‘The humiliation. The sheer bloody humiliation. You take a decision rationally. You say I’ll do this or that, it’ll be hell, but I know the stakes, I’ll do it, I can cope. And then you do it, and it is hell, and you realise that you can’t cope.’
‘You mean this understudy thing?’
Alex nodded unevenly. ‘That, and other things, yes. I just feel it can’t go on much longer. There’s got to be some resolution, something that breaks the tension.’
‘What sort of thing?’
‘I don’t know.’ Alex Household laughed suddenly. ‘Someone’s death, maybe.’
Thursday’s rehearsals built up to a run in the afternoon. Whatever Michael Banks had done with Lesley-Jane the previous evening — and something in their manner towards each other suggested he had done something — it had not improved his grasp of the lines. In fact, he was worse than ever. It was as if his mind had a finite capacity for lines; put in more than it could hold and they would start to overflow. He would surprise everyone by getting a new speech right, but then show that it had been at the expense of other sections of dialogue. The fact could not be avoided: Michael Banks could no longer learn lines.
He was cold and hurt at the end of the run-through, knowing what was wrong and unable to admit it.
‘Look, Micky,’ said Peter Hickton, ‘would it help if we were to go through the lines again this evening, just the two of us?’
‘No, thank you,’ the star replied politely. ‘I’ll go home and put them on tape. That sometimes helps.’
‘Are you sure there’s nothing that — ’
‘Quite sure, thank you,’ came the firm reply. ‘Don’t worry about it. I once learned all of lago in three days when I was in rep.’
But the old boast didn’t convince anyone. Amidst subdued farewells, Michael Banks left the rehearsal room.
‘Christ!’ muttered Paul Lexington, momentarily losing his cool. ‘What the hell do we do now?’
‘I haven’t a clue,’ confessed Peter Hickton. ‘Just run out of ideas. Unless we start pasting bits of the script all over the set. God, if only it were television. There you can use autocue and idiot boards, but in the theatre there’s no technology that can help you out.’
‘Oh,’ said Wallas Ward, the languid Company Manager. ‘I wouldn’t say that.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Friday’s rehearsals followed the pattern of the previous day. Followed it even down to the detail of Michael Banks not knowing his lines.
The strain was beginning to tell on him. The casual bonhomie was maintained with more difficulty. There was no arrogance in the man; he was desperately aware that he was letting down all his fellow-actors, and by one of the least forgivable of professional shortcomings. Knowing the lines was the basic equipment for the job. Actors throughout history had staggered on to stages in various states of alcoholic debility, but they had almost always got through the lines, or at least an approximation of them. Michael Banks knew how much he was showing himself up, but the lines just wouldn’t come. The dark circles under his eyes suggested he might well have spent the entire night going through them on a tape recorder, but it hadn’t helped. Every improvement was at the cost of another speech forgotten.
And he knew fully what was at stake too. He was aware of his responsibilities as a star. One of the reasons why people in his position were paid so much money was because their presence could often ensure the survival of a production and keep the rest of the company in employment. They were responsible for the complete show, which was why stories of stars giving notes to other actors or ordering changes in sets and costumes were not just examples of megalomania, but the desire to maintain the overall standard of whatever production they put their names to.
Michael Banks knew that
Consciousness of all these pressures did not improve Michael Banks’s concentration and, together with fatigue, ensured that the lines were worse than ever on the Friday afternoon run.
The rehearsal ended in apathetic silence. The actors drifted uselessly to their belongings.
‘Micky, could we have a quick word?’ asked Paul Lexington, and the star, with the dignity of a man mounting the scaffold, went across to join the producer, director and Company Manager.
Conscious of the straining ears of the rest of the company, Paul Lexington led the little group out into the corridor. They were out for two or three minutes, during which no one in the hall spoke.
Michael Banks led them back in, saying, ‘No, I’m sorry, Paul. I couldn’t think of it. I have a reputation to maintain.’
‘Do you have any alternative to suggest?’ asked the Producer, careless now of listening ears.
The star spread his hands in a gesture of frustration. ‘Only that somehow I’ll get the lines. Somehow.’
‘Micky, you’ve said that for a fortnight, and there’s no sign of it happening. We’ve got to do something.’
‘But not what you suggest. There must be some other way.’ And, to put an end to the conversation, he walked firmly off to pour himself a cup of coffee.
After a muttered colloquy with Peter Hickton and Wallas Ward, Paul Lexington announced, ‘O.K., everyone. We’ll break there. Ten o’clock call in the morning. There’s still a lot of work to do.’
‘You can say that again,’ murmured Alex Household, who was standing beside Charles, ‘but I fear it will all be in vain.’
‘Alex,’ said the producer, ‘could you just stay for a quick word?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’m going round the pub,’ said Charles. ‘See you there maybe.’
‘Perhaps,’ Alex replied abstractedly. And looking at the glow of restrained excitement in the other actor’s face, Charles knew that Alex Household thought he was about to get his part back.
It was nearly an hour before Alex appeared in the pub, and one look at his face told that his expectation had not been realised.
He no longer even mentioned his ‘no stimulants’ regime as he took the large Bell’s from Charles.
‘The nerve! The bloody nerve! I cannot believe it!’
Charles didn’t bother to prompt. He knew it was all about to come out.
‘Do you know what they have asked me to do? Cool as you like, Paul bloody Lexington has asked me to sit in the wings for the entire run of this play and feed Micky Banks his lines!’
‘What, you mean to be a kind of private prompter, whispering at him right through the play?’
‘No, it’s a bit more sophisticated than that. This is a deaf-aid job.’
‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand.’
‘Oh, haven’t you heard of these things? It has been done before in similar circumstances. It’s a new device, whereby, thanks to the wonders of electronics, a star can still give a performance without bothering to learn the lines.’
‘Explain.’
‘Very simple, really. It’s a short-wave radio transmitter. Some lemon — me, if Paul Lexington has his way — sits in the wings feeding the part line by line into the transmitter. The character on stage, for reasons which may possibly be explained by the insertion of a line or two into the script, wears a deaf-aid. .’
‘Which acts as a receiver?’
‘Exactly.’
‘But does it work?’
‘It has worked in some very eminent cases. Has to be modern dress obviously, and ideally an elderly character. You can’t have Romeo swarming up the balcony in doublet, hose and hearing aid. But the part Micky’s
