The Fourth Wall (20 page)

It seemed to me that the answer was, after all, in Manhattan Rep's governing committee. Lieutenant Goodlow had put his finger on it: too many people on the committee had become targets for the whole thing to be dismissed as coincidence. Somebody
did
blame us for Michael Crown's death and was out to make us pay for it. And pay horribly. Right now John Reddick was cowering somewhere, so terrified that he'd run away from the life he'd built for himself with no assurance that he'd ever be able to return. John had been convinced the police would never catch whoever was doing these things to us, and for all I knew he was right.

But how could anyone hope to embark upon such a protracted program of revenge without being discovered? The man was unbalanced, that was obvious; and the possession of an
idee fixe
did color one's judgment in other matters, even in matters of one's personal safety. But
he
, whoever he was, must have known that sooner or later someone would figure out why all this was happening. Or … or maybe he wanted us to know—that was a possibility! The revenge is sweeter when the person being punished understands
why
he's being punished—Poe had written something like that. I pulled a copy of Poe's stories off the shelf and turned to “The Cask of Amontillado”. I found what I was looking for in the very first paragraph:

I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong
.

So the avenger must not only make clear why he is doing what he's doing, he must also get away with it. So far the man who was terrorizing us had followed Poe's dictum pretty well.

So who was this Michael Crown who had meant so much to someone that we should now be subjected to a reign of terror? Who was this hack writer who could read French well enough to steal from an unknown dead playwright? The answer lay in Michael Crown's past, not ours. He'd had a wife and two daughters. The wife had evidently made a fresh start for herself; Ian said she'd remarried and left New York. The daughters would be grown by now—Antigone and a newly strengthened Ismene taking the law into their own hands? A couple of Electras hell-bent on revenge? Not likely, not likely at all. But was any of this likely?

The next morning my service told me Vivian Frank had called. When I got her on the phone, she wasted no time telling me, again, that one scene in the first act of
Foxfire
wasn't playing right. And the reason it wasn't playing right was that it hadn't been written right.

“There are too many short cuts,” Vivian complained. “The scene is supposed to establish the generosity of my character, which is the key to the breakdown in the second act. And yet the whole thing is just slid over in a few lines! It's just not enough.”

“That scene isn't meant to
establish
your generosity,” I said, “merely to introduce it. Your generosity is demonstrated in the scenes that follow. First rule of playwriting—never assert when you can demonstrate.”

“I didn't mean
instead
of the demonstrating scenes. I meant in addition to.”

“You want me to expand your part.”

“I want you to expand the
scene
, Abby. That would expand Hugh Odell's part as well, since he and I are the only ones in the scene. You could make it work much better, Abby, I know you could.”

“No,” I said flatly.

“But Abby—”

“The scene is right the way it is. I'm not going to change it just to give you more lines. And you should know better than to ask me, Vivian.”

“Don't get snotty,” she snapped. “It's
your
play. I'd think you'd want it to be as good as you could possibly make it. Are you working on something else now, is that it? Isn't your first responsibility to the play that's still running? Or am I wrong?”

I've always resented the Socratic method when I'm the one who's expected to play straight man, so I didn't give her an answer.

“How long has it been since you've seen a performance?” Vivian asked innocently.

“That scene has played without a hitch every time I've seen it,” I said.

“I thought so.” Undisguised smugness. “Maybe it's time you took another look.”

“Vivian,” I asked suspiciously, “what are you doing to that scene?”

“I'm playing it exactly the way you wrote it,” she protested. “It's just that it takes time for some weaknesses to show up. Like cracks in a wall.”

Thanks a heap
. Was Vivian capable of sabotaging a scene just to blackmail me into enlarging her part? Of course she was. She was an actress, wasn't she? Maybe I had better go take a look. I said, “All right, I'll be there tonight,” and hung up.

Great. That's all I needed, Vivian Frank turning into a temperamental star. Sylvia Markey had been hard enough to get along with, but she had never asked me to rewrite part of a play to make her own role bigger. Sylvia had made suggestions, of course; but she had never pulled a stunt like this, especially six months into the run.

It was time to make arrangements for my trip to San Francisco and my confrontation with the high-handed Mr. Brian Simpson. It occurred to me this would be a good chance to fly down to Los Angeles and see Loren Keith—if he was still in California. Who would know? I groaned as the answer came to me: Jay Berringer. If Jay didn't know where Loren was, he'd know somebody who did—one of his many friends who kept him up on all the latest. But where was Jay?
Double Play
had ended its run in Pittsburgh the first of February, and Jay could be anywhere now. I put in a call to the Three Rivers Playhouse in Pittsburgh.

“I don't know where he is right now,” said Claudia Knight. “He went back to New York from Pittsburgh—to do a commercial, he said. But I'm sure that's finished by now. I have his agent's name here somewhere—would that help?”

I said it would.

I waited until she found the agent's name and address, which she read to me over the phone. “It's none of my business,” said Claudia, “but do you have a part for him in a new play?”

“Good Lord, no!” I blurted out before I thought.

A faint sigh came over the line. “No, he wasn't the best choice I could have made, was he?”

“He was all right,” I lied. “I just want to ask him a favor.”

“Oh, he'll love that! That'll put you in his debt.” Well, well—Claudia had really got Jay Berringer's number.

“Can't be helped,” I said. “I'll give his agent a call.”

When she'd hung up, I called Jay's agent and got an I-just-work-here secretary. Yes, she thought Mr. Berringer was still in New York, but she'd have to check to see what he was doing—did I have a role for him? Oh, a favor? Well, she didn't know—she wasn't supposed to give out clients' phone numbers. She was sure it was important, lady, but she just worked there.

I finally persuaded her to call Jay and give him my phone number. I repeated that I had a favor to ask. I didn't want Jay thinking I had a new part for him.

It was late afternoon when he called. The first thing he said was: “You've got a role for me in your new play.” Stupid secretary.

“Aw, no, Jay, I don't even have a new play. I just wanted some information. Is Loren Keith still in Los Angeles, do you know?”

Jay chose not to hear the question. First I had to be interrogated about my next play (I said I hadn't started it yet). Then I had to listen to heavy-handed compliments about
Double Play
coupled with several strong suggestions that I mention his name to Brian Simpson. Finally he got around to promising he'd call his friend in Los Angeles and get Loren Keith's address.

I was exhausted. “Conversations” with Jay Berringer always left me limp.

The tension hit me in the face like a slap. The doorkeeper hadn't even seen me come in; he and Tiny and Carla Banner were listening open-mouthed to the raised voices coming from the dressing rooms. A man I'd never seen before who had plain-clothes cop written all over him was pretending not to hear anything. Leo Gunn stood with his hands on his hips, scowling.

Suddenly Ian Cavanaugh erupted out of his dressing room and stood holding the door. “Come out, Vivian,” he said angrily. “Stay out of my dressing room. From now on. Every night you do this—now come out of there.”

Vivian took her time. She walked slowly and majestically past Ian, not deigning to look at him, and entered her own dressing room.

“You too,” said Ian.

Another man I'd never seen before stepped into view and posed casually, framed by the doorway. He was about thirty and handsome,
very
handsome, with a beachboy physique his tuxedo was built to emphasize. “You really should try to see Vivvie's side of it, Ian. She is a professional, you know.” Meaning Ian wasn't?

“Out,” said Ian.

The younger man lounged casually toward Vivian's dressing room. Ian went back into his own and slammed the door.

“Who was that?” I asked Leo Gunn.

“Vivian's joy boy,” he said disgustedly. “Name's Armand de Laprade. From Brooklyn.”

“But what were they arguing about?”

“Who knows? Every night it's something different. Vivian makes ‘suggestions' to Ian—ways he can improve his performance.”

“What?
” I was stunned.

“Every night,” Leo said. “She picks at him constantly—tries to rattle him.” Tiny nodded vigorously in agreement.

“But why, Leo? What did Ian ever do to her?”

He looked at me in a curious manner. “He said no.”

It took me a moment to catch on. “Oh, Christ. Leo, I hope you're mistaken.”

“He's not,” said Carla Banner. “We all saw it. She was after him for weeks—it was, ugh,
disgusting
the way she threw herself at him. Right in front of everybody.”

“And then this Armand de Whatsis appeared on the scene?”

“About a week ago,” said Leo. “His other function is to back Vivian up in her arguments with Ian. Things haven't been too pleasant around here lately, Abby.”

“No, I imagine not. Well, this will have to stop. We can't have one of our stars badgering the other every night—I'll talk to Gene Ramsay tomorrow.” That was one aspect of the producer's job I never envied—stopping destructive nonsense backstage.

“See if you can get him to bring Griselda Gold back from the tour,” said Leo. ‘What with John Reddick out of the picture …”

“You mean we need a director too? Leo, what's going on?”

Leo took a deep breath and spelled it out. “What's going on, Abby, is that woman is changing your play. She's invented business for herself that's not in the script. She's changed some of the blocking—and killed the stage picture, in my view. She's even changed some of the lines. I told her to cut it out because she's throwing the others off when she changes their cues, but she doesn't pay any attention. Oh, none of the things she's done are big things—yet. But she keeps chipping away.”

“Why didn't you tell me?” I said faintly. “Or Ramsay?”

“I did. At least, I tried to. Ramsay was out of town when I called. I left a message with your service.”

“I didn't get the message.” We had a problem all right. Success had come late in life for Vivian; if she'd felt more secure, she wouldn't have to pull these tricks.

“God, this depresses me,” I said. “Tiny, say something cheerful.”

“Burden flug,” he complied.

I wanted to say hello to Hugh Odell before the performance. I knocked on his dressing-room door and slipped inside.

Hugh had changed. He was quieter now, the bounce had gone out of his step, he looked his age for the first time in his life. He'd lost weight. He came alive only when he was on stage acting; the rest of his time he spent waiting. He lived from performance to performance; there was nothing else.

“We've got trouble, Abby,” he said sadly. “Vivian is screwing up the works. Sylvia Markey was a bitch, but she was a bitch you could work with. Vivian—I don't know, I don't know.” The old Hugh would have been quite capable of going to Vivian and telling her that if she didn't straighten up he personally would wring her neck. Now he just sat dispiritedly, taking whatever came his way.

“Now, Hugh,” I smiled. “You don't really think I'm going to let Vivian spoil my play, do you? Don't worry, I'm going to see Gene Ramsay tomorrow. We'll get it straightened out.”

“I hope so,” Hugh said. “If only John …”

“Yes.” I changed the subject and we chatted a few more minutes before I went out front to watch the performance.

I no longer saw the
play
any more—it was too familiar, too often repeated even for me. All I saw now was the technique of the performance. And that technique had changed considerably from the last time I'd been to the theater. Leo Gunn had hit it right on the nose: the stage picture did seem out of balance in several places, and Vivian had transposed phrases and sometimes whole sentences in quite a few of her speeches. The scene she wanted me to rewrite was awkward, because Vivian worked at making it awkward.

I went straight home after the first act because I didn't trust myself to talk to Vivian right then. I was furious with the woman! She was too good an actress to have to stoop to this kind of spotlight grabbing. She was feeling her power, and she wanted to test it.

It's a drag for some actors, performing the same role night after night. The best ones can handle the repetition without becoming stale. But others need to add to their roles, to change things,
to keep themselves interested
even at the expense of the play. George M. Cohan had once had to call a special rehearsal “to remove the improvements.” I didn't know whether Vivian's meddling sprang from boredom or from her new-found star status. But the rest of the cast had been performing their roles even longer, and none of them was sabotaging the play.