugging me, too.

Meredith tore off her hood, and her face appeared out of the darkness, disembodied and distorted with anger. Her teeth were bared and gleamed blue under the UV light.

“Listen, you little shit,” she hissed, “I’m trying to give you the benefit of my experience, and if you don’t like it, then why don’t you go back to turning tricks on Church Street?” There was a little gasp from Amber, Shane drew in his breath, and suddenly Meredith’s face disappeared.

“Is this part of the play?” said Becker, from the door.