Show Business is Murder

Now, don’t judge me too harshly. You gotta understand. I was nervous about my performance. For one thing, I hadn’t acted in years. When I had it was in summer stock, at an Equity theater, where the actors got paid. I’d also appeared in movies, granted only fleetingly, but still enough to hold a Screen Actors Guild card. All of which made me a professional. And this was community theater. Amateur theater. And as a professional acting in amateur theater, I was expected to be good.

I had a lot to prove.

Which, if the truth be known, I probably wasn’t capable of. Because if I’d been any good as an actor, I’d still be doing it, instead of working as a P.I.

I also didn’t know he was dead. Because Fletcher Greengrass was one of the hammiest actors I’d ever met, and when he fell over on his face, I, like everyone else in the cast, assumed he was pulling another one of his outrageous stunts just to upstage me, and undercut my big speech. So I was justifiably pissed.

It was near the end of act two. I was alone on stage, awaiting the object of my affections, the virginal Emily, when young Mr. Greengrass emerged from her room instead.

“Surprised?” he inquired in an exaggerated mocking tone. “I don’t know why. These thing happen, don’t they? How do you like it? So I got to her first, what’s the big deal?”

He put his hand on my shoulder. I brushed it off.

“Remember what you said? About women being like trophies?” He snatched up the samovar, held it out to me. “Here’s the award for the world’s worst ladies’ man. I think this belongs to you.”

His delivery was so over the top that when he proceeded to take a nose dive, I naturally figured he was clowning.

So did the director. A little man with no hair, except on his chin, he was given to histrionics, whether in an attempt to match Fletcher Greengrass’s tone, or because he had seen a director portrayed that way on TV, I couldn’t say. At any rate, he vaulted up onto the stage, which was at the far end of the Ridgewood High basketball court, to tell Fletcher Greengrass off.

“Fletcher,” he declared. “That’s the last straw. You cooperate, or you’re out of the play. You think I can’t replace you, well I can. I’ll play the part myself, if I have to, rather than put up with this.”

That was a brave boast. Fletcher Greengrass was our leading man, our young love interest, the one enamored of both Emily and Charlotte, the two young women in the piece. I say Emily and Charlotte-that’s their stage names. Emily was actually a young housewife whose name I didn’t know. Charlotte was Shirley something or other, a voluptuous young woman with auburn hair and a most remarkable collection of shirts, sweaters, and pullovers, none of which ever seemed to be hiding a bra.

But I digress.

Anyway, the director descended on the fallen body of Fletcher Greengrass like Washington marching on Richmond, (if that’s where he marched; as I grow older, my American history fades with everything else).

“Get up and stop screwing around,” he ordered.

Fletcher Greengrass had stopped screwing around, but he didn’t get up. He just lay there, doing a marvelous impression of a dead man.

The aforementioned Emily and Charlotte crept out of the wings, where they had been waiting to enter after I had delivered my big speech. Also from the wings crept the other actor in the piece, whose name I couldn’t remember, though his name in the play was Ralph.

The stage manager also poked his head out from behind the curtain. An elderly, often befuddled man, he inquired, “Where do you want to take it from?” a totally inappropriate comment, even if one of the actors hadn’t been dead.

“Fletcher, get up now or you’re replaced.”

“Now, now, I want him in the show,” Barnaby Farnsworth declared.

Mr. Farnsworth was the playwright, and I only knew his name because it appeared in huge letters on the front of every script. A balding, middle-aged man, with pudgy features and twinkling eyes, Barnaby Farnsworth was a bit of a joke to the actors in the cast. The joke was that his play, Ride the Wild Elephant, was largely autobiographical, and that the part of Brad, modeled after him, was the one played by young, handsome, studly Fletcher Greengrass.

Emily and Charlotte repressed giggles when Barnaby declared he wanted Fletcher in the play.

“Yes, I know you want him in the play,” the director said. “But he can only be in the play if he stands up. I cannot direct an actor who takes naps in the middle of scenes.”

The director placed his toe in Fletcher Greengrass’s ribs. He pushed, not gently. His eyes widened.

I followed his gaze.

The director was staring at the white froth dribbling from the corner of Fletcher Greengrass’s mouth.

I FELT SORRY for the cop. As the local chief of a small town in Westchester county, the poor man couldn’t have had much experience with murders. Not to mention on-stage murders involving a full cast of characters and a silver samovar. While this was his jurisdiction, still I wondered how long it would be before a homicide sergeant arrived to relieve him.

“So,” he said. “Who saw what happened?”

Everyone began talking at once. The actors, director, playwright, stage manager. Even the light man, who had climbed down from his booth when it was clear something was wrong.

The cop put up his hand. A large, overweight man, he was sweating profusely in his uniform. It was mid-July, and the gym was not air-conditioned. “One at a time, please. Who’s in charge here?”

The stage manager attempted to assert his authority, but was quickly shouted down.

“I’m in charge,” the director said.

“And you would be?”

“Morton Wainwright.”

“Splendid. And where were you when it happened?’

“In the audience.” He grimaced, shrugged. “I mean on the basketball court. Right here, watching the action on the stage.”

Our eyes were drawn to the current action on the stage, which consisted of a doctor examining the body, while two EMS workers stood by with a gurney waiting to take it away. There was a crime scene ribbon up, and a police detective was searching the stage for evidence. Frankly, I had my doubts.

The cop cleared his throat for attention. “Who was on the stage at the time?”

“Just the two of them,” the director said.

“The two of who?”

“Him and the other actor. Stanley Hastings.”

The cop looked me over. I tried not to look guilty. Try that some time. It’s like trying not to think of an elephant.

The cop didn’t seem convinced. He grunted the police equivalent of harumph, and turned back to the director. “What were they doing?”

“They were playing a scene. They were doing okay. Not great, but okay. This was the first rehearsal off book- that means without scripts-and they had to be prompted a few times. No more than average, still it’s hard to get any pace going when you keep blowing the lines.”

“That’s a fascinating inside look at theater,” the cop said dryly. “But I have this dead body.”

The director flushed. “Yes, of course. Anyway, they got to the point where Fletcher hands Stanley the silver samovar and he keeled over dead.”

“You say he handed Stanley the whatjamacallit?”

“Samovar. Yes, sir.”

“And that would be this gentleman here?” He fixed me with a steely gaze.

“That’s right.”

“Then you must have been rather close to him.” He tried to say it casually, without insinuation.

“I was standing right next to him.”

“And you two were the only ones on stage?” This time, the insinuation crept in.

“Were you thinking of fitting me for handcuffs?”

“This is no laughing matter, Mr. Hastings.”