Эд Макбейн - Barking at Butterflies and other stories

I now know that a play is nothing but a manuscript until it is put on the boards. It is only then that it comes to life, and the life it realizes is sometimes quite different, and very often immeasurably better than the one it aspired to on paper.

We had been rehearsing my play for five weeks, and we had nine days of previews still ahead of us, with two performances on Wednesday and another two on Saturday. I had, of course, rewritten many scenes in the play even before we went into production, and I had since rewritten almost half of the second act. I had watched our cast of six explore their respective roles, come to grips with the characters they were portraying, settle into performances they were now polishing and refining before opening night. I had seen our director wrestling with difficult scenes, badgering and cajoling his actors, desperately seeking the play’s inner secret, the single factor that would transform it into a semblance of reality, an illusion of vibrant flesh and blood. I had eaten breakfast, lunch, and dinner with each of the people involved in the show, either separately or together, I had listened to complaints and petty quarrels, I had even resisted a blatant seduction attempt by the ingenue who was determined to “get close to the well-spring,” as she put it. I had been at every rehearsal but one (when I had to rush crosstown to talk with a man from the Times who was doing a piece on me) and I had been convinced completely and utterly that we were on the right track, that we were all working together toward the successful realization of my play.

And then suddenly, that Tuesday morning, the spell broke as sharply as though a hypnotist had snapped his fingers and commanded me to open my eyes. I saw the play, really saw it, for the first time since rehearsals had begun. I saw it from beginning to end, and I wanted to weep. I left the theater as soon as Danny, our director, began giving his notes to the actors. I walked up Broadway and wondered what I should do, and then I decided to call Natalie. I caught her in the middle of leaving for nursery school to pick up Sharon, our four-year old daughter.

“Nat,” I said, “we’ve got trouble.”

“What is it?”

“The play stinks.”

“The play does not stink,” Natalie said.

“Honey, I just sat through it, and it’s terrible. I don’t know what to do.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Gene, you do know.”

“Yes, I do. I think I want to get rid of Danny.”

“Yes.”

“I think I’ve wanted it all along.”

“I know you have.”

“But, honey, I like him.”

“Is he harming your play?” Natalie asked.

“Yes.”

“Then replace him before it’s too late.”

“Honey...”

“Honey,” she said, “you spent a year writing this play. Do you want to see it die?”

“No, but...”

“Then do it. Replace him.”

We were both silent. Outside the corner phone booth, a traffic jam was starting, horns honking, a patrolman approaching a stalled Cadillac, his arms in frantic motion.

“All right,” I said at last.

“I have to get Sharon.”

“All right.”

“Gene?”

“Yes?”

“I love you. Call me later, will you?”

“Yes, sure.”

“How’s the apartment?”

“It’s nice.”

“All right, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Right, right,” I said, and hung up.

I had lunch at the Automat, and then went back to the afternoon rehearsal. I took a seat in the balcony and tried to see the play objectively, telling myself that this morning’s shock may have been due to pre-opening jitters, willing everything on that stage to come to unexpected life. But nothing happened. The actors went through scene after scene, the play unfolded listlessly; it was make-believe, it was fake, it was rotten. Unobserved, I listened to the actors when Danny called a break. Scenes that once were clear to them now seemed troublesome; they were asking far too many questions for a company that would be opening in a week. And worse, Danny had no answers to give them. If he had ever understood the play, he did not seem to grasp it now. I listened as he fumblingly tried to explain the relationship of the father to his young son in a scene I had sweated over for months, and I fairly screamed aloud from the balcony when I realized he was only confusing it beyond all comprehension. If I had had any doubts, they evaporated in that moment.

I went upstairs to the executive offices of the theater and asked Phillip, our general manager, where I could find Beth. He said he thought she was across the street in Ho Tang’s. Beth was my producer, a woman of forty-eight, twice divorced and childless. Thirty-nine years ago, she had first set foot on a New York stage as a child actress, and some of her friends still called her Baby Beth despite her flinty blue eyes and imperious mouth. She was sitting with Edward, our stage manager, at a table in the bar section of the restaurant. Ho Tang’s specialized in a Chinese-Korean cuisine and though we had never once tasted the food there, it was rumored to be excellent. We used the place as a command post, meeting there to drink and discuss the play, as Beth and Edward were presumably doing when I approached the table. Edward was my age, forty-three, but he looked a good deal older; perhaps the horn-rimmed spectacles accounted for that. He always wore a trench-coat, day or night, fair weather or foul, indoors or out. He gave the impression of someone expecting a phone call that would force him to leave immediately for another appointment.

“Here’s Gene,” he said.

Beth pulled out the chair beside her. Her eyes studied my face, and she said immediately, “Is something wrong?”

“Yes,” I said. “I think Danny’s lost control of the play and the actors, and I think he should be replaced.”

The table was silent for an instant. Beth looked across at Edward. I thought he nodded almost imperceptibly but that may have been in understanding of what I’d said, rather than in agreement with it.

“We were just talking about the same thing,” Beth said.

“Do you agree with me?”

“I’m not sure. I want to watch tonight’s performance.”

“Will you know then?”

“Yes,” she said.

I did not get a chance to talk to her after the evening performance because Danny was with us when we went over to Ho Tang’s for our customary drinks and critique. He was exhausted after a full day of rehearsal and a grueling performance during which he could not have failed to sense the enormous apathy of the audience. His weariness showed in his face. He was a tall man, fifty years old, with graying hair and a small bald patch at the back of his head. His eyes were a deep brown, darting and alert, as searching as an inquisitor’s. He had a habit of pointing with his entire head, jutting it forward sharply to ask a question. His nose was a trifle too keen for his otherwise soft features, emphasizing the head thrust each time it came. His mouth was gently rounded, curving upward at either end to give him an expression of perpetual amusement. I was waiting for him to go to the jukebox to play his favorite song, a tune called “One More Time” which had, through over-exposure during the last five weeks, practically become the show’s theme. As soon as he left the table, I said, “Well?” and Beth sharply whispered, “Later.”

“One More Time” erupted into the bamboo bar, its tempo insinuatingly tropical, its lyric hypnotically repetitious. Danny came back to the table and we began the usual post mortem, discussing the play in minute detail, lines, movement, nuance, everything but what was essentially wrong with it: Danny.

At twelve-thirty in the morning, we left Ho Tang’s and put Beth into a taxi. I still had not spoken to her. I hailed a cab for myself and arrived at the Tenth Street apartment at a quarter to one. Beth’s line was busy when I called. I tried again in five minutes and she answered the phone on the second ring.