A Star Tribune serialized novel by Richard Horberg
Chapter 24 continues
The story so far: The cast of the play is in open revolt.
He asked neither Patty Porter, who still held a grudge against him, nor Evelyn Wilson, to serve as assistant directors. Nor did they volunteer. He wanted to do it himself — his parting gift to the town. To prove he was capable.
He didn't tell himself that he was bringing culture to the masses, nor that the townspeople would begin to demand more plays like it. They would forget it in a day or two, of course, as they forgot everything else. They would go back to the movies. As for his own hope to take more interest in theater, it would have to wait — perhaps forever.
All he wanted was to produce a good play. Having learned something from previous experience, he thought he could do it.
Still, he worried a lot, in the same way he had worried over "A Night at an Inn," fearing at times — especially when he woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning — that he had set himself up for failure again. Would the props work? Would the flats be completed in time? What would they do for sound effects? Would everybody learn their lines?
Moreover, the initial rehearsals were not good. The cast was flat, even, he thought, inadequate. He almost wished for the horseplay that had accompanied the junior class play and "A Night at an Inn." Then one night, something happened. Something touched off a spark — he would never know what it was — a line, a gesture, an entrance. The play began to take on life.
Everybody seemed to feel it, a little magic. From that moment on, there was dedication and conviction. The last two weeks, in fact, were marvelous. He was able to conceive of the cast as a troop of artists at work. When Lois, as Sabina, stepped out of character and came to the edge of the stage to address the audience, it seemed to him that she really was what she said she was and not just a student in his senior class. He could have hugged her. He loved the way the cast had become animated — it was evident in their attitude, their step, the moment they showed up for rehearsal. He loved the informal camaraderie that existed between them. When rehearsal was over, how pleasant it was to walk back to his room in the evening spring air, winter having at last given up, the western sky of Minnesota still deep blue, though in the east the stars shone magnificently.
Helen Vorgt forgotten.
He found himself so involved that he was hardly aware of the passing of days or of his classroom routine. Normally he was glad when Friday came so that he would have the weekend to himself. For the two weeks before the play was to be presented, however, he never thought of it. One Saturday morning, eating breakfast in The Food Box, he actually wondered whether it was really Saturday or not. He lived not as teacher or citizen, but as director.
Then, unexpectedly, at the dress rehearsal two days before the play was to be given, everything went wrong. Royal, Mr. Antrobus himself, was absent to attend a funeral. The cast, having rehearsed in isolation for weeks, suddenly realized that they were going to have to perform not only in front of an audience, but an audience of their parents and friends. They seemed to panic. They were awkward and confused, forgetting cues, entrances and lines. They could not do anything right.
Allen despaired. He had read about actors who, the closer they came to performance, the worse they got. Some of them had to vomit before the curtain went up.
As he walked home in the rain that night, Allen told himself that this was the most important thing that had ever happened to him. He couldn't fail. Other significant things had happened before, but it seemed to him that they had happened to someone else, someone he used to be, not the person he was now. Moreover, most of the failures he'd experienced had been private, like breaking up with a girlfriend, like "A Night at an Inn." This was different. He saw it as The Test, not unlike the test Conrad's Lord Jim had failed when he leaped from the sinking ship. He was determined not to leap.
He surprised himself by experiencing a brief temptation to pray, as he'd done when he was a child. He resisted it. It would be like running home to mother. If he really believed in Emerson's over-soul, that there is no difference between God and soul, then he would have to look inward and find his own solution.
The next day, he called the entire cast together again backstage. They looked a little sheepish. Insecure behind their forced smiles, a dozen of his students worried that they were about to fail, hoping that he would have some encouraging words for them.
He did. He told them that they were good actors in a good play and that he was proud of them. Their rehearsals had been superb. He told them that each of them had only to carry his own load, speak his lines convincingly, and the play would succeed. He told them to ignore the audience and relate to each other instead. To act not as if they were teenagers in Stone Lake, Minnesota, but actors practicing and perfecting their craft.
"Like Ernest Hemingway sitting at his typewriter," he said to Leo March.
Leo nodded. "Yes, sir."
Tomorrow: Chapter 24 continues.
