yes, “obedience” is a fine play. i'm glad they've revived it. did you know that the first time it was produced, morgan edwards played the part of dunbar? it's rather an odd story.
i never think of edwards without remembering the dark, creaky stairs in that boarding-house on seventy-third street. that was where i first met him. we had a comical habit of always encountering on the stairs. we would pass with that rather ridiculous murmur and sidling obeisance of two people who don't know each other but want to be polite. i was interested in him at once. even on the shadowy stairway i could see that he had a fine head, and there was something curiously attractive about his pale, preoccupied face. there was a touch of the unworldly about him, and a touch of the tragic, too. you know how you divine things about people. “he has troubles of his own” was the banal phrase that came into my mind. also there was something queerly familiar about him. i wondered if i had seen him before, or only imagined him. i was busy writing, at that time, and my mind was peopled with energetic phantoms. the thought struck me that perhaps he was someone i had invented for a story, but had never given life to. i wondered, was this pale and rather reproachful spectre going to haunt me until the tale was written? at any rate, whatever the story was, i had forgotten it.
one day, as i creaked up the first flight, i saw that he was standing at the head of the stairs, waiting for me to pass. a door was open behind him, and there was light enough to see him clearly. tall, thin, beautifully shaven on a fine angular jaw that would not be easy to shave, i was surprised to see an air of sudden cheerfulness about him that was almost incongruous. having thought of him only as a sort of melancholy hallucination living on a dingy stairway, it was quite startling to see him with his face lit up like a lyric poet's, a glow of mundane exhilaration in his eyes. for the first time in our meetings he looked as though to speak to him would not break in upon his secret thoughts. he was the kind of chap, you know, who usually looked as though he was busy thinking. i remember what i said because it was so inane. some people don't like to cross on the stairs. i looked up as i came to the turn in the steps, and said, “superstitious?” he smiled and said “no, i guess not!”
“only in the literal sense, at this moment,” i said. an absurd remark, and a horrible pun which i regretted at once, for i thought i would have to explain it. nothing more humiliating than having to explain a bad pun. but if i didn't explain it, it would seem rude. he looked puzzled, then his face lit up charmingly. “superstitious—standing above you, eh? i never thought of the meaning before!”
i came up the last steps. “pardon the vile pun,” i said. then i knew where i had seen him before, and recognized him. “aren't you morgan edwards?” i asked. “yes,” he said.
“i thought so. i remember you in 'after dinner'. i wrote the notice in the observer .”
“by jove, did you? i am glad to meet you. i think that was the nicest thing any one ever said.” his gaunt and pensive face showed a quick flash of that direct and honest friendliness which is so appealing. we found that we were both living on the fourth floor. for similar reasons, undoubtedly. i'm afraid he thought, at first, that i was a dramatic critic of standing. afterward i explained that the “after dinner” notice had been only a fluke. i was on the observer when the show was put on, and one of the dramatic men happened to be ill.
wait a minute: give me a chance! i'll tell it exactly as it came to me, in snips and shreds. at first i didn't pay much attention. i had problems of my own that summer. you know what a fourth-floor hall bedroom is in hot weather. i had given up my newspaper job, and was trying to finish a novel. i couldn't work late at night, when it was cool, because if i kept my typewriter going after nine-thirty the old maid in the next room used to pound on the partition. i didn't get on very well with the work, and the money was running low. every now and then i would meet edwards in the hall. he looked ill and worried, and i used to think there was a touching pathos in his careful neatness. my own habits run the other way—my palm beach suit was a wreck, i remember—but edwards was always immaculate. i could see—having made it my business to observe details—how cunningly he had mended his cuffs and soft collars. poor devil! i used to see him going out about noon, with his cane and panama hat. i dare say he scrubbed his hat with his toothbrush. summer is a hard time for an actor who hasn't had a job all spring. of course there are the pictures, and summer stock, but i gathered that he had been ill, and then had turned down several offers of that sort on account of something coming along that he had great hopes for. i remembered his really outstanding work in “after dinner”, that satiric comedy that fell dead the winter before. most of the critics gave it a good roasting, but knowing what i do now i expect the real trouble was poor direction. fagan was the director, and what did he know of sophisticated comedy? as i say, i had reviewed the piece for the observer, and had been greatly struck by edwards's playing. not a leading part, but exquisitely done.
but just at that time i was absorbed in my own not-too-successful affairs. for several years i had been saying to myself that i would do great stuff if i could only get away from the newspaper grind for a few months. and then, when i had saved up five hundred dollars, and buried myself there on seventy-third street to write, i couldn't seem to make any headway. i got half through the novel, and then saw that it was paltry stuff. it was flashy, spurious, and raw. one warm evening i was sitting at my window, smoking mournfully and watching some girls who were laughing and talking in a big apartment house that loomed over our lodgings like an ocean liner beside a tugboat. there was a tap at the door. edwards asked if he could come in. i was surprised, and pleased. he kept very much to himself.
“glad to see you,” i said. “sit down and have a pipe.”
“i didn't want to intrude,” he said. “i just wanted to ask you something. you're a literary man. do you know anything about arthur sampson?”
i had to confess that i had never heard the name. no one had, at that time, you remember.
“he's written a play,” edwards said. “a perfectly lovely piece of work. i've got a part in it. by heaven, it seems too good to be true—after a summer like this: illness, the actors' strike, and all that—to get into something so fine. i've just read the whole script. i'm so keen about it, i'm eager to know who the author is. i thought perhaps you might know something about him.”
“i guess he's a new man,” i said. “what's the play called?”
“'obedience.' you know, i've never had such a stroke of luck—it's as if the part had been written for me.”
“splendid,” i said, and i was honestly pleased to hear of his good fortune. “is it the lead?”
“oh, no. of course they want a big name for that. brooks is the man. my part is only the foil—provides the contrast, you know—on the payroll as well as on the stage.” he laughed, a little cynically.
“who's producing it?”
“upton.”
“you don't mean to tell me upton's got anything good?” i knew little enough about theatrical matters, but even outsiders know upton's sort of producing, which mostly consists of musical shows where an atrocious libretto is pulled through by an opulent chorus and plenty of eccentric dancing. “a chorus that outstrips them all” was one of his favourite advertising slogans.
“that's why i was wondering about the author, sampson. this must be his first, or he'd never have given it to upton. or is upton going to turn over a new leaf?”
“the only leaves upton is likely to turn over are figleaves,” i said, brutally. upton's previous production had been called “the figleaf lady”.
“that's the amazing part of it,” said edwards. “this thing is really exquisite. it is beautifully written: quiet, telling, nothing irrelevant, not a false note. what will happen to it in upton's hands, god knows. but he seems enthusiastic. he's a likable cutthroat: let's hope for the best. you're busy—forgive me for breaking in.”
well, of course some of you have seen “obedience” since that time, and you know that what edwards told me was true. the play was lovely; not even upton could kill it altogether. it was sampson's first. have any of you read it in printed form? it reads as well as it plays. and the part that edwards was cast for—dunbar—is, to any competent spectator, the centre of the action. you remember the lead: the cold, hard, successful hypocrite; and then dunbar, the blundering, kindly simpleton whose forlorn attempts to create happiness for all about him only succeed in bringing disaster to the one he loves best. it's a great picture of a fine mind and heart, a life of rich, generous possibilities, frittered and wasted and worn out by the needless petty obstinacies of destiny. and all the tragedy (this was the superb touch) because the wretched soul never had courage enough to be unkind. what was it st. paul, or somebody, said about not being disobedient to the heavenly vision? dunbar, in the play, was obedient enough, and his heavenly vision made his life a hell. it was the old question of conflicting loyalties. how are you going to solve that?
i suppose the tragic farce is the most perfect conception of man's mind—outside the higher mathematics, i dare say. everyone knows sampson's touch now, but it was new then. some of his situations came pretty close to the nerve-roots. the pitiful absurdity of people in a crisis, exquisite human idiocy where one can't smile because grotesque tragedy is so close... those were the scenes that upton's director thought needed “working up”. but i'm getting ahead of my story.
well, now, let me see. i'd better be a little chronological. it must have been september, because i know i took labour day off and went to long beach for a swim. i had just about come to the conclusion that my novel was worthless, and that i'd better get a job of some sort. at the far end of the boardwalk, you remember, there's a quiet hotel where one gets away from the crowd, and where you see quite nice-looking people. after i'd had my swim, i thought i'd stroll up that way and have supper there. it's not a cheap place, but i had been living on lunch-counter food all summer, and i felt i owed myself a little extravagance. i was on my way along the boardwalk, enjoying the cool, strong whiff that comes off the ocean toward sunset, when i saw edwards, on the other side of the promenade, walking with a girl. my eye caught his, and we raised our hats. i was going on, thinking that perhaps he wasn't so badly off as i had imagined, when to my surprise he ran after me. he looked very haggard and ill, and seemed embarrassed.
“look here,” he said, “it's frightfully awkward: i must have had my pocket picked somehow. i've lost my railroad tickets and everything. could you possibly lend me enough to get back to town? i've got a lady with me, too.”
i didn't need to count my money to know how much i had. it was just about five dollars, and, as you know, that doesn't go far at long beach. i told him how i stood. “i can give you enough for the railroad fares, and glad to,” i said. “but how about supper?”
“oh, we're not hungry,” he said; “we had a big lunch.” i knew this was probably bravado, but i liked him for saying it. while i was feeling in my pocket for some bills, and wondering how to pass them over to him unobtrusively, he said, “i'd like to introduce you to miss cunningham. we're going to be married in the autumn.”
you may have seen sylvia cunningham? if so, you know how lovely she is. not pretty but with the simple charm that beauty can't——
well, that's trite! she'll never be a great actress, but in the r?le of sylvia cunningham she's perfect. i hate to call her slender—it's such an overworked word, but what other is there? dark hair and clear, amberlucent brown eyes, and a slow, searching way of talking, as if she were really trying to put thought into speech. she, too, poor child, had had a bad summer, i guessed: there was a neat little mend in her glove. she was very friendly—i think edwards must have told her about that observer notice. i saw that they were both much humiliated at their mishap, and i judged that genial frankness would carry off the situation best.
“life among the artists!” i said. “what are our assets?”
“i've got seventeen cents,” said edwards. it was a mark of fine breeding, i thought, that he did not insist upon saying how much it was that he had lost.
miss cunningham began to open her purse. “i have——”
“nonsense!” i said. “what you have doesn't enter into the audit. in the vulgar phrase, your money's no good. i've got five dollars and a quarter. now i suggest we go to jamaica and get supper there, and then go back to town by trolley. it'll be an adventure.”
well, that was what we did, and very jolly it was. you know how it is: artists and actors and manicure girls and newspapermen are accustomed to ups and downs of pocket; and when they have a misery in the right-hand trouser they make up for it in a spirit of genial comradeship. jamaica is an entertaining place. in a little lunchroom, which i remembered from a time when i covered a story out that way, we had excellent ham and eggs, and a good talk.
as we sat in that little white-tiled restaurant, i couldn't help watching edwards. i don't know how to make this plain to you, but our talk, which was cheerful enough, was the least important part of the occasion. talk tells so little, anyway: most of it's a mere stumbling in an almost foreign tongue when it comes to expressing the inward pangs and certainties that make up life. i had a feeling, as i saw those two, that i was coming closer than ever before to something urgent and fundamental in the human riddle. i thought that i had never seen a man so completely in love. when he looked at her there was a sort of—well, a sort of possession upon him, an enthusiasm, in the true sense of that strange word. i thought to myself that keats must have looked at fanny brawne in just that way. and—you know what writers are—i must confess that my observation of these two began to turn into “copy” in my mind. i was wondering whether they might not give me a hint for my stalled novel.
there are some engaged couples that make it a point of honour to be a bit off-hand and jocose when any one else is with them. just to show, i suppose, how sure they are of each other. and somehow i had expected actors, to whom the outward gestures of passion are a mere professional accomplishment, to be a little blasé or polished in such matters. but there was a perfect candour and simplicity about them that touched me keenly. their relation seemed a lovely thing. too lovely, and too intense perhaps, to be entirely happy, i thought, for i could see in edwards's face that his whole life and mind were wrapped up in it. i may have been fanciful, but at that time i was seeing the human panorama not for itself but as a reflection of my own amateurish scribblings. in my novel i had been working on the theory—not an original one, of course—that the essence of tragedy is fixing one's passion too deeply on anything in life. in other words, that happiness only comes to those who do not take life too seriously. destiny, determined not to give up its secrets, always maims or destroys those who press it too closely. as we laughed and enjoyed ourselves over our meal, i was wondering whether edwards, with his strange air of honourable sorrow, was a proof of my doctrine.
of course we talked about the new play. edwards had persuaded upton to give miss cunningham a place in the cast, and she was radiant about it. her eyes were like pansies as she spoke of it. i remember one thing she said:
“isn't it wonderful? morgan and i are together again. you know how much it means to us, for if the show has a run we can get married this winter.”
“this fall,” edwards amended.
“morgan's part is fine,” she went on, after a look at him that made even a hardened reporter feel that he had no right to be there. “it's really the big thing in the play for any one who can understand. it's just made for him.”
she was thoughtful a moment, and then added: “it's too much made for him, that's the only trouble. you're living with him, mr. roberts. don't let him take it too hard. he thinks of nothing else.”
i made some jocular remark, i forget what. edwards was silent for a minute. then he said: “if you knew how i've longed for a part like that—a part that i could really lose myself in.”
“i shouldn't care,” i said, “to lose myself in a part. suppose i couldn't find myself again when the time came?”
he turned to me earnestly.
“you're not an actor, roberts, so perhaps you hardly understand what it means to find a play that's real—more real than everyday life. what i mean is this: everyday life is so damned haphazard, troubled by a thousand distractions and subject to every sort of cruel chance. we just fumble along and never know what's coming next. but in a play, a good play, it's all worked out beforehand, you can see the action progressing under clear guidance. what a relief it is to be able to sink yourself in your part, to live it and breathe it and get away for awhile from this pitiless self-consciousness that tags around with us. you remember what they used to say about booth: that it wasn't booth playing hamlet, but hamlet playing booth.”
the next day, i remember, i tied up my manuscript neatly in a brown paper parcel, marked it literary remains of leonard roberts (i was childish enough to think that the alliteration would please my literary executor, if there should be such a person), put it away in my trunk, and went down to park row to see if there were any jobs to be had. of course it was the usual story. i had been out of the game for six months, and park row seemed to have survived the blow with great courage. at the observer office they charitably gave me some books to review. as i came uptown on the subway i was reflecting on the change a few hours had made in my condition. that morning i had been an author, a novelist if you please; and now i was not even a reporter, but that most deplorable of all grub street figures, a hack reviewer. it was mid-afternoon, and i hadn't had any lunch yet. in a fit of sulks i went into browne's, sat down in a corner, and ordered a chop and some shandygaff. as i ate, i looked over the books with a peevish eye. never mind, i said to myself, i will write such brilliant, withering, and scorching reviews that in six months the authors' league will be offering me hush money. i was framing the opening paragraph of my first article when johnson, whom i had known on the observer, stopped at my table. he was one of the newspaper men who had left park row to go into professional publicity work. there had been a time when i sneered at such a declension.
“hullo, leonard,” he said. “what are you doing nowadays?”
i told him, irritably, that i was writing a serial for one of the women's magazines. there is no statement that puts envious awe into a newspaper man so surely as that. but i also admitted that if he knew of a good job i might be persuaded to listen to details.
“as it happens,” he said, “i do. upton, the theatrical producer, is looking for a press agent. he tells me he's got something unusual under way, and he wants a highbrow blurb-artist. he says his regular roughneck is no good for this kind of show. something by a new writer, rather out of upton's ordinary line, i guess.”
“is it 'obedience'?”
“that's it. i couldn't remember the name.” as soon as i had finished my lunch i went round to upton's office. it was high up in a building overlooking longacre square, where the elevators were crowded with the people of that quaint and spurious world. the men i found particularly fascinating—you know the type, so very young in figure, often so old and hard and dry in face, with their lively tweeds, starched blue or green collars, silver-gray ties, and straight-brushed, purply-black hair. it was my first introduction to the realms of theatrical producing, and i must confess that i found mr. upton's office very entertaining with its air of elaborate and transparent bunkum. i sat underneath a coloured enlarged photo of the garden of eden ballet in “the figleaf lady” and surveyed the small anteroom. it was all intensely unreal. those framed photographs, on which were scrawled to harry upton, the best of his kind, or some such inscriptions, and signed by dramatists i had never heard of; the typist pounding out contracts; the architect's drawing of the projected upton theatre at broadway and fiftieth street, showing a line of people at the box office—all this, i knew by instinct, meant nothing. the dramatists whose photographs i saw would never write a real play; the upton theatre, even if it should be built, would not house anything but “burlettas,” and the typed contracts were not worth so much carbon paper. as for mr. upton himself, one couldn't help loving him: he was such a disarming, enthusiastic, shrewd, unreliable bandit. to abbreviate, he took me on as a member of his “publicity staff” (consisting of myself and a typewriter, as far as i could see) at one hundred dollars a week. his private office had three ingenious exits; going out by one of them, i found myself in a little alcove with the typewriter and plenty of stationery. rehearsals of “obedience” had started that morning, upton had told me; so before i went home that afternoon i had typed and sent off the following pregnant paragraph for the next day's papers:
henry upton's first dramatic production of the season, “obedience,” by arthur sampson, began making elbow room for itself at rehearsals yesterday. keith brooks will play the leading r?le, supported by lillian llewellyn, sylvia cunningham, morgan edwards, and other distinguished players.
i had a feeling of cheerfulness that evening. the cursed novel was no longer on my mind, there would be a hundred dollars due me the next week, and i was about to satisfy my long-standing curiosity to know something about the theatre from the inside. it was one of those typical evenings of new york loveliness: a rich, tawny, lingering light, a dry, clear air, warm enough to be pleasantly soft and yet with a sharp tingle in the breeze. i strolled about that bright jolly neighbourhood round the hideous verdi statue, bought a volume of pinero's plays at one of those combination book, cigar, and toy shops, and as i sat in my favourite milwaukee lunch i believe (if i must be frank) that some idea of writing a play was flitting through my mind. i got back to my room about ten o'clock. i had just sat down to read pinero when edwards tapped at the door. my mouth was open to tell him my surprising news when i saw that he was unpleasantly agitated. first he insisted on returning my loan, although i begged him to believe that there need be no hurry about it.
“rehearsals began to-day,” he said. he sat down on the bed and looked very sombre. “the worst possible has happened,” he said. “fagan's directing.”
i tried to console him. perhaps i felt that if upton had shown such good sense in his choice of a press representative his judgment in directors couldn't be altogether wrong.
“oh, well,” i said, “if the play's as good as you say, he can't hurt it much. upton believes in it, he won't let fagan chop it about, will he? and he's got a good cast—they won't need much direction: they know how to handle that kind of thing.”
“it's plain you don't know the game,” he said. “if upton had combed broadway from herald square to reisenweber's, he couldn't have found a man so superbly equipped to kill the piece. as for poor sampson, god help him. fagan is a typical broadway hanger-on, with plenty of debased cunning of his own; not a fool at all; but the last man for this kind of show, which needs imagination, atmosphere, delicate tone and tempo. but that's not all of it. fagan hates me personally. he'll get me out of the company if he possibly can. he can do it, of course: he has upton's ear.”
he sat a moment, one eyebrow twitching nervously. suddenly he cried out, in a quivering, passionate voice which horrified and frightened me: “i've got to play dunbar! it's my only chance. everything depends upon it.”
such an outcry, in a man usually so trained a master of himself, was pitiful. i was truly shocked, and yet i was almost on the verge of nervous laughter, i remember, when the idiotic old spinster in the next room pounded lustily on the wall. i suppose she thought we were revelling. i could see that he needed to talk. i tried to soothe him with some commonplace words and a cigarette.
“no,” he said, “i know what i'm talking about. fagan hates me. no need to go into details. he directed 'after dinner,' you know—and massacred it. we had a row then... he tried to bully a girl in the company... i threatened to thrash him. he hasn't forgotten, of course. he passed the word round then that i ruined the show. if this were any other play i'd have walked out as soon as i saw him. but this piece is different. i—i've set my heart on it. my god, i'm just meant for that part——”
in the hope of calming him, i asked what had happened at the first rehearsal.
“oh, the usual thing. we went through the first act, with the sides. i knew my lines perfectly, the only one who did (i ought to, i've been over them incessantly these few weeks—the thing haunts me). that seemed to annoy fagan. sampson was there—a quiet little man with a bright, thoughtful eye. for his benefit, evidently, fagan got off his old tosh about victor hugo and the preface to 'hernani'. it's a bit of patter he picked up somewhere, and uses to impress people with. in the middle of it, he suddenly realized that i had heard it all before. that made him mad. so he cut it short, and reasserted himself by saying that the first act would have to be cut a great deal. sampson looked pretty groggy, but said nothing. sampson, i can see, is my only hope. fagan will try to force me out of the show by hounding me until i lose my temper and quit. he began by telling me how to cross the stage. a man who learned the business under frank benson doesn't need to be taught how to walk!”
i ventured some mild sedative opinion, because i saw it did him good to pour out his perplexity.
“you don't know,” he said, “how the actor is at the mercy of the director. the director is appointed by the manager and is responsible only to him. if the director takes a dislike to one of the cast, he can tell the manager he 'can't work with him', and get him fired that way; or he can make the man's position impossible by ridicule and perpetual criticism at rehearsals. he remarked to-day that i was miscast. the fool! i've never had such a part.”
well, we talked until after midnight, and only stopped then because i was afraid that the spinster might begin to hammer again. in the end i got him fairly well pacified. he was delighted when i told him that i was going to be press agent, and i pleased him by making some memoranda of his previous career, which i thought i could work up into a sunday story. to tell the truth, i did not, then, take all his distress at its face value. i knew he had had a difficult summer, and was in a nervous, high-strung state. i thought that his trouble was partly what we call “actors' disease,” or (to put it more humanely) oversensitized selfconsciousness. i promised to get round to the rehearsal the next day.
as a matter of fact, it was several days before i was able to attend a rehearsal. for the next morning upton asked me to go to atlantic city, where he had a musical show opening, to collect data for publicity. his regular press man was ill, and it was evident that he expected me to do plenty of work for my hundred a week. however, it was a new and amusing job, and i was keen to absorb as much local colour as possible. i went to atlantic city on the train with the “jazz you like it” company, took notes of all their life histories, went in swimming with the blandishing blondes quartette that afternoon, had them photographed on the sand, took care to see that they were arrested in their one-piece suits, bailed them out, and by dinner-time had collected enough material to fill the trashiest sunday paper. in the evening the show opened, and i saw what seemed to me the most appallingly vulgar and brutally silly spectacle that had ever disgraced a stage. i wondered how a company of quite intelligent and amusing people could ever have been drilled into such laborious and glittering stupidity. the gallery fell for the blondes, but the rest of the house suffered for the most part in silence, and i expected to see upton crushed to earth. when i met him in the lobby afterward i was wondering how to condole with him. to my surprise he was radiant. “well, i guess we've got a knockout,” he said. “this'll sell to the roof on broadway.” he was right, too. well, this is out of the story. i simply wanted to explain that i was away from new york for several days.
when i got back to upton's office i was busy most of the day sending out stuff to the papers. then i asked the imperial young lady who was alternately typing letters and attending to the little telephone switchboard, where “obedience” was rehearsing. at the stratford, she replied. wondering how many of mr. upton's amusing and discreditable problems were bestowed under her magnificent rippling coiffure (she was really a stunning creature), i went round to that theatre. the middle door was open and i slipped in. the house was dark, on the tall, naked stage the rehearsal was proceeding. it was my first experience of this sort of thing, and i found it extremely interesting. the stage was set out with chairs to indicate exits and essentials of furniture; at the back hung a huge canvas sea-scene, used in some revue that had opened at the stratford the night before. the electricians were tinkering with their illuminating effects, great blazes and shafts of light criss-crossed about the place as the rehearsal went on, much to the annoyance of the actors. little electric stars winked in the painted sky portion of the blue back-drop, and men in overalls walked about gazing at their tasks.
i sat down quietly in the gloom, about halfway down the middle aisle. two or three other people, whose identity i could not conjecture, sat singly down toward the front. in the orchestra row, in shirtsleeves, with his feet on the brass rail and a cigar in his mouth, sat a person who, i saw, must be the renowned fagan. downstage were brooks, edwards, and a charming creature in summery costume who was obviously the original of the multitudinous photographs of lillian llewellyn. the rest of the company were sitting about at the back, off the scene. edwards, who was very pale in the violent downpour of a huge bulb hanging from a wire just overhead, was speaking as i took my seat.
“wait a minute, folks—wait a minute!” cried fagan, sharply. “now! you've got your situation planted, let's nail it to the cross. mr. edwards!”
the actors turned, wearily, and miss llewellyn sat down on a chair. brooks stood waiting with a kind of dogged endurance. at the back of the stage a workman was hammering on a piece of metal. fagan pulled his legs off the rail and climbed halfway up the little steps leading from the orchestra pit to the proscenium.
“mr. edwards!” he shouted, “you're letting it drop. it's dead. give it to mr. brooks so he can pick it up and do something with it. you've got to lift it into the domain of comedy! my god!” he cried, throwing his cigar stub into the orchestra well, “that whole act is terrible. take it again from miss llewellyn's entrance. mr. edwards, try to put a little more stuff into it. this isn't amateur theatricals.”
edwards turned as though about to speak, but he clenched his fist and kept silent. brooks, however, was less patient.
“pardon me, mr. fagan,” he said, in a clear, ironical tone. “but i should like to ask a question, if you will allow me. you speak, very forcibly, of lifting it into the domain of comedy. that seems a curious phrase for this scene. is it intended to be comic? if so, i must have misconstrued the author's directions in the script.”
brooks was too well-known a performer for fagan to bully. brooks was “on the lights”—in other words, when the show's electric signboard went up, it would carry his name. around his presence hung the mystic aura of five hundred dollars a week, quite enough in itself to make fagan respectful. the director seemed a little startled by the star's caustic accent. as a matter of fact, i don't suppose he had ever read the script as a whole. i remembered that after the first rehearsal edwards told me that fagan had admitted not having read the play. he said he preferred to “pick up the dialogue as they went along”. this reference to the author must have seemed to him unaccountably eccentric. i daresay he had forgotten that there was such a person.
he threw up his hands in mock surrender. “all right, all right, if that's the way you take it, i've got nothing to say. play it your own way, folks. mr. edwards, you're killing mr. brooks's scene there. give him time to come down and get his effect.”
again i saw edwards lift his head as though about to retort, but brooks whispered something to him. fagan came back to his seat in the front row and lit a fresh cigar. “take it from miss llewellyn's first entrance,” he shouted.
miss cunningham and a third man came forward and the five regrouped themselves. the rehearsal resumed. i watched with a curious tingle of excitement. the dialogue meant little to me, plunging in at the middle of the act, but i could not miss the passionate quality of edwards's playing. even brooks, a polished but very cold actor, caught the warmth. their speeches had the rich vibrance of anger. i was really startled at the power and velocity of the performance, considering that they had only rehearsed a week. as i watched, someone leaned over my shoulder from behind and whispered: “what do you think of dunbar?”
my eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom. i turned and saw a little man with a thin face and lifted eyebrows which gave him a quaint expression of perpetual surprise. i was so absorbed in the scene that at first i hardly understood.
“dunbar—? oh, edwards?” i whispered. “i think he's corking—fine.”
at that moment edwards was in the middle of a speech. miss cunningham had just said something. edwards, going toward her, had put his hand on her shoulder and was replying in a tone of peculiar tenderness. fagan's loud voice broke in.
“dunbar! mr. edwards! i can't let you do it like that. you make me hold up this scene every time. now get it right. this is a bit of comedy, not sob stuff. try to be a bit facetious, if you can. you're not making love to the girl—not yet!”
there was a moment of silence. those on the stage stood still, oddly like children halted in the middle of a game. i don't suppose fagan's words were deliberately intended as a personal insult, but seemed to himself a legitimate comment on the action of the piece. i think his offences came more often from boorish obtuseness than calculated malice. but the brutal interruption, coming after a long and difficult afternoon, strained the players' nerves to snapping. brooks sat down with an air of calculated nonchalance and took out a cigarette. then a tinkling hammering began again somewhere up in the flies. edwards was flushed.
“for god's sake stop that infernal racket up there,” he cried. then, coming down to the unlit gutter of footlights, he said quietly:
“mr. fagan, i've studied this part rather more carefully than you have. if the author is in the house, i'd like to appeal to him as to whether my conception is correct.”
there was such a quiver of passion in his voice that even fagan seemed taken aback.
“what's got into you folks to-day?” he growled. “oh, very well. is mr. sampson here?”
the little man behind me got up and walked down the aisle in an embarrassed way.
“mr. author,” said fagan, “have you been watching the rehearsal?”
sampson murmured something.
“is mr. edwards doing the part as you want it done?”
“mr. edwards is perfectly right,” said sampson.
“thank you, sir,” said edwards from the stage. “fagan, when you are ready to conduct rehearsals like a gentleman, i will be here.” he turned and walked off the stage.
brooks snapped his cigarette case to, and the sharp click seemed to bring the scene to an end. fagan picked up his coat from the seat beside him. “bolshevism!” he said. “all right, folks, ten o'clock to-morrow, here. miss cunningham, will you tell mr. edwards ten o'clock tomorrow?”
this last might be taken either as a surly apology, or as an added insult. rather subtle for fagan, i thought. as i was getting out of my seat, the director and a venomous-looking young man whom i had seen in and out of upton's office walked up the aisle together. sampson was just behind them. i could see that the director was either furiously angry, or else (more likely) deemed it his duty to pretend to be.
“this show's no good as long as edwards is in it,” he said, loudly, spitting out fragments of cigar-wrapper. “that fellow's breaking up the company. i sha'n't be able to handle 'em at all, pretty soon. this kind of thing puts an omen on a show.”
well, that was my introduction to “obedience”. i watched fagan and the hanger-on of upton's office—one of those innumerable black-haired young infidels who run errands for a man like upton, hobnob with the ticket speculators in the enigmatic argot of the box office, and seem to look out upon the world from behind a little grill of brass railings. they moved up the velvet slope of the passage, arguing hoarsely. sampson faded gently away into the darkness and disappeared through the thick blue curtains of the foyer. an idea struck me, and i ran behind to see the stage manager, cervaux, who was playing one of the minor parts. i cajoled his own copy of the script away from him, promising to return it to the office the next morning. i wanted to read the play entire. going out toward the stage door, behind a big flat of scenery i came upon miss cunningham. she was sitting in a rolling chair, one of those things you see on the boardwalk at atlantic city. there was a whole fleet of them drawn up in the wings, they were used in that idiotic revue playing at the stratford. it added to the curiously unreal atmosphere of the occasion to see her crouching there, crying, alone in the half light, among those absurd vehicles of joy.
i intended to pass as though i hadn't seen her, but she called out to me. if upton could have seen her then, her honey-brown eyes glazed with tears, black rings in her poor little pale face, he would have raised her salary—or else fired her, i don't know which.
“mr. roberts,” she said, slowly and tremulously—“i don't know who else to ask. will you try to help morgan?”
“why of course,” i said. “anything i can do——”
“you were at the rehearsal? then you saw how fagan treats him. it's been like that every day. the brute! it's abominable! you know how we had set our hearts on playing this together, morgan and i.... now i've almost come to pray that morgan will throw it up. that's what fagan wants, of course, but i don't care. all i want is his happiness. i said something to him about giving up the part, but he... mr. roberts, i'm worried. i've never seen morgan so strange before. he's not himself. i don't know what's the matter, i have a feeling that something——-”
the electricians were still fooling about with their spotlights, and a great arrow of brilliance sliced across the stage and groped about us. it blazed brutally upon her tear-stained face, and then see-sawed among the little flock of rolling chairs. it was that shaft of light that dispelled, once for all, the feeling i had had that this was all some sort of theatrical gibberish, pantomime stuff intended to impress the greenhorn press agent. for when she recoiled under the blow of that sudden stroke of brightness i could read unquestionable trouble on her face. there was not only perplexity, there was fear.
she was silent, turning her face away. then she stepped down from the chair, in a blind sort of way.
“i begged him to give it up,” she said, quietly. “he said that no one but the author could take him out of this part. i wish the author would.—oh, i don't know what to wish! morgan's making himself ill fighting against fagan.”
we walked across fortieth street together, and i escorted her as far as a fifth avenue bus. as we waited for the bus she said:
“you'll probably see him to-night. tell him about rehearsal to-morrow, ten o'clock. he had gone before i could speak to him. you see, he's not himself. we were to have taken supper together.”
she added something that i have never forgotten:
“the worst tragedy in the world is when lovely things get in the hands of people who don't understand them. if you see mr. sampson, you might tell him that. some day he may write another play.”
when i got up to seventy-third street i tapped at edwards's door. he was at his table, writing. i had intended to ask him to take dinner with me, thinking that perhaps i could help him, but his manner showed plainly that he wanted to be alone. if i had been an old friend of his, perhaps i could have done something; but i did not feel i knew him well enough to force myself upon his mood.
“fagan sent you word, rehearsal to-morrow at ten,” i said. “it sounds to me like an apology.”
he looked at me steadily.
“you were there to-day? you will understand a little, then.”
“i understand that fagan is a ruffian.”
“fagan—oh, i don't mean fagan.” he paused and looked at the wet point of his pen. “i was just writing a note to sampson,” he said. he hesitated a moment, and then tore the written sheet across several times and dropped it in the basket.
“oh, hell,” he said. “i can't appeal to sampson again. i'll have to work it out myself.—don't imagine i take fagan too seriously. fagan is only an accident. a tragic accident. that's part of my weird, as the scotch say. i mean, you'll understand better about dunbar.”
i didn't quite understand, and said nothing.
“i wouldn't let a man like fagan stand between me and dunbar,” he said. “it's in the hands of the author now. you heard what he said. he put dunbar into the play, he's the only one who can take him out of it.”
the next morning upton broke the news to me that i was to go out as advance man. the opening was set for providence, only ten days later. there was to be a two-weeks' tour of three-night engagements, and i had to arrange for the publicity, poster-printing, accommodations for the company, and so on. this did not appeal to me very strongly, but i scrambled together a lot of photographs, interviewed the cast as to their preferences in hotel rooms, and set off. i got back a week later. we were then only three days away from the opening. they were rehearsing with the sets, upton's telephone blonde told me, and i hurried round to the stratford to see how the scenic artist had done the job.
they had just knocked off for lunch when i got there, and at the stage door i met edwards coming out with miss cunningham. he looked very white and tired.
“hullo,” i said; “just in time to have lunch with me! come on, we'll go to maxim's. i've still got some of upton's expense money.”
“i've got to rush round to the modiste for a fitting,” said miss cunningham. “the gowns are just finished. you take morgan and give him a good talking-to. he needs it.” i did not quite understand the appeal in her eyes, but i saw that she wanted me to talk with edwards alone. she went toward bryant park, and we turned down to thirty-eighth. edwards stood a moment at the corner looking after her.
“sylvia says i'm a fool,” he said, wearily. “i don't know: most of us are, one way or another.—you know i told you that i put my confidence in the author.”
“quite right,” i said. “i myself heard sampson say he thought you were corking.”
“well, i wonder if he's double-crossing me?” said edwards, slowly, as though to himself.
“in what way?”
“yesterday, when i was coming down to rehearsal, there was a tie-up of some kind on the subway. the train stood still for a long time, and then the lights went out. we stayed in the dark for i don't know how long—everybody got nervous. it was pitch black, and awfully hot and stuffy. the women began to scream. i felt pretty queer myself—you know i haven't been well—and as we sat there i went off into a kind of doze or something. then, just as everybody was on the edge of a panic, the lights came on and we went ahead. when we got to times square i think i must have been a bit off colour, for the damned rehearsal went out of my head entirely. suddenly i realized i was in a drugstore drinking some headache fizz when i was over an hour late at the theatre. my god! i hustled down there as fast as i could go. queer thing. i went in through the stage door, and as i came round behind the set i heard voices on the stage. they were rehearsing, of course. naturally, they couldn't wait all morning for me. but this is what i'm getting at. you know that scene in the second act where i say to brooks: it's all very well for you to say that. ah, hah! i see! but suppose you had been in my place—-
“you know that's a turning point in the act. there's a particular inflection i give that speech—the way i say the 'ah, hah! i see!' that makes the point clear to the audience and gets it over. well, they were rehearsing that scene, and from behind the canvas i heard that speech. and what i heard was my own voice.”
“what on earth do you mean?” i said.
he hesitated. he was sitting, his lunch almost untasted, with one elbow on the table and his forehead leaning on his hand. under his long, sinewy fingers i could see his brows tightened and frowning downward upon his plate.
“exactly what i say. it was my own voice. or, if you prefer, dunbar's voice. i heard that speech uttered, tone for tone, as i had been saying it. it was the precise accent and pitch of ironical comment which i had thought appropriate for dunbar at that point in the action. the sudden change of tone, the pause, the placing of the emphasis—the words were just as if they had come out of my own mouth. i stopped, instinctively. i said to myself, has fagan got someone else to play the part, and been coaching him on the side? someone who's been sitting in at rehearsals and has picked up my conception of dunbar? and at that moment i heard fagan sing out 'all right, folks, the carpenter wants to work on this set. we'll quit until after lunch.'
“i tell you, i was staggered. if i was out, i was out, but they might have been straight with me. it was a matter for the equity, i thought. i didn't want to chin it over with the others just then, and i heard them coming off, so i slipped through the door that opens into the passage behind the stage box. i meant to tell fagan what i thought about it. there was sampson sitting in one of the boxes. he saw me, and got up. he said: 'by jove, mr. edwards, you were fine this morning. i've never seen you do it so well. it was bully, all through. keep it like that, and you're the hit of the play.'
“i thought at first he was making fun of me. i was about to make some sarcastic retort, when he put out his hand in the friendliest way, and said:
“'i want to thank you for what you're doing for that part, and i know it hasn't been easy. i've never seen anything so beautifully done, and just want to tell you that if the play is a success it will be largely due to you.'
“this, on the heels of the other, astounded me so that i didn't know what to say. i made some automatic reply, and he left. i sat down in the cool darkness of the box to rest, for i was feeling very seedy. my head went round and round—touch of the sun, i dare say, or that foul air in the crowded subway car. i was still there when they came back, an hour later, for the afternoon rehearsal. i tried to talk to sylvia about it, but all she would say was that i ought to go to a doctor.”
“i think she's right,” i said. “look here, have you had any sleep lately?”
“you seem to have forgotten dunbar's line,” he said. “'there'll be 'plenty of time to sleep by and bye.'”
“for god's sake forget about dunbar,” i said. “man, dear, you're on the tip of a nervous breakdown. now listen. this is friday. dress rehearsal to-morrow. sunday you'll have all day off. take miss cunningham and go away into the country somewhere and rest. put the damned play out of your mind and give her a good time. you both need it.”
i didn't see him again until monday morning.
i went up to providence on the train with the company. as i passed through one of the pullmans looking for a seat in a smoking compartment, i found miss cunningham and edwards sitting in adjoining chairs. to my delight, they seemed very cheerful, and smiled up at me charmingly.
“took your advice yesterday,” he said. “we went down to long beach again. had a lovely day, not even a pickpocket to spoil it.”
“what an unfortunate remark!” said sylvia, laughing. “he means, not a pickpocket to bring us a friend in need and give us a jolly evening in jamaica.”
“i spoke the speech trippingly,” he admitted.
“and we left dunbar behind!” said sylvia. she flashed me a grateful little look that showed she knew i had tried to help.
“have you decided where to spend the honeymoon?” i asked, greatly pleased to see them so happy.
“hush!” she said. “we'll wait till we see what sort of notices the show gets.”
“think of the poor press agent. i've used up all my dope. get spliced while we're in providence and it'll give me a nice little story. you know the kind of thing—'critics' praise brings pair to altar; press clippings cupid's aid'.”
“you're getting as vulgar as a regular press agent,” she said, merrily. “they don't think of anything except in terms of good stories for the paper.”
“oh,” i said, “the press agent has his tragedies, too. think how many stories he knows that he can't tell.”
i felt that this remark was not very happily inspired, and went on through the car calling myself a clumsy idiot. in the smoking compartment, as luck would have it, were both upton and fagan, smoking huge cigars and talking together. i sat down and lit my pipe. fagan, in his usual way, was trying to impress upton with his own sagacity. there was another musical horror of upton's scheduled to begin rehearsal shortly, and probably fagan was hoping to land the job as director.
“what did you think of edwards at the dress rehearsal?” said fagan.
upton grunted. he had a way of retaining his ideas until others had committed themselves.
“i've been telling you right along, he's impossible,” said fagan. “no one can work with him. he's too damned upstage. now i got billy mitford to promise he'd run up and see the opening. billy is the man you need for that part. i had him in at the dress, and he'll be there tonight. i've given him a line on the part, and if edwards falls down we can start rehearsing billy right away. he could get set in a week, and open with the show in new york.”
“four hundred a week,” was upton's comment, seemingly addressed to the end of his cigar.
“all right, he's worth it. he's got a following. this guy edwards is dear at any price. he'll kill the show. he doesn't get his stuff over. god knows i've worked on him. and he crabs brooks's work more'n half the time. what you want is one of these birds that gets the women climbing over the orchestra rail. billy is your one best bet, take it from me.”
“well, we'll open her up and see what we got,” said upton. “is sampson along?”
“no. scared. said he was too nervous to come. he'll learn to write a play afterwhile. what a mess that script was until i got her straightened out.”
when we got to providence i had several jobs to do around town. i visited the newspaper offices, stopped in at the theatre where the stage crew were busy unloading scenery, and when i returned to the hotel i lay down in my room and had a good nap, i was awakened late in the afternoon—about five o'clock, because i looked at my watch—by a knocking at the door. i got up and opened. it was edwards. to my dismay, his cheerfulness had vanished. he had gone back to the old pallid and anxious mood.
“nervous, old man?” i said. when i had booked the rooms for the company i had arranged that he and i should be next door to each other, so that i could keep an eye on him.
“nervous?” he said. “i'm ill. had another of those damned swimming spells in my head. haven't got any brandy, have you?”
i hadn't, but offered to go in search of some. he wouldn't let me.
“don't go,” he said. “look here, i saw mit-ford in the lobby just now. what the devil is he doing here?”
“perhaps there's some other show on,” i suggested, miserably.
“i told you they were trying to double-cross me,” he said. “i know perfectly well what he's here for. fagan is trying to razz me into a breakdown. then he'll put mitford in as dunbar. but i tell you, i'll play this thing in spite of hell and high water.”
he paced feverishly up and down, and i tried to ease his mind.
“by god, they sha'n't!” he cried. “i'll put this thing up to the author. where's sampson?”
“he's not here. for heaven's sake, man, don't get in a state. everything's all right.”
“everything's all right!” he repeated, bitterly. “yes, everything's lovely. let's 'lift it into the domain of comedy'. but if you see fagan, tell him to keep away from me.”
i begged him to rest until dinner-time. i went into his room with him, made him lie down on the bed, rang for a bottle of ice water, and left him there. then i went downstairs and wrote a couple of letters. i was just leaving the hotel when i met fagan coming in. he stopped me to ask if i had taken care to put his name on the playbill as director. i had. if the show was a flop, i at least wanted his name attached as a participial cause.
i wandered uneasily about the busy streets until theatre time. i couldn't have been more nervous if i had been going on the boards myself. i spent part of the time prowling about trying to see how much “obedience” paper i could find on the billboards and in shop windows. i stopped in at a lunchroom and had some supper. the place reminded me of the little café in jamaica where sylvia and edwards and i had eaten together.
my mind was full of the picture of the two, and his face as he leaned across the table toward her. i thought that i had never seen a couple who so deserved happiness, or who had fought harder to earn it. what was the subtle appeal in this play that made it react so strangely upon him? the tragedy of dunbar in the piece, the sacrifice of the poor, well-meaning fellow whose virtue always seemed to turn and rend him, did this echo some secret experience in his own life? i wondered whether an actor's career was really the gay business i had conceived it. it occurred to me that perhaps the actor's profession is doomed to suffering, because it takes the most dangerous explosives in life and plays with them. love, ambition, jealousy, hatred, those are the things actors deal with. you can't play with those without one of them going off every now and then. they go off with a bang, and somebody gets hurt.
i suppose i'm sentimental. i wanted those two to win out. it seemed to me that a defeat for their fine and honourable passion would be a defeat for love everywhere, and for all who believe in the worthy aspirations of the heart. i don't suppose any press agent ever pondered more generous philosophies than i did that night, over my lunch-counter supper.
time went so fast that it was after eight when i got to the theatre. i went in and took a seat in the last row. the house, to my surprise, was crowded. i could see upton's big bald head, well down in front, beside a massively carved lady, all bust and beads, whom i supposed to be mrs. upton. the élite of providence were out in force, for brooks's name is always a drawing card. some of them, i feared, were going to be disappointed. it is all very well to introduce a new barrie or a new pinero to the playgoing public, but you've got to remember that it is bound to be grievous for those who prefer the other sort of thing.
the curtain, of course, was late, and i gave a sigh of relief when i saw it go up. edwards, waiting carefully for the hush, had the house with him in three speeches. i have never seen better work, before or since. it was noticeable that at his first exit he got a bigger hand than brooks at his carefully prepared entrance. the only thing that seemed to me out of the way was his extreme pallor. the silly ass, i said to myself, he hasn't made himself up properly. then it struck me that it was probably a sound touch of realism, for certainly dunbar would not be described as a full-blooded creature. i had read the play carefully, and had seen it in rehearsal; but i had never known how much there was in it. strangely enough, edwards was the only one who showed no trace of nervousness. all the others, even brooks, seemed unaccountably at a loss now and then, trampled on their lines, and smothered their points. at first the house was inclined to applaud, but as the action tightened, they hushed into the perfect and passionate silence that is the playwright's dream. there were six curtains at the end of the first act. i could tell by the tilt of old upton's pink pate that he was in fine spirits. i looked about for fagan in the lobby, as i was keen to see how he was taking it, but missed him in the arguing and shifting crowd.
by the time the third act was under way it was plain that we had a sure-fire success. novice as i was, i could read the signs when i saw upton scribbling telegrams at the box-office window in the second intermission, and observed the face of mr. mitford. the usual slips that always happen on first nights were there, of course. in the third act, when edwards had to take sylvia in his arms, she seemed to trip and almost fell; and i noticed that brooks crossed the stage and helped her off, which was not in the script; but these things were not marked by most of the audience. dunbar, you remember, makes his final exit several minutes before the end of the third act. when he went off there was a little stir among the audience—far more eloquent than applause would have been. that beautiful delineation of a blundering high-minded failure had made its appeal.
after edwards's last exit i felt my way out, quietly, and went round through the street and up the alley to the stage door. i wanted to be the first to congratulate him on his splendid triumph. i did not want to break in too soon, so i waited near the door until i heard the crash of hands that followed the curtain. the canvas rose and fell repeatedly as the players took their calls, while the house shook with applause. from where i stood, by the switches and buttons on the control board, i could see them lined up in the orange glare of the gutter, bowing and smiling. there were cries of “dunbar! dunbar!” and a rumbling of feet in the gallery. it is the only time i have ever seen an audience crowd down the aisles and stand by the orchestra rail, applauding. then i saw why they lingered. edwards had not taken his call.
the curtain fell again, and cervaux, the stage manager, came running off, the perspiration streaming down over his grease-paint.
“christ!” he cried. “where's that fool edwards?”
as soon as the curtain finally shut off the house i could see the actors turn to each other as though in dismay. miss cunningham came off, and i ran to shake her hand. to my amazement she looked at me blankly, with a dreadful face, and sat down on a trunk.
brooks strode across the stage. “where's edwards?” he shouted, angrily. “tell him to take this call with me, the house is crazy.”
“where's the author?” said someone. “they want the author, too.”
several hurried upstairs to the men's dressing rooms, and i followed. the door of number 3, on which edwards's name was scrawled in chalk, stood open. cervaux stood stupidly on the sill. the room was empty.
“he's gone,” said cervaux. “what do you know about that?”
we could still hear the tumult of the house.
“take the curtain, mr. brooks,” said cervaux. “tell them he's ill.”
i looked round number 3 dressing room.
there was a taxi standing outside the stage door. i don't know how it happened to be there, or who had ordered it, but i shouted to the driver and jumped in. i have a faint impression that just as the engine started sylvia appeared at the door, with a cloak thrown over her stage gown, and cried something, but i am not sure.
when i got to the hotel, the door of the room next to mine was locked, but the house detective got it open without any noise. there were two men in the room. in the far corner lay fagan, unconscious, with a broken jaw, one arm hideously twisted under him, and a shattered water bottle beside his bloody head. sprawled against the bed, kneeling, with his arms flung out across the counterpane, was edwards.—the doctor said it was heart disease. he had been dead since six o'clock.
