“Because you’re running yourself ragged, darling, and I can’t afford to lose my assistant scenic designer in the beginning of the rehearsal process.” Beth strode down the aisle of the theatre and stepped up onto the stage to hand Ralph an ice-cold can of Diet Coke. “Enjoy your breakfast,” she teased.
A young actor with curly blond hair, wearing a denim jacket and black jeans and carrying a knapsack, bounded down the aisle and dropped his pack onto a chair in the front row. Beth immediately greeted him with a hug. “C.J.,” she called, “here’s your Tom. C.J. Welles, our Jane, meet Frank Teale, direct from the Royal Shakespeare Company.”
“By way of the Cleveland Playhouse,” Frank added. He was a real Brit. Or else he insisted on staying in character even more than C.J. did. “I was just doing Hedda out there.”
“C.J. Welles,” the actress said, extending her hand to her costar. “By way of office temping and unemployment. I bet you made a lovely Hedda Gabler,” she joked.
“Actually, I might have done,” Frank replied. He shook C.J.’s hand and gave her a winning smile. “But they cast me as Eilert Løvborg, alas. Nontraditional casting has not come that far in the American Midwest.”
Well, well, C.J. was thinking, wondering why she’d never met this hottie during the lengthy audition process. Should it turn out that she would have to remain in the twenty-first century forever, she had a very cute and charming costar and a few passionate kisses in the script. Not a bad way to make a Broadway debut.
When Humphrey finally arrived, perspiring and apologetic, mopping his glistening brow with a handkerchief edged in Harvard crimson, Beth called Frank and C.J. to the apron of the stage for a brief discussion of some script modifications. “Of course it’s one of the laws of the Theatre that as soon as you think you’ve got all your ducks in a row, one of them decides to develop a mind of his own. In this case, we’ve got some script revisions to go over before we do a first read-through with a—dare I say—entire cast. Both of you. I expect the whole rehearsal process will be an evolving and collaborative one.” She winked at Humphrey. “But it’s the deal you make with the devil, I suppose, when you work with a living playwright.” Beth ceded the floor to the dramatist as though she were passing a baton.
“I feel as if we’ve been neglecting Jane as a writer—as the thing that defines the woman,” Humphrey urged, cleaning the lint from his tortoiseshell-framed eyeglasses with a specially treated cloth. “It’s my fault for writing it the way I did, but I feel that the way things are right now, she’s accepting the change in her life too easily.”
“Meaning . . . ?” C.J. asked.
The playwright thoughtfully chewed the end of his eyeglass frame. “I would like to cut Jane’s lines after Tom’s exit—you know, ‘Bath. I’m going to Bath’—and not have her leave the stage, but instead cross over to the writing table, sit down, and begin to write as the curtain falls. I want to show that she finds solace in the writing, despite the enforced move to Bath, because it salves her soul from her emotionally painful reunion with Tom.”
C.J. dug her nails into her palms. This revision could present an enormous impediment to her ability to get back to the nineteenth century. “You mean keep her onstage at the end of the act, instead of exiting?”
“Another duck heard from.” Beth immediately recognized her leading lady’s obvious discomfort with the proposed new staging. “C.J., you’re going to be so good in this role. That’s why I went to the mat for you. And I’m sure you can take any direction and play it so that it works beautifully. Let’s try what Humphrey suggests when we run through it. Just make a different, but equally strong, choice at the end of the act.” She looked visibly upset, as though she was already beginning to regret putting her neck on the line for an actress who was turning out to be an uncooperative diva.
“While you guys futz around, I’ll just start putting things back together,” Ralph announced to no one in particular. He went upstage-left and began to repair the shim on the door unit.
A first rehearsal for her Broadway debut was not the time to begin acting up instead of acting. But how could C.J. explain things to Beth and Humphrey without their deciding which to do first: fire her or commit her to the Bellevue psychiatric ward?
“I know this may sound like a silly request,” C.J. said, punting, “but I like to work organically—put all the elements together from the getgo—so . . . well . . . does anyone mind if I try to see how the whole thing feels in my body, with the blocking and the dialogue?” She indicated her blue dress with a tug. “The costumes too. I’m weird that way. But it just helps me get into character and stay there right from the start. Milena gave me this dress to wear for rehearsals, so I thought—”
Beth heaved a little sigh and rewarded C.J. with an indulgent nod. “Our very own Daniel Day-Lewis. Oh, what the fuck. Why not?”
C.J. gave the director a grateful smile. “Many thanks! Just give me a minute, okay?” She retreated to a dark, quiet corner behind the set where she had placed the carpetbag containing the pills for Lady Dalrymple. The only way to convince Humphrey that his original instinct was the right one was to play the revised scene the way they wanted to see it, thereby demonstrating its reduced effectiveness. “Let’s do it,” C.J. called out resolutely. “I know there aren’t any lines in this new version, but I just want to see how the different blocking feels.” C.J. crossed to the writing desk and sat there for a few moments pretending to write, imagined that the
