Читать книгу Playing Sarah Bernhardt - Joan Givner - Страница 9

It was always the same with auditions. Because she was tense she drank too much, and the drinking only increased the tension and aggravated all the other problems — stiffness in the limbs, the inability to move gracefully and think clearly.

She woke up with a hangover and a panic attack, thinking for a moment she was in a motel room in the mountains, still in flight. But no, she was in a rooming house in a small prairie city. The room was shabby, verging on squalid — a torn curtain in the window, horrendous wallpaper with great feathers of some kind. She tried to figure out what they were. Fleurs-de-lys? Fans for dancing girls? Plumed pens for wedding guests? Just thinking about them made her stomach churn.

More familiar items stood on the rickety bamboo table beside the bed. A crumpled script, a bottle of Scotch with the level ominously low, and the tattered paperbacks that were her bibles — upbeat theatrical autobiographies with catchy titles and depressing biographies of celebrated actors. She craved coffee and cigarettes but knew she’d have to settle for aspirin and a cold shower with someone pounding on the bathroom door before she was halfway through.

The stress was proportional to the desire for the part, and in this case the desire was high. If she didn’t succeed she’d be relegated to the ranks of backstage workers, that army of dressmakers, builders of sets, painters of scenery, arrangers of wires and lighting. They called themselves artists — makeup artists, costume artists — but they were really just technicians. Everyone knew who the artists were, the only ones who really counted. It was the actors who had all the responsibility for the success or failure, for the livelihood and continuation of the whole lot of them. And they came together, the actors, a cabal bound together by that knowledge. They fired each other up, growing together, sometimes intensely, living and even sleeping together. And no one minded — all was permitted and justified by the importance of the play and the enormous responsibility they carried on their shoulders. They were apart from the world, with their own times and seasons like lovers, sleeping through the mornings, coming alive at dusk, the alertness lasting beyond the midnight hours, sometimes to daybreak. They were the aristocrats of this ragtag world, the others merely servants, bit players, like the spear carriers and the attendant lords.

It all built up to the grand climax of the first night. After that, if it went well, the momentum was sustained for the entire run. But already after the first night there was the imminence of death. The certainty of doom fanned the intensity. And when it came the ending was terrible, the final curtain like the start of a funeral, followed by partings, goodbyes, the diaspora, departures at the bus station for different cities. You wanted to die. You did die. You were dead in every way that really mattered, buried alive, a pulse ticking faintly like the beat of a failing heart. A frog buried in mud.

If you were lucky, it began again. Often it did. Slowly at first, you roused yourself. Another script, another cast of players. It was pale compared with the last one, a distraction merely, something to pass the time, to help you through the half-life you were living, the twilight world you inhabited. Everything in it was gross and thick — the words, the sets, and the leading man, a great oaf with bad breath who trod on your feet.

And then quite suddenly it started all over again. Perhaps at one rehearsal, unexpectedly, the magic started to happen. You left the theatre in a dazzle of joy, knowing that it was going to be even better than it was last time, the best it had ever been. Life had returned as surely as the sap rising in the trees in springtime, as the incoming tide of the ocean, proving that it would do so forever. The oaf turned out to be a prince. But it had been touch and go for a while, and you’d died before you were born again.

But if it didn’t start over again — if the parts dried up and the offers never came — then you entered the valley of the shadow of death. Perhaps you would end up sitting with other old women sewing beads on costumes and exchanging gossip about who was with whom, who was drinking or on drugs, who was on the way up to movies or on the way down to television commercials. There were always jobs for superannuated actresses. They could star in advertisements for medicine to cure hemorrhoids and vaginal dryness — giving such credence to the indecencies of old age that they became permanently associated with them. And if you couldn’t face that you could retire from the stage altogether. You could be a receptionist in a dentist’s office or a hostess in a restaurant.

All that stands between me and those horrors is this part as Mazo de la Roche, thought Harriet as she made her way to the theatre in driving rain, on foot because she had turned in the rent-a-wreck the day before. It was bad for the farmers at this time of year. Bad for everyone, she thought as she turned her collar up and ducked her head against the downpour.

There was the usual mob in the foyer, people clustered around the coffee machine, grabbing donuts, catching up on the gossip. She filled a Styrofoam cup at the machine and leaned against the wall studying the competition. Jane Merritt stood out with her impressive height and red hair, the local girl who had made good — gone to RADA, returned to Stratford, done film — a star! There’d been a great high school teacher in this town, and he’d fostered a whole group of star-struck youngsters who became actors. They hung together now, screeching like the latest arrivals at a family reunion. But why was Jane Merritt here? Had something fallen apart for her too?

Then someone jogged Harriet’s elbow so sharply that the hot coffee jumped out of its cup.

“Harriet! Great haircut!” (True, the Calgary haircut had been a sound investment.)

“Brandi! I thought you were down east.”

Well at least she had one ally, one friend. They’d teamed up numerous times and never had a bad word for each other. Hermia and Helena, Gwendolyn and Cicely. Even Goneril and Reagan once. With Brandi it was always casting against type. Because she was fair and petite she got traditional female roles, though in fact she was rough, tough, and foul-mouthed. Recently she’d got work with a movie outfit in the maritimes.

“I was. Couldn’t stand the fucking sea, though. It was full of body parts from that air crash.”

“It didn’t work out for you down there?” Harriet said.

“Yeah. Good pay. Terrific, in fact, but I need to be here. The old man’s about to croak. Fucking lung cancer.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well. What about you? What brought you back to this asshole of nowhere?”

“I want this part badly, but I don’t suppose I’ve much of a chance.” She nodded towards Jane Merritt, who was surrounded by a group of admirers.

“Old ginger bush! She isn’t really interested, just here to see the folks and stir up the fan club. She’s waiting on two movie offers and she’ll cut out of this if she gets one. Let’s tank up before it starts.”

Harriet sat next to Brandi, needing coffee but afraid to drink so much that she’d have to pee every five minutes, waiting for her turn, watching the others, two men going first. Brandi whispered a joke about a brain transplant patient wanting to know why women’s brains were half price.

“It’s not their fault,” Harriet whispered back. “It’s the play, it’s still raw in places.” She felt sorry for the men, lads really, trying to make something of the pedestrian script.

DON:	Can you tell me what she was like when you first met her thirty years ago?
SPEAKS:	She was well into middle age by then.
DON:	But didn’t you get a sense of her early life?
SPEAKS:	The facts are well known. Caroline was an orphan, taken in by Mazo’s family. They grew up from childhood together. Lived in the family home until Mazo’s parents died. I’ll tell you one thing…
DON:	Yes?
SPEAKS:	They were well-connected. Came from one of the best families in that part of the world.
DON:	But I understand they grew up on the bare bones of privation.
SPEAKS:	I didn’t say they had material wealth. I said they came from a good family. Good breeding. There’s a difference. Perhaps you have to be a New Englander to understand the distinction.
DON:	Are you sure? I mean about the family?
SPEAKS:	I’m a pretty fair judge in these matters. And my wife would confirm my judgement. They came to Boston once, and she threw a party for them. Invited all her friends, some of the very oldest New England families. She told me the gals were perfectly at ease. And that was my own observation when I visited their house.
DON:	Oh yes?
SPEAKS:	Well, the way they handled the servants for one thing. They had a large staff. But thoroughly unobtrusive. They brooked no insubordination or familiarity. And they treated them like old retainers who’d been in the family for generations.
DON:	They did?
SPEAKS:	Called up one time in a great state. They’d had to dismiss the chauffeur and wanted to make sure he was well taken care of. Anyone else would have thrown him out on his heels. But not them. Placed him with a friend of mine, as a matter of fact.
DON:	What had he done?
SPEAKS:	I never knew, exactly. Some minor infraction. Probably called one of them by her first name. But that’s what I mean — the personal concern. And yet the rectitude. That’s a sure sign of breeding.
DON:	Is it?
SPEAKS:	And the house, too. Good old furniture. Good paintings. Good art. Nothing showy, nothing vulgar. No hint of the nouveau riche, of antique dealers or decorators. Solid taste. Absolutely unerring taste. You don’t learn that kind of thing, Donaldson. And it doesn’t happen overnight. It’s bred into one. Over several generations.

There was a general stirring and buzz and movement to the coffee machine at the end of the scene.

“What the fuck!” said Brandi to Harriet as she came back from the bathroom. “Do we need work this badly?”

“It’ll get whipped into shape,” said Harriet.

“Yeah. Before it moves to the big cities without us. Well, here goes.” And she went off to read a scene with Jane Merritt. It featured Mazo as a young girl, and Merritt was plausible. They were both so good they could have been reading the Financial Post and it would have come alive. And the painful part to Harriet was that they worked so well together.

MAZO:	When the rain stops, the air will be fresh again and we can go for a walk. We’ll go by the Mansion and see what the Masseys are doing.
CARO:	Mazo, the high point of my life is not peeping at the Masseys.
MAZO:	You enjoy it as much as I do.
CARO:	Oh yes. What do we have on our calendar today? Why the Masseys are having a party forsooth. We can pretend to be taking a stroll down Jarvis Street so we can watch the fine ladies being helped from their carriages. Perhaps one will toss us a coin and we can grovel for it.
MAZO:	Caroline, please don’t. Father will find a job soon and things will get better.
CARO:	And if he does, do you really think it will last longer than any of the others? And we don’t have the rent for another month in this place even. You heard them at supper last night. We have to move again. This time down by the railroad tracks. Well, they can move without me.
MAZO:	Will it be any better to work for strangers? To wait tables and smile and earn tips. At least we’re family and took you in when no one else did.…
CARO:	I think I’ve paid off that debt several times in my ten years as errand girl and beast of burden. My god, they can’t even call me by my first name. It’s “Clemmie, do this! Clemmie, do that!”
MAZO:	They call me Maisie and I hate it just as much.
CARO:	Well, they won’t be calling me anything for a very long time if I can help it. And I won’t be waiting tables forever.
MAZO:	Not the innkeeper’s son. Oh, you aren’t thinking of marrying him, are you?
CARO:	I shall be free to lead my own life and do whatever I wish.
MAZO:	But getting married isn’t leading your own life. It’s leading someone else’s.
CARO:	True. But since they never let me go to school, it’s the only prospect I have.
MAZO:	The prospect of being an innkeeper’s wife in Newmarket?
CARO:	Is that so different from being an unpaid servant in Cawthra Square?
MAZO:	There are different kinds of servitude, Caroline.
CARO:	In that case there’s something to be said for varying them.
MAZO:	Caroline, this house depresses me as much as it depresses you. I feel like a changeling, dropped by an accident of birth into a roach’s nest. Those nights when I wake you with my screaming — do you know what my nightmare is? I dream I’m tied down and being overrun by roaches, nasty little insects, coming out from all their corners in droves. I believe I knew from the very moment I was born that I wasn’t a Roach. All I ever dreamed of was getting away.

It went on and on as if, in spite of the script, the acting brought the situation to life and everyone watching was caught up in it and enthralled. So it seemed that a good half-hour went by before the director finally clapped her hands and said, “Thank you.”

By the time Harriet was called up, the crowd had thinned out as those whose turns were over drifted away. She was sure that Jane Merritt and Brandi had the parts. Meg Wagstaff, who was to play Caroline to Harriet’s Mazo, was hopeless, overweight, and gross in every way. Harriet felt she was much too old for Mazo and sure that together they would make a farce of the scene.

CARO:	If one of us gets away, she can rescue the other. We don’t have to be separated. When I’m married you can come with me to Newmarket.
MAZO:	I was born in that godforsaken town and I’ve no desire to return — ever. And I don’t want to be a guest in your home, a hanger-on, a maiden aunt, bossing the children about. I don’t want to share you, Caroline. I want you all to myself. I need you, Caroline.
CARO:	But I’m tired of being needed. I want to need someone else for a change.
MAZO:	But don’t you need me? Haven’t I taken care of you since you were seven years old? Didn’t I play with you and amuse you and make you happy even in the worst of times?
CARO:	Darling, you did. But I’m not a child any longer. I’m a woman and I need to escape this family.
MAZO:	Oh Caroline, there’s a way we can escape even if we never leave this house, as long as we stay together.
CARO:	(gently) Mazo, we’re too old for your play. We’re women of marriageable age. I’ll be twenty in a few more years. And I’m going to be married. Even if I have to wait on tables, at least I shall be called by my first name.
MAZO:	If you leave, I shall die. That’s all. It will be the end of me.
CARO:	Nonsense. You have so much talent and so much imagination — you can do anything.
MAZO:	But what can a woman do, Caroline, except get married? You said so yourself. And I won’t get married. I’ve never been interested in a man in my whole life. I’m different from you. And I can’t do my play by myself. Oh Caroline, don’t abandon our play.
CARO:	Darling, we can’t plan our entire lives around dressing up and acting out a play in a dark bedroom.
MAZO:	We can’t, Caroline? Why can’t we? Isn’t it better than anything we’ve ever done? Hasn’t everything else seemed pale in comparison? It’s our own private world over which we have complete control. And in it we can be anyone we like. We can stop being Clemmie and Maisie — you’re not Clemmie, or even Caroline Clement. You were Alayne Archer, and now that you are married to Eden Whiteoak you are Alayne Whiteoak. Who are you?
CARO:	I’m Alayne … Alayne Whiteoak. And I’m finding living in the Ontario countryside a little strange after New York. I stroll around the grounds of Whiteoak Manor trying to feel at home.
MAZO:	So, my brother Eden’s lovely wife is out for an afternoon stroll.
CARO:	Renny, I would rather walk alone.
MAZO:	Alayne, don’t you think that brother-in-law and sister-in-law should be friends? We both love the same person, and so it follows as a matter of course that we should love each other.
CARO:	Renny, your attentions trouble me. There’s an undercurrent in everything you say and do. I would rather you kept a distance from me —

“Thank you, thank you,” a handclap, and it was over. Harriet felt totally humiliated. Brandi’s droll, sympathetic expression said it all.

“Do you want to go out for a drink or something?” Harriet asked.

“Can’t, I’m sorry,” Brandi said. “I’m supposed to be at a fucking death watch.”

“Well, that’s what I was inviting you to,” Harriet said.

“Another time,” Brandi said. “Hey, maybe I’ll come in on Sunday and we can look at houses together.”

“What houses?” Harriet said.

“That’s the prescribed Sunday afternoon entertainment in this burg,” Brandi said. “Garage sales on Saturday and open houses courtesy of the real estate agents on Sunday. Have you forgotten? You grew up here, didn’t you?

“Sort of,” said Harriet. “It’s been a long time, though. And I’ll probably be leaving in a day or two.”

“Hey, don’t sweat it,” Brandi said. “You’re a fucking shoo-in for the part.”