  First Night! A magic phrase and a magic moment to everyone in show business! The glitter, the jitters, the excitement of a first night are the same everywhere—for the big new Broadway show, with its stars, its lavish sets and costumes, its important audience in formal dress, as well as for the smallest theater in the smallest town in America. In high school and college auditoriums, in summer tents and barns, in tiny converted carriage-house theaters in the back streets of Greenwich Village, the glamour comes as always, and with it, the feverish excitement. Last-minute problems suddenly arise, as suddenly are solved. Something is wrong with the second row of baby spots; they’re out of focus. Did someone move the lighting bar? Fix it! An important door, vital to certain entrances and exits, gets stuck. When you try to pull it, the canvas wall in which it is set trembles. Brace the canvas! Plane down the door jamb! Oil the hinges and the door latch! Better? Fine! “Where’s the ladder? How can I fix those spots....” “Who has some blue thread? This darned blouse....” “I’ll never make that costume change in time! We’ll have to open the back and put in snaps, but there has to be a dresser to help me or....” “Who took the tennis racket from this prop table? Come on! This is no time to fool around!” “Where’s the ladder?” “Mal, did you change the position of that sofa in Act Three, or am I just imagining it? If you did....” “Yes, I restaged it in last night’s rehearsal. I thought it would....” “Well, why didn’t you tell me? Now I have to relight the whole scene! You directors think that all you have to do is tell the actors! There are other people who are important too....” “Sorry. Really, I am. Must have slipped my mind.” “Slipped your mind? Well!” “Please! This is no time for a quarrel. Here, let me show you....” “Where’s that ladder? I have to have that ladder!” “Who wanted blue thread? I found the sewing kit on top of the switchboard!” “What time is it?” “One ladder, coming up!” “I wanted blue thread—but this is the wrong color blue. Do you think it will show from out front?” “It’s seven o’clock!” “Hold still, Peggy! I’m cutting the back open now, and I don’t want to hurt you. Do you turn your back to the audience at any time, or can I fake this hem, do you think?” “Do I turn? Let me think ... No. You can fake it. But it has to look all right in a profile, because I cross a lot. Will I have a dresser right here?” “I’ll be here, and we have a screen right by the switchboard ... or we should have one. Joe! What about that dressing screen off right?” “As soon as you finish with that ladder, may I please....” “All right, Peggy. Take it off now, and I’ll sew it up. Plenty of time!” Peggy stepped behind the switchboard and slipped off the blouse, which now came off like a smock. The snaps in back would keep her from having to unbutton the whole front and then having to button it up again—a saving of at least a minute. And a minute is a long time. She put on a lightweight bathrobe, handed the blouse to the wardrobe mistress, and stepped out into the confusion of the stage, to see what was going on now. On top of the tall extension ladder, Sam Marcus, the electrician, was fixing the position of the three end baby spots in order to light the sofa properly in its new position. Below him, Joe Banks, chief stagehand, was waiting impatiently to carry off the ladder as soon as it was free. Amy, on her hands and knees in front of the troublesome door, was tacking down a hump that had suddenly appeared in the canvas groundcloth, and which threatened to stop the door from opening. As Peggy approached her, she looked up and managed a grin, despite the fact that her mouth was full of long carpet tacks. “Why, Grandma, what big teeth you have!” Peggy said, looking down at her friend. “Mmph!” Amy said. She pounded in two more tacks, took the remaining few from between her lips, and surveyed her handiwork. “Think that’ll do?” she asked. “It looks good to me,” Peggy replied. “Now let’s see what’s going to go wrong next!” “There isn’t much left to go wrong that hasn’t already done so and been fixed at least twice.” Amy laughed. “Now, if everything will just be kind enough to hold together through tonight, I’ll be most grateful to Fate.” Randy suddenly appeared through the door, which worked smoothly this time. “I’m not worried about the costumes and sets holding together,” he said, “as much as I am about the play holding together. I suppose it’s just first-night jitters, but I have the terrible feeling that the whole play ought to be rewritten from beginning to end. But Mal won’t let me change so much as one single word now.” “Randy! The play is beautiful,” Peggy said, “and I don’t think there’s a word in it that should be changed. Besides, you shouldn’t say things like that out loud, even if you feel them. Some of the cast might hear you, and they’re already nervous enough, without having to worry about the quality of the play.” “I suppose you’re right,” Randy said moodily. “And anyway, it’s too late. How are the actors holding up? Are they really nervous? You look as cool as an orchid on ice.” “I’m not,” Peggy said, “but if I’m going to fool the audience into thinking so, I have to start by fooling myself. The rest of the gang seem all right, too, except that their good-humored kidding around sounds suspiciously on the edge of hysteria!” “How’s our leading lady?” Randy asked cautiously. “She looked a little strange when I saw her last, about an hour ago.” “I don’t know,” Peggy said slowly. “She seemed ... strange ... to me, too. She wasn’t nervous, and she wasn’t kidding around with the rest of the cast, and at the same time, she didn’t seem cool and calm. She just looked sort of distant and detached. I think she’s collecting her strength, in a way—preparing herself to be Alison, rather than just to play her.” “That’s the way it seemed to me,” Randy said. “It’s as if she has written a sort of pre-play ... you know, the action that takes place before the play begins. She’s figured out what Alison’s frame of mind must have been before she arrived at the resort, and that’s the part she’s playing now.” “That’s just what it is,” Amy said. “I know, because I talked to her about it last night, and she told me that the hardest part of acting for her was what she had to imagine for herself before ever coming on stage. I’ll bet by now she’s completely forgotten that she’s Paula Andrews and an actress, and that nothing is real for her but the character of Alison. That’s what makes her so good.” “She is good,” Randy agreed, “and she certainly is Alison. I only hope she doesn’t completely convince herself that she’s living this rather than playing it, or she might start making up her own lines! And, at that,” he added gloomily, “they’d probably be a lot better than the ones I wrote.” With a theatrical gesture of mock despair, he backed through the doorway and gently shut the door. “Here, Peggy! Try this on now!” It was the wardrobe mistress, back with the blouse. “Amy! You’d better get changed and start to get the ushers ready!” “Where’s that ladder now! Why can’t I ever find....” “What time is it?” “Try number four dimmer down and number three up at the same time, and with your other hand....” “Who has the ladder?” “It’s seven-forty!” “I only have two hands, you know!” “Did somebody call for the ladder? Who wanted that ladder?” “No, no! Number four down and number three up, not number three down and number four up!” “What time did you say?” “Did anybody see the first-aid kit? I cut my finger on this gel frame.” “Give me a hand with the ladder, will you? Just set it right here, under....” “Look out! Don’t bleed all over the sofa!” “It’s seven-forty-five.” “Ouch!” With all the past weeks of preparation, Peggy thought, you’d suppose that nothing at all would have to be left till the last moment, but somehow, no matter how well you planned, there was always something left undone. Or something that had to be redone. Less than an hour before curtain time, it seemed as if Come Closer had not the least chance of opening that night. But she knew that it would open, and she was sure that it would go smoothly and well. At least she hoped that she was sure. Peggy went down the circular iron stairway to the dressing room she shared with Greta. It was time to start putting her make-up on. Greta was already applying the base, and the tiny room, no bigger than a closet, was perfumed with the peculiar odor of grease paint. Every inch of wall space except for the mirrors was covered with clothing—their own and their costumes—hanging from nails and hooks. A few garments were even suspended from some of the pipes that crisscrossed the low ceiling. The room was so narrow that when Peggy sat at the dressing table, the back of her chair was touching the wall behind her. The dressing table itself, a rough board counter covered with plastic shelving paper, was littered with bottles, jars, tubes, powder boxes, puffs, make-up brushes, eyebrow pencils, eye-liners, grease crayons, hairbrushes, combs, sprays, hairpins and other odds and ends. Looking at the cramped, messy little room, Peggy suddenly thought of a movie she had seen, where several scenes took place in a star’s dressing room. It was an enormous room, she remembered, with a carved Victorian sofa and chairs grouped around a little marble tea table. At one side of the room had been an elaborate make-up table surmounted by a gold-framed mirror. On it were a very few bottles and jars. A pleated silk screen stood nearby, concealing an immense closet which held row upon row of costumes. Overhead was a crystal chandelier. Peggy laughed out loud when she thought of the chandelier. “What’s funny?” Greta asked. “Oh, nothing,” Peggy said. “I was just thinking that the best thing about being an actress is the glamorous backstage life!” “Five minutes!” called Dick Murphy, the stage manager. “Everybody ready in there?” “All ready!” Peggy and Greta sang out. “Five minutes!” they heard him call at the next door. “Let’s go up,” Peggy said. “I’m dying to see what kind of house we have!” “Murphy doesn’t want us up until he calls for places,” Greta said doubtfully. “Oh, it doesn’t matter,” Peggy said. “We’re both on within five minutes of curtain, and our places in the wings aren’t in anybody’s way.” “All right,” Greta agreed, knowing that she was as eager as Peggy. At the stage level, a few stagehands were making last-minute adjustments. Mal stood to one side, seemingly watching nothing at all. There was hardly a sound, except for the chatter of the audience, muted by the curtain that separated them from the stage. The hundreds of voices of the audience merged into a single sound, as the splashes of thousands of wavelets in a single wave combine to become the murmur of the sea. Peggy put her eye to the tiny peephole in the curtain. Almost every seat was already filled, and the ushers were leading a few last-minute arrivals down the aisles. As she watched, the house lights began to dim, and the floods came up brightly. An expectant hush came over the audience. She felt a hand on her arm, and turned to see Dick Murphy, looking comically stern. He silently gestured with a nod of his head, to indicate that it was time for her to leave the stage. She took her place in the wings with the other waiting actors. They were silent and outwardly calm, but she could feel the tension in all of them. A little behind them, seated on a suitcase that she would carry in with her, was Paula, wearing an expression that gave away nothing. “Okay,” she heard Dick Murphy say. “Places!” Alan Douglas and Betsy Crane stepped out onto the empty stage and sat in two widely separated lounge chairs. Alan spread his newspaper to read, and Betsy began to knit. “Curtain!” Murphy said. And the play was on. |
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