The Confessions of Edward Day (11 page)

The actors were lodged in small apartments in town or in cabins in the woods. Being New Yorkers they were made anxious by the proximity of so many trees, terrified of the deer and the occasional bear, and paralyzed by the swift descent of the deep, black, unilluminated nights. Our leading lady had to be escorted, shrieking at every rustling bird or cavorting rabbit, by a phalange of techies from stage door to cabin.

Three days after we arrived it started to rain and it didn’t let up for the rest of the summer. The theater was a well-designed, decently equipped proscenium that seated upward of three hundred, and our actors, if they found their way to rehearsals, were serious professionals. But the weather took a toll and when we were finally up and running we played, night after night, to audiences of forty or fifty who looked on like lost children in the wilderness of empty seats. Their applause sounded like dried peas rattling in a tin can.

This time it would be different. The playhouse in Connecticut was an old and respectable one, and I wouldn’t be
there to carry coffee, drive nails into frames, or escort nervous drama queens. I would be one of a company of actors. We would do four plays in three months and I would have a part in every one of them.

It meant being apart from Madeleine, a prospect I viewed with equanimity. We were having constant squabbles, some of which escalated into storms so furious even sex couldn’t calm the water. In April she got a small part in a comedy she and Bev thought was poor, but it paid union wages so she couldn’t turn it down. She spent hours waiting around for the five minutes a night (ten on Saturday) when she was onstage. I was looking for someone to sublet my apartment and she didn’t like that. She felt our space would be invaded and violated by a stranger and would thereby be unrecoverable, but she didn’t want to give up her shared place and couldn’t afford to pay two rents. I put the word out at school and of course a beautiful neophyte actress from Georgia snapped it up, which put Madeleine in a state. “What am I supposed to do?” I reasoned. “Pay rent on an empty apartment in New York? No one does that, Madeleine. I can’t afford it even if I wanted to do it, which I don’t. Be reasonable.”

“It’s not about reason, Edward,” she snapped. “It’s about feeling.”

“Feelings don’t pay rent,” I replied.

One evening, just a few days before I was to leave for Connecticut, I went out with Teddy for Chinese food. He was on the outs with Mindy and his father was bearing down on him to give up acting and pursue a “real” career. “Mindy takes his side,” he explained over his mo shu pork. “She thinks I should
go to law school. Then we could get married and she could be an actress and I could sue the producers who try to screw her.”

“She wants to get married?”

“To Teddy the lawyer, not to Teddy the actor.”

“Is she that blunt about it?”

“Pretty much. Yes. You know Mindy she doesn’t mince words.”

“Are you seriously considering this?”

The waitress, an adorable Chinese with a long braid and quick, furtive eyes, brought another round of Tsingtao. “I’m seriously considering asking this lovely young lady what time she gets off,” he said.

“You are an actor,” she said in unaccented English.

“How can you tell?” Teddy asked.

“I saw you at an audition. Last month. It was at La MaMa.”

Her name was Jasmine and she got off at ten. We drank beer and ate almond cookies until she was free and then headed over to Phebe’s, where I was to meet Madeleine after her show. Before we left Jasmine introduced us to her aunt, Mrs. Lee, who owned the place and insisted on mixing up a round of Chinese cocktails for us in the kitchen. “Lychinis” Jasmine explained. “A lychee martini.”

“Jasmine is great actress,” Mrs. Lee informed us as we sipped the strange concoction. “But theater very hard for Chinese. No parts.”

It was a gorgeous night; the trees, such as they were, had unfurled their delicate sap-green leaves and exhaled chlorophyll-scented oxygen into the atmosphere. We agreed to walk uptown rather than descend into the underground where breathing was a
necessarily shallow affair. I expanded my chest, opened my arms to the invigorating air, and declared the lychini the liquor of the gods. Teddy observed that on this fair night in this part of town one could actually see the stars, and we paused on the curb to gape at the heavens. “’Twere all one,” Jasmine recited, “that I should love a bright particular star and think to wed it, he is so far above me.”

“Are you in love?” Teddy asked.

She smiled. “On a night like this I could be. Don’t you think I could be?”

We marched on, combing our brains for tributes to the stars. Teddy, overexposed to show tunes by his connection to Mindy, crooned, “Today, all day I had the feeling, a miracle would happen,” which put us on the track of the most mawkish song we could find. By the time we got to Phebe’s we were on “Some Enchanted Evening,” and we burst into the nearly empty bar proclaiming, “Fools give you reasons, wise men never try.” A few diehards nodding over their drinks ignored us, the bartender rolled his eyes. Madeleine, alone at a table with an empty glass before her, regarded us so sourly that Teddy muttered “Good luck” and steered Jasmine to the far end of the bar, leaving me to my fate. I leaned over the table, my eyes moistened by the smoky pall that hung upon the air. “Hey lady,” I said, in a low-life pitch somewhere between Brando and De Niro, “can a fella buy you a drink?”

My queen was not amused. “Where have you been?” she asked. “I’ve been waiting for over an hour.”

“We walked from Chinatown,” I said. “It’s a beautiful night, didn’t you notice?”

“I’m tired,” she said. “My stomach hurts.”

“Well, have a drink with me and we’ll walk home and you can go straight to bed.”

She glanced at Teddy and Jasmine, who were perched on stools, chatting up the bartender. “Does Mindy know about that?”

“That’s Jasmine,” I said. “We just met her at the Chinese restaurant. She’s an actress. What do you want, sweetheart? Have a liqueur; it will settle your stomach. Have a Sambuca.”

“OK,” she said. I went to the bar and answered Teddy’s inquiring look with a thumbs-up all clear. When my drinks came, he and Jasmine followed me to the table where the introductions quickly yielded to the important info that Madeleine was tired because she had a job and had come straight from the theater.

“I’ve heard about that play,” Jasmine exclaimed. “You’re in that play? That’s so cool. I really want to see it.”

“It’s a small part,” Madeleine demurred.

“I really want to see it,” Jasmine repeated.

“Our Madeleine plays a maid of easy virtue,” Teddy said, keeping the subject where we both understood it needed to be.

“Typecasting,” I joked.

Madeleine flashed me a look that made my stomach tighten. “What are you talking about?” she said.

“Mitt Borden is the lead, isn’t he?” Jasmine said. “He’s fantastic.”

“What are you talking about?” Madeleine persisted, glaring at me.

“Just teasing, love,” I said.

“What’s he like?” Jasmine asked, but Madeleine ignored her. “Did you see him in that Wilson play? I thought he was hot.”

“He’s a good actor,” Teddy agreed. “He’s got a lot of presence.”

“He stinks,” Madeleine said, releasing me from her cold inspection.

“You don’t think he’s good?” Jasmine asked.

“He’s an OK actor,” she said. “I mean he smells bad. He doesn’t wash enough.”

“Oh. He stinks stinks!” Jasmine cried, collapsing into charming, girlish giggles.

When was the last time I’d seen Madeleine laugh with such simple openhearted glee, I thought. She watched Jasmine’s amusement with a chilly, distant smile. She was angry at me for my remark; she had passed over it for now but I knew I’d hear about it later and I was right. On the walk home she was silent, loading up her argument, and when she got to the apartment she opened fire. I had as good as called her a slut in front of someone she had just met. It was clear I would only make such a remark to let Jasmine know that I was not in any way attached to Madeleine, that everyone knew she was sluttish, which simply wasn’t true. I had no reason to make such a charge, it was outrageous and uncalled for and she wasn’t going to forgive me for it. I defended myself indifferently, apologized insincerely in the hopes of toning down the scene, but she was having none of it. It was clear to her that I wanted to go to Connecticut just to get away from her and prove to myself that I didn’t need her. Well good, that was good. I should go ahead.
That was fine with her. She was too busy anyway; her career was the most important thing and it was obvious that I was jealous of her because she was talented and ambitious. By this time she was weeping and trembling, genuinely exhausted, so I got her to bed, protesting my affection for her, cradling her in my arms until, in the midst of snuffling tears, she fell asleep.

I got up and fixed myself a drink. She was right, of course. I was tired of the relationship. I had been for some time, and all I really wanted to do was get through the next few days without more hysterics, get on the bus, and head for Connecticut.

O
n the morning I left, Madeleine was subdued and remained so until I packed my old suitcase, kissed her goodbye, and hopped on the bus. I was in a cheerful frame of mind. I didn’t know who the other actors would be, but there was always a star or two, older stage actors or television actors desperate to play a scene without someone yelling cut and eager to be nearer the city where real theater still more or less thrived. Agents routinely toured the summer productions and there was occasionally a new play, which meant spending time with an ambitious playwright, always an interesting opportunity for an actor.

A theater functionary met me at the station and drove me to a rambling Victorian rooming house with a long porch across the front straight out of Thomas Wolfe. “Here we are,” the driver informed me.

“Very Thomas Wolfe,” I remarked.

“The actors all seem to like it,” he assured me. “Most of
them are here.” The porch screen drifted open revealing a stunning young woman, all golden curls, honey skin, and startling green eyes, dressed in a white halter-top dress that reminded me of the bubbling skirt Marilyn Monroe famously battled down against the subway draft in
The Seven Year Itch
. She flashed me a camera-ready smile and stepped out into the light. “I’m Eve,” she said.

“I think I’ll like it just fine,” I told the driver.

From there things got better. Eve escorted me to my narrow room just three doors from hers, and left me to “get settled in.” On the pine desk I found a folder packed with useful information, including a list of all the actors in our company. Here I learned that Eve’s full name was Eve Vendler and that she had studied at Yale. I didn’t recognize any of the other names, save two. One was Gary Santos, an actor I’d seen in a good production of Joe Orton’s play
Loot
in some miserable little theater downtown. The other was our star, the talented stage, film, and television actress who, it turned out, had a long association with this festival playhouse and was returning for her sixth season, the immensely talented and widely acclaimed Marlene Webern.

The first cast meeting was the following morning. As the dress code was casual, I pulled on a T-shirt, my most faded madras shorts, sandals, and in case of overactive air-conditioning, the linen jacket, and went forth confidently to join my company. The rehearsal shed was a short walk from the boardinghouse and we actors went over in a troop, chattering away with introductions and gossip. Gary Santos, who was there for a second season, enthused about the venue and praised the talent and temperament
of our star. “Marlene is great,” he declared. “Nothing pretentious about her and she’s brilliant.”

I said nothing, as I doubted that Marlene would remember me—though she had, in the brief encounter we had shared, changed my life—and I didn’t want to embarrass myself by suggesting a connection where there was none. But when the time came and I stood diffidently before her, protesting that it would be unlikely if she recalled our little scene together, to my delight, she claimed me. “Of course I remember you, Ed,” she said. “That’s why you’re here.”

That’s why you’re here.

Close your eyes and imagine you are standing before a strange door in a whirling snowstorm. Your fingers are numb; you’re frozen to your bones and hungry as well. The door swings open upon a sunny, tropical isle, birds are singing, exotic flowers nod in the soft breeze beckoning you, a table is spread with a magnificent feast. Bathing beauties, if you like bathing beauties, emerge from the calm waters calling your name. Ed, you’re here, at last, you’re here, we’ve been waiting for you, that’s why you’re here. In just that way Marlene’s greeting caught me by surprise and I blurted out, “That’s great,” much to the amusement of my fellow actors who took me for an innocent. And so I was, so I was. But not for long.

W
e did four plays that summer; one was a musical,
Dames at Sea;
two were insipid pieces in which I had negligible parts; and the fourth was Tennessee Williams’s
Sweet Bird of Youth
. I was cast as Chance Wayne, chauffeur and paid gigolo of
the drug-addicted, over-the-hill screen star Alexandra del Lago, also known as Princess Kosmonopolis, played by Marlene Webern. Eve, the delicious Eve, was my long-lost sweetheart Heavenly Finley Mine was a plum part albeit one in which I was castrated onstage every night. The play felt seriously dated even then; now it seems like some embarrassing relic. The shock value of drugs and venereal disease had faded through the ’60s, but Connecticut audiences were perfectly content to have their prejudices about the Deep South confirmed and chalked the strangeness of the play up to its author, that gay blade who doubtless knew everything there was to know about VD and drug addiction.

Marlene was perfect for her part and she knew it, but I was miscast in every way, including the color of my hair. Chance Wayne is so golden the ladies talk about it; it’s one of his great charms. I assumed I’d wear a wig, which worried me. A wig is a big deal, a serious distraction. I’d need to wear a wig night and day for a week at least just to get past it, or get even with it. So I was relieved, early in the rehearsal period, when the director took me aside and said, “I’ve made an appointment for you at the salon in town. It’s the Wee-Hair-Nook on Main Street. Just show up at two o’clock and ask for Beatrice. She knows what to do.”