John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

The imagery stings a bit, but trusting him to improvise implies a certain professional respect. “My entrance?”

“I’ll go down now and herd them into the Grill Room, announcing that we’ll soon have a special surprise guest.” Drew smiles, shaking his head and looking him over anew.

“If I didn’t know it wasn’t you — him—”

“The theater is full of assumed identities.”

“Which wouldn’t fool the biggest hayseed in the rear of the third balcony, much less the characters in the play. But you — my word!”

They go down then and he can hear conversations moving away from the stairwell. He has never been much for nerves before a performance, the public so — so easily fooled , so willing to believe that what passes above the footlights is what is meant to be happening. But this is not his usual house, full of shop clerks and newsboys and free-lunch despoilers, is not even an audience of his peers, these are—

Mr. Oettel is back to tell him that it is time.

He follows down the stairs into the reading room. He has seen such places on the stage but never actually been in one. Leather chairs that could swallow a man, a handsome Persian on the floor, the smell of tobacco, and the great marble mantelpiece flanked by Sargent portraits, one of Booth and one of Joseph Jefferson in character as Peter Pangloss in The Heir-in-Law .

And then he is waved through the Great Hall, Drew’s much larger frame shielding him from the view of the luminaries in the Grill Room.

“Gentlemen!” booms the actor, and the room immediately quiets. “We have with us, in light of recent occurrence, an extremely distinguished and very surprising guest.”

He steps away and Teethadore is on, strutting through the doorway with choppers ablaze, every man not already upright jumping to his feet to applaud. It is a strange business, accepting another man’s kudos, the warmth sincere but unearned. He uses it, though, fills himself with it, puffing his barrel chest out a little further, clasping his hands and shaking them over his head like a victorious prize-fighter — the Little Champion. It is difficult not to linger on their faces as he turns to acknowledge them all. These are, if not gods, at least royalty — a Richard III here, a Prince Hal there, a Cardinal Richelieu looming in the rear. Only one bear of a man — is it not Frederick Remington? — smiles slyly and whispers to the fellow beside him.

“I thank you for that reception,” he enthuses as the applause finally dies. “And I thank you for your support in the recent contest, though I believe I recognize a few Bryan men skulking on the fringe — here, no doubt, to settle their wagers.”

Laughter then, these famous players and men of influence so flattered by his presence that they are blind to the deception.

“The Vice-Presidency,” he continues, “though a great honor, is merely an understudy role—” chuckles here, “—waiting in the wings and hoping never to be pressed into service. I imagine I will serve the President as I did during the campaign — as his rather more mobile, and considerably more vocal—” good laugh here, “—rooting section. And in that capacity I come with a charge for you gentlemen of the stage.”

They are buying it, rapt. If he asked them at this moment to march on Tammany and tear it from its foundation they would follow him en masse .

“Our quest is to be a great — a greater nation. A great nation must have a great, a committed the ater!”

“Hear, hear!” says somebody in the gathering. He can see Belasco, the master of froth, begin to frown.

“Must our stage be only the purview of fools, the playground of children? Can it not deal honestly with the pressing issues of our day? Where are the works about labor unrest, about the crushing power of the trusts, the shows that address our desperate situation in the Philippine Islands — shows like the estimable Florodora— ”

Stanford White’s booming laugh breaks the spell, and with that, the illusion.

“You’re a fraud!” cries William Faversham, who he so admired in the Wilde farce.

“A fraud?!” he cries back. “Does the public cry fraud when you don your tattered buskins and feign nobility? No, sir, they laud you to the heavens!”

Men are laughing now, though eyeing their compatriots to be certain it is allowable to be so fooled.

“If a near-sighted, less-than-statuesque politician can steam to Cuba and impersonate a military man—” a big, knowing laugh at this, “—why, then, may not an honest vaudevillian impersonate a politician, and to equal acclaim?”

Actual applause then, mixed with the laughter. He has touched a nerve.

“Yes, I am an imposter, a pro fess ional imposter, but if such illusion had no fascination with the public, think of how many of you gentlemen would not be here!”

“And if you’d been born looking like Eugene Debs,” calls James K. Hackett, “ you wouldn’t be here either!”

That caps it, enormous laughter from all and Teethadore spreading his arms to accept the truth of the observation. Drew is the first to slap his back and pump his hand.

“Excellent work, my friend! Very well played!”

Others crowd around with more of the same. His head is buzzing from the energy of the performance and the idea that the leading man of the great Lyceum Company, whose lips have so often touched those of the divine Maude Adams, has complimented him upon his acting.

John Drew leads him to the bar and orders him a Scotch whisky. There is Faversham of course, of the curly locks and British comportment, and Hackett, another Lyceum standout, at least two of the powerful producing Frohman brothers, along with the playwright Bronson Howard, Maurice Barrymore with his boxer’s physique and flashing eyes, Otis Skinner, E. H. Sothern, like Hackett the son of a legend, young Tyrone Power who captured so many hearts in Becky Sharp a season ago, William Gillette, lean and keen, and, holding himself somewhat above the crowd despite his lack of physical stature, the incomparable Richard Mansfield.

“The Filipinos will surrender within days,” he hears Gillette opine. “Bryan was their last hope.”

“Perhaps.” It is Mayo Hazeltine, the voluminous reviewer from the Sun . “But our real concern should be what has been going on in China—”

It is all he can do not to join in — in character of course. He has taken to reading the more serious journals, to formulating opinions on weighty matters, to feeling as if he is on top of world affairs. He can name at least six of the contested islands.

White and Barrymore flank him at the bar then, and Teethadore finds himself a jockey among fullbacks. Both men appear to be well-oiled.

“So glad you mentioned Florodora ,” says the thespian. “Stanny is something of an expert on it.”

The architect laughs. “Not the height of dramaturgy by any means, but it has its assets.”

“And those assets,” grins Barrymore, “have their assets.”

The gossip sheets spill gallons of ink each week chronicling the mating rituals of the six uniformly winsome Florodora Girls, wreaking havoc upon the affections and bank balances of stage-door Johnnies young and old. Each time one snags her millionaire and leaves the show the Winter Garden is overflowing with sports eager to judge the charms of her replacement. Heavyweight champions and Cabinet ministers come and go with less excitement.

White points a finger at Teethadore. “The last time I saw you, you were slated between Harrigan and Hart and Professor Pembert’s dogs.”

“You have quite a memory, sir. That was at the Folly, a good number of years ago.”