“Sit down, all,” he said to the rest of us. “Curtain, Davidson.” He waited while the heavy pall rolled ponderously upward against the top of the arch. “Have you got your scripts, ladies and gentlemen?”
We all had, but his hands were empty. I started to offer him my copy, but he waved it away with thanks. “I know the thing by heart,” he informed me, though with no air of boasting. Remaining still upon his feet, he looked around our seated array, capturing every eye and attention.
“The first part of Ruthven is, as we know already, in iambic pentameter—the ‘heroic verse’ that was customary and even expected in dramas of Byron’s day. However, he employs here his usual trick of breaking the earlier lines up into short, situation-building speeches. No long and involved declamations, as in so many creaky tragedies of his fellows. He wrote the same sort of opening scenes for his plays the world has already seen performed—Werner, The Two Foscari, Marino Faliero and The Deformed Transformed.”
Martha Vining cleared her throat. “Doesn’t Manfred begin with a long, measured soliloquy by the central character?”
“It does,” nodded Varduk. “I am gratified, Miss Vining, to observe that you have been studying something of Byron’s work.” He paused, and she bridled in satisfaction. “However,” he continued, somewhat maliciously, “you would be well advised to study farther, and learn that Byron stated definitely that Manfred was not written for the theater. But, returning to Ruthven, with which work we are primarily concerned, the short, lively exchanges at the beginning are Aubrey’s and Malvina’s.” He quoted from memory. “ ‘Scene, Malvina’s garden. Time, late afternoon—Aubrey, sitting at Malvina’s feet, tells his adventures.’ Very good, Mr. Connatt, take your place at Miss Holgar’s feet.”
I did so, and she smiled in comradely fashion while waiting for the others to drag their chairs away. Glancing at our scripts, we began:
“I’m no Othello, darling.” “Yet I am
Your Desdemona. Tell me of your travels.”
“Of Anthropophagi?” “ ‘And men whose heads
do grow beneath—’ ” “I saw no such,
Not in all wildest Greece and Macedon.”
“Saw you no spirits?” “None, Malvina—none.”
“Not even the vampire, he who quaffs the blood
Of life, that he may live in death?” “Not I.
How do you know that tale?” “I’ve read
In old romances—”
“Capital, capital,” interrupted Varduk pleasantly. “I know that the play is written in a specific meter, yet you need not speak as though it were. If anything, make the lines less rhythmic and more matter-of-fact. Remember, you are young lovers, half bantering as you woo. Let your audience relax with you. Let it feel the verse form without actually hearing.”
We continued, to the line where Aubrey tells of his travel-acquaintance Ruthven. Here the speech became definite verse:
“He is a friend who charms, but does not cheer,
One who commands, but comforts not, the world.
I do not doubt but women find him handsome,
Yet hearts must be uneasy at his glance.”
Malvina asks:
“His glance? Is it so piercing when it strikes?”
And Aubrey:
“It does not pierce—indeed, it rather weighs,
Like lead, upon the face where it is fixed.”
Followed the story, which I have outlined elsewhere, of the encounter with bandits and Ruthven’s apparent sacrifice of himself to cover Aubrey’s retreat. Then Martha Vining, as the maid Bridget, spoke to announce Ruthven’s coming, and upon the heels of her speech Varduk moved stiffly toward us.
“Aubrey!” he cried, in a rich, ringing tone such as fills theaters, and not at all like his ordinary gentle voice. I made my due response:
“Have you lived, Ruthven? But the horde
Of outlaw warriors compassed you and struck—”
In the role of Ruthven, Varduk’s interruption was as natural and decisive as when, in ordinary conversation, he neatly cut another’s speech in two with a remark of his own. I have already quoted this reply of Ruthven’s:
“I faced them, and who seeks my face seeks death.”
He was speaking the line, of course, without script, and his eyes held mine. Despite myself, I almost staggered under the weight of his glance. It was like that which Aubrey actually credits to Ruthven—lead-heavy instead of piercing, difficult to support.
The rehearsal went on, with Ruthven’s seduction of Bridget and his court to the nervous but fascinated Malvina. In the end, as I have synopsized earlier, came his secret and miraculous revival from seeming death. Varduk delivered the final rather terrifying speech magnificently, and then abruptly doffed his Ruthven manner to smile congratulations all around.
“It’s more than a month to our opening date in July,” he said, “and yet I would be willing to present this play as a finished play, no later than this day week. Miss Holgar, may I voice my special appreciation? Mr. Connatt, your confessed fear of your own inadequacy is proven groundless. Bravo, Miss Vining—and you, Davidson.” His final tag of praise to his subordinate seemed almost grudging. “Now for the second act of the thing. No verse this time, my friends. Finish the rehearsal as well as you have begun.”
“Wait,” I said. “How about properties? I simulated the club-stroke in the first act, but this time I need a sword. For the sake of feeling the action better—”
“Yes, of course,” granted Varduk. “There’s one in the corner dressing-room.” He pointed. “Go fetch it, Davidson.”
Davidson complied. The sword was a cross-hilt affair, old but keen and bright.
“This isn’t a prop at all,” I half objected. “It’s the real thing. Won’t it be dangerous?”
“Oh, I think we can risk it,” Varduk replied carelessly. “Let’s get on with the rehearsal. A hundred years later, in the same garden. Swithin and Mary, descendants of Aubrey and Malvina, onstage.”
We continued. The opening, again with Sigrid and myself a-wooing, was lively and even brilliant. Martha Vining,
