Chet Williamson: Reign

“… Dennis Hamilton…”

The words from the stereo speakers on either side of the screen sent a shot of adrenalin through her, and her head snapped back to the glowing, watery images. One of the show's vapid correspondents, golden-haired and red-lipped, was holding a mike and talking at the camera. Behind her, some twenty yards away, was a wall of gray stone decorated with bas-reliefs. Ann listened.

“… who purchased the Venetian Theatre with the intention of making it a showcase for new American musical comedy. Though we were unable to talk to Hamilton himself, we were able to visit with his business manager, John Steinberg."

There was a cut to an interior, and Ann saw a round-faced, balding man in his sixties smile benignly toward where the unseen correspondent stood. "There's a need for it," the man said in a voice that was deep but held effeminate tones. "I mean, just look at the musicals on Broadway – Les Miz, Cats, Phantom, that new one, Rinky-Tink – all of them British.”

"What about Sondheim?" the woman asked.

Steinberg shrugged. "Well, his shows are always interesting, but I haven't found the last few very… involving. And, it seems, neither have the critics nor the audiences. Let's face it, American musical theatre just isn't that healthy."

"And Dennis Hamilton wants to change that," the woman said.

"Yes he does. All of us involved with the project do. Dennis believes that there are new Rodgers and Hammersteins and Lerner and Loewes out there."

"What about new Davis and Ensleys?" the woman asked, referring to the long-retired writers of A Private Empire.

Hamilton's manager smiled. "That goes without saying. He would be absolutely delighted to find a team like that. After all, he owes his fame to them."

The camera went back to the woman in front of the building. "So, tonight will see the re-opening party of the Venetian Theatre here in Kirkland, Pennsylvania, and Entertainment Tonight wishes Dennis Hamilton well in his effort to restore the status of American musical theatre to the grand old days of Gershwin and Irving Berlin. Back to you, Bob…"

Ann picked up the remote and clicked the switch. The picture and sound faded away, leaving the room darker, quieter, an incubator for her thoughts. After a minute, she got up and crossed the room to the cherry-wood shelves, ran her fiver over the black-cased rows of videocassettes, and removed one. She uncased it, put it in the machine (a Panasonic Super-VHS – one more of Eddie's toys), and turned everything on. Then she sat down and watched as the anti-copying message and the Paramount Home Video logo ran their course.

When the overture began over the opening credits, she held her breath, releasing it when his name came up on the screen. She watched the film for fifteen minutes before Terri came into the room.

"Mother?" the girl said, and Ann looked around guiltily. Terri's smile was a bit sad, a bit bitter. "Don't tell me. You were watching ET, right?" Ann nodded, and Terri sat down next to her. Though Ann was tall, Terri was taller still. It was daunting, Ann thought, to try and mother a person taller than you, and nearly an adult in years as well. Maybe that was just one reason she hadn't done a very good job of it lately.

"I just thought it would be… fun to look at this again. I haven't seen it for a couple of years." It was a lie. One morning several months before, Ann had watched the film of A Private Empire when the house was empty. She had cried at the end, as she always did, telling herself that it wasn't because of Dennis and what might have been, but because of the sadness and the romance of the plot. "I'll turn it off," Ann said, reaching for the remote.

"You don't have to feel guilty," Terri told her, the tone belying the words.

"I don't feel guilty," Ann said, pressing a button and making the image vanish. "I've never done anything to feel guilty about. Not that way."

Terri raised her eyebrows, as though such an accusation had been the farthest thing from her mind. "You don't have to be defensive about it either. I'm not one to judge. For all I care, you can go visit him at his new theatre. Kirkland's only forty miles away."

"Don't be smart."

"I'm not. I'm serious. Maybe you could use your… influence to get me a job with him."

"I don't have any influence with Dennis Hamilton. It's been over twenty years since I've seen him."

"There's no reason you can't pick up where you left off. I hear he's very rich, so you'd have something in common already."

Ann struggled to keep her anger under control. "I've never noticed you complaining about having too much money," she said dryly, and, she hoped, with a trace of humor. She hated to argue with Terri, because even if she was right, she never won. And since Eddie's death, arguing with Terri consisted of talking to her.

" ' Visi d' arte,' " Terri replied. "I live for art."

"I know what it means, thank you."

"But I also live to eat. Are we having dinner tonight?"

"You'd better ask Mary that. She's in charge of the kitchen."

"Mary's in charge of cuisine boring," Terri said with a French accent with a sneer in it.

"Does anything meet with your approval around here?" Ann finally asked. She knew that her irritation was precisely what Terri had hoped to draw out, but she couldn't help herself.

"No, not really. Everything seems weary, stale, flat…”

“… and unprofitable," Ann finished for her. "I'm not totally illiterate."

"Oh, brav- o," Terri said, getting up and walking to the door. "I'll see you over chow."

What a little bitch, Ann thought as she watched the girl walk out the door. How had Terri turned out like that? What had she or Eddie done wrong? Too much money? Too many privileges? Terri had never had to do an honest day's labor in her life. She had never waited on tables, never washed dishes for money, never peddled anything door to door, had never done any of the hundreds of thankless tasks that kids did growing up that earned them a little money and a lot of humility.

Being a waitress during her college summers had been, Ann thought in retrospect, one of her best learning experiences. She had moaned about it continually at first, because there was no need. Her grandfather, the president of a bank, was paying her tuition, and her father, a doctor, could more than afford her room, board, and expenses. But he had insisted, over the protests of Ann's mother, that she work during the summers. "It might be the only physical labor the girl ever does in her life," he had said.

"Oh, John," her mother had argued, "it's just not necessary. Look at me – I've never worked like that."

"I know," her father replied. "And that's exactly why Ann should." Ann hadn't laughed at the comment then, but did later, many times.

Her father had been right, as usual. Though she had hated that Holiday Inn coffee shop the first few days, she grew to like the job in a grudging way. There was only one other college girl working there, an art major from Penn State who needed the money badly. Of the other women, a few were older married types who wanted the additional luxuries two incomes would provide, while the rest were single girls, most of them high school dropouts. It was a good cross section, and Ann, unfailingly pleasant and a little afraid, got along well with all of them.

The other thing that waiting on tables had done for her was introduce her to Dennis Hamilton, who, with the rest of the company of A Private Empire, was staying at the Holiday Inn in Kirkland, Pennsylvania, and would be opening the fledgling production in Kirkland's Venetian Theatre.

Scene 2

The original intention of the producers was to take the show to New Haven, Connecticut for its out-of-town tryout, but no theatre was available at the time. Philadelphia's Walnut Street Theatre, which housed its share of hopefuls, was also booked. But then one of the producers remembered the Venetian Theatre in Kirkland. It had been the home of many touring shows after the death of Vaudeville, but had for some years been only a movie theatre, its former glories masked by dust. Still, it had the necessary facilities, and was close enough to Philadelphia to insure decent audiences, particularly for a new Ensley-Davis show, the same team that had brought the theatre-going public blockbuster musicals ever since the mid-forties.