Hattie Brings the House Down, page 24
A minute or so into the warm-up, Bums nipped backstage to collect her water bottle… and moments later started screaming.
‘Oh lordy,’ Hattie murmured, as she sprang into action. Ignoring her complaining hip, she vaulted up onto the stage, pushed her way through the milling actors and hurried as fast as she could back through to the dressing rooms.
Bums was collapsed in a heap, a rictus of horror frozen on her purple-red face, tears streaming from her eyes, hyperventilating, her hands pressed into her cheeks. In front of her, on the floor, was a piece of paper.
It was a single A4 sheet on which someone had written, in biro:
2 DOWN.
1 TO GO.
B. U. M. S.
YOU’RE NEXT.
‘It’s all right, my love, it’s all right,’ she cooed gently to Bums. ‘You’re safe, I promise you’re safe. It’s only a piece of paper.’
Her words, though she kept repeating them, had no kind of effect on Bums, who remained a bundle of tears and gasps and misery on the floor. Hattie rubbed her back awkwardly, but it seemed that nothing would comfort the poor young actress. Hattie was getting sick of mysterious handwritten notes.
Within a few seconds, cast members started to try to shuffle into the room, all peering to get a look at what had caused the commotion. Hattie snatched up the piece of paper so no one would see it, and shooed them all out. Eventually Kiki appeared at the doorway, and Hattie gave her strict instructions to get the cast back onto the stage to finish their warm-up. Once the last rubber-necker had been chased off, there was a moment’s silence in the dressing room. Then Bums said quietly: ‘It’s the same handwriting.’
‘As what, my love?’
‘As the other note. The one in the St Eustace’s. No one took it seriously. No one believed me. And now there’s another one. Regine is dead. And I’m going to be next. They’re going to kill me and I’m going to die and I’m going to be gone and no one believed me and now I’m going to die and all this time we could have been trying to find the killer and all we’ve been doing is rehearsing and you said Atlanta was an accident and…’
She kept talking faster and faster, but so heavy and frequent were her sobs and gasps that Hattie couldn’t make out any of the words. So, rather than try to reply, she wrapped Bums up in a big hug, and simply waited.
Through the backstage relay she heard the cast awkwardly resume their vocal exercises onstage. Was one of them really a serial killer? Absurd and overblown though it seemed, Atlanta was dead, and now Regine was missing, and this new note seemed pretty unambiguously a taunt, and a threat. But who had written it? And what on earth were they trying to achieve? Did this mean Regine really was dead? Hattie now found herself worrying about Davina, whom she’d just sent after her. But no, whoever was behind the note must have only just put it there. They weren’t with Regine’s corpse somewhere out in London. They were in here.
She looked again at the note. It was pretty stark. It felt different, somehow, from all the others. She couldn’t say for certain it was in the same handwriting as the ones pertaining to the mask, but the tone was the darkest of any of them.
On the stage, the actors had clearly judged themselves to be sufficiently warm, because they had quietened down, and Hashi had evidently decided to use the opportunity to give some notes. They were fairly brief, mostly comprising some new thoughts he’d had about the blocking of the final scene since they’d muddled through it the previous day.
‘Remember,’ he was saying to them encouragingly. ‘Intention is everything. We’ve put a tremendous amount of work into discovering the intention of every single character, in every single line. We’ve stripped everything else away, and that can leave you feeling awfully exposed. But trust in the work that we’ve done, deliver that intention, and the show will really fly. And enjoy it. It’s a great piece, it’s witty, it’s funny, it’s got emotional depth, it’s got tremendous dynamic energy. If you enjoy it, they’ll enjoy it. OK? OK. Now I’m not sure if we can go backstage yet, or…’
Hattie realised she was deliberately putting off the inevitable. Someone was endangering members of her cast. Possibly someone who was part of the production. There was no way they could carry on. She had to admit defeat. It was time to gather everyone together in the auditorium, and keep them there until the police came. Opening night was cancelled, of course, and…
There was a knock on the door, and the young actor Adam sheepishly poked his head into the dressing room.
‘I just wanted to say—’
‘Not right now, please, Adam,’ said Hattie, perhaps a little sharply.
‘No, sorry, I really… I do need to say something.’
He stepped into the room, closed the door, and cleared his throat.
‘It was me, Bums. I wrote that note. And the other one.’
Bums looked up, horrified.
‘Why…?’ she whispered.
‘It was… it was a joke,’ Adam said, screwing up his face.
There was a pause.
Then Bums launched herself to her feet.
‘What do you mean a joke! You threatened to murder me!’
‘No, I just wanted—’
‘What the hell is wrong with you! I thought someone was going to kill me!’
‘I’m sorry, I really—’
‘That is sick, it’s disgusting, it’s… Why would you do that?’
‘BECAUSE YOU DESERVE IT!’ Adam suddenly yelled back, stunning Bums into silence again.
‘You’re so self-centred, Bums,’ he carried on, quivering with emotion. ‘A woman died, she actually died, and you still found a way to make it all about you. First you’re trying to turn the whole thing into a murder-mystery so that you can play amateur sleuth, then you’re saying that Atlanta’s ghost is talking to you, then you’re saying you’ve discovered that the show is cursed… you’re just using her as a prop for your one-woman show. You’re the sick one. You’re taking something serious, something real, and twisting it into your own perverted fantasy. Show some… some goddamned respect for the dead!’
‘How dare you!’ snarled Bums back, and the two of them launched into a shrieking match of accusations and insults that Hattie was quite unable to tear either of them away from. Hattie began to get concerned they would actually come to blows, when Kiki and Laura appeared, and each of them wordlessly and bodily hauled one of the squabbling pair out of the room in different directions. It wasn’t the most elegant solution, but it was, Hattie had to concede, broadly effective. Once separated, both parties started to calm down, or at least to quieten.
Hattie allowed herself a moment to slump into a chair. She sat for a little while, vacantly, imagining to herself how nice it would be to be back in her flat, with a chair up against the window, smoking a nice big spliff with Nick. No, with Nick on the phone, that was probably better. Present but not imposing. Maybe she could eat a plate of chips with a fried egg on top. Some Michael Bublé playing. Oh, and…
‘Hattie?’ asked a timid voice.
Returning, reluctantly, to the here and now, Hattie looked round to see Davina. And behind Davina, she was delighted to see a puffy-faced Regine.
‘Oh, thank God,’ she said, not entirely meaning to.
‘I’m sorry,’ began Regine, hesitantly. ‘I…’
She faltered, so Davina took over.
‘She had a bit of a wobble, but I think we’re all OK now.’
Regine nodded. Hattie had never seen her so cowed.
‘I’m really not an actor,’ Regine explained, apologetically. ‘I said I’d step in because I wanted to show initiative, and I didn’t think there was any other way, but then yesterday, in costume, onstage, under lights… It all got a bit real. And so I freaked out a bit. But I’m much better now. I can get through it. Sorry for… causing a fuss.’
‘Well I’m very glad to see that you’re OK,’ said Hattie fervently. ‘And I’m sure you’ll be absolutely fine. You’re very brave for stepping in like you did, but Hashi wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t think you could pull it off. Can I get you a cuppa?’
‘No thanks. I should probably go and say hi to Hashi and the cast.’
Hattie nodded, and Regine slipped away. When she was gone, Hattie looked at Davina.
‘Well done. Where was she?’
‘Just round the corner, it turns out. She was really trying to psych herself up for coming. I think she just needed a little extra push.’
‘Excellent work, Davina. You handled that perfectly.’
Davina smiled.
‘I’m just so used to emotional crises of my own that I’m quite good at recognising them in other people, and I sometimes can help offer useful advice.’
Hattie sucked in a breath.
‘Well, if you’re up for solving some emotional crises, I could use your help with Bums and Adam…’
It took a lot of time, plus plenty of gentle words, and a fair few sharp ones, to get Adam and Bums to agree to share the stage with one another. Few had realised quite how deeply Adam had come to resent the actress who played his love interest over the course of the past few weeks. The Atlanta thing was central to it, but beyond that, he just seemed really to not like her. Bums, for her part, didn’t seem to have had any particular opinions about Adam prior to his prank, but was now adamant that he was the worst of the worst, and consented to work with him only on condition that he never speak to her except to deliver his lines, a condition that he was only too happy to accept.
Eventually, with all the actors in costume and marshalled to their starting places, with the director and designers watching from the front row and the crew in their required places, Hashi gave Hattie the all clear to give Kiki the all clear, and she started to cue the show. The house lights went down, the actors assembled onstage, then with a fanfare of pre-recorded noise the stage lights came up…
… and the next two hours were utterly dire.
It wasn’t just the sound and lighting issues (which abounded) and the forgotten lines (which were manifold). It wasn’t the costume that ripped, the props that got lost, the actors who left on the wrong side of the stage and found themselves stranded, unable to get round to where they needed to make their next entrance. It wasn’t even the drunk punter from the pub who wandered in looking for the toilet and had to be shepherded out by Hattie.
What it was, what the real core problem was, was that the performance was unutterably dull. The humour was flat, the emotions muted, the actions stilted. It wasn’t entertaining. Everyone in the audience could see it, everyone onstage could feel it, everyone behind the scenes could hear it. This was supposed to be the moment that everything came together into a glorious edifice of art that revealed itself to be far more than the sum of its parts. Instead, what was finally assembled for all to see was, fairly unmistakably, a turkey.
They shuffled their way through the piece at an excruciatingly slow speed. It took them far longer than the ninety minutes Hashi had envisioned, that number being the justification he had used to avoid having an interval – an interval that was sorely missed now. The cast got more and more dejected as the piece went on, which only contributed to the maudlin pace.
After an absolute aeon, the final lines were spoken in barely more than a whisper, and the lights went down, leaving the building in dismal silence for a second. Then of course, as is required in these situations, the company members front of house started up some defiantly enthusiastic applause, with Hashi, Raven, Carrie, Hattie, Kiki, Laura and Miguel all doing their best to mimic the enraptured response of a packed house.
‘Marvellous,’ declared Hashi, smiling as though his life depended on it. ‘Great work everyone. Great job. Great, great job. Now, if I could have you all to the stage, please, I do have some notes…’
‘Some notes’ turned out to be an hour’s unstructured lecture about the nature of theatre, the eternal relevance of Shakespeare, and, rather bluntly, the many, many ways in which the show currently missed the point of both. The cast and crew listened in meek silence, occasionally jotting things down on the few occasions Hashi veered towards specificity. The gist was that subsequent performances needed to differ from the dress primarily in that they were uniformly, radically and quantitatively better. Hattie found it hard to disagree, but dearly wished Hashi would offer some advice on how they were to achieve this miraculous transformation. He was clearly waffling, panicked and embarrassed.
Then, when he finally shut up, they had to endure the technical notes shared by the crew. Everyone kept their words polite and their tone positive, but from the slumped postures and the weariness in the eyes, Hattie could see that spirits were low. Once everything was said that needed to be said, she dismissed the company, and no one seemed keen to stick around for a drink.
Hattie shuffled and tidied and fussed and fixed and, as always, was more or less the last to leave. She took herself out from the side door, and made her way round to the front of the building. It was dark outside, and she was distracted by her thoughts, so she didn’t notice the figure hovering at the corner of the building until she’d bumped into it.
‘Whoops!’ she exclaimed. ‘Sorry!’
‘That’s all right,’ said a voice she recognised, and, peering through the gloaming, she realised it was Rosie, the shaven-headed girl from behind the bar, who was having a huddled cigarette break.
‘Oh hello, my love. How are you?’
‘I’m all right,’ said Rosie. ‘How’s the show going?’
‘It’s… getting there,’ Hattie replied cagily.
Rosie laughed. ‘I’m sorry. That’s what Davina said on the last show she did here, some god-awful devised piece about mental illness. I think I know what “getting there” means. That’s a real shame, though. Davina told me the read-through was absolutely brilliant.’
‘Well,’ said Hattie awkwardly. ‘We’ve still got a bit of time. You never know.’
‘Well, fingers crossed,’ said Rosie. ‘Have a good evening!’
‘You too,’ said Hattie, and made her way home.
24
This is what it all comes down to. Yes, once a show opens it can run for weeks, months, or even years, and yes, your job as a stage manager extends far beyond the first performance. But all the grit, all the stress, all the heart that goes into the rehearsal period: the fulfilment of all those emotions happens on opening night. You can spend your entire life in the industry and never lose that feeling that comes around thirty minutes before the first curtain up. Conversely, if you ever do lose that feeling, that’s a sure sign it’s time to quit.
– From The Art and Craft of Stage Management by Donna Fletcher, Chapter 11: Opening Night
Tuesday, the day of the show’s official opening, was expectedly manic. Overnight Hashi had started thinking in more concrete terms, and first thing in the morning he unleashed a torrent of changes and reworkings prompted by the disastrous dress rehearsal. Davina was rushing around all day, trying to accommodate often conflicting notes on what needed doing to the props from not only Hashi but also Raven, who had her own ideas, as well as fielding requests from the cast members themselves. Kiki was frantically bouncing between the actors and the lighting team, trying to keep everyone abreast of changes to who would be positioned where and when onstage, and how they needed to be lit at the time. Then there were the adjustments to entrances and exits that needed to be worked through: ‘Mr Williams will come off stage right in act three now, so his props for act four need to be pre-set on the other side of the stage’, and so on, not to mention, of course, the last-minute cuts Kiki had to add to the bible, which affected the timings of everything. Hattie did her best to support both of her subordinates, whilst also helping out Moira and Raven where needed. It didn’t help that Steve was still absent.
In the midst of all this it was hard not to call to mind certain sayings involving lipsticks and pigs, polishes and turds, or deckchairs and iceberg-afflicted seagoing vessels, but, despite suspecting that some of her colleagues were entertaining similar mental comparisons, Hattie kept those thoughts to herself. Saying what everyone was thinking wouldn’t help anything. Like a rowing eight trailing in distant last place in a race, the job of the crew was to focus on nothing more than getting to the finish line, regardless of the likely final result.
At lunchtime she took a brief break and checked her phone. She was surprised to see she had an email from Rod, of all people. Never the most comfortable with technology, he had sent a message with no content beyond the automatically inserted ACDA signature, while in the subject line was a YouTube link. After a couple of false starts Hattie worked out how to copy the link into her phone browser. She was surprised to find herself watching a video entitled Exhibition Fight 27: Gallium vs Aluminium on a channel called Chemistry Deathmatch. Despite the aggressive title and fancy graphics at the beginning, the video itself was very simplistic. It showed, on a black workbench, a strip of silver metal, onto which the hands of an off-screen presenter scraped from a little beaker a blob of a viscous silvery paste that looked a bit like mercury, only sludgier. The paste sat on the metal strip… and nothing happened. The hands retracted, and in the lower corner of the screen a ‘fast forward’ icon appeared, suggesting the footage was now being played at faster-than-normal speed. It was hard to tell, though, because still, nothing happened. Then the paste suddenly slithered off the strip, leaving behind some lumpy silvery residue. The corner icon disappeared, and the hands returned, moving at a normal pace. They picked up the strip, which they then pulled, with apparent ease, into little crumbly pieces. Then another fancy graphic flashed up, with the text ‘Victory, by dismemberment: Gallium!!!’ and the video ended.
Hattie watched the video again, perplexed. Why on earth had Rod sent her… hang on. Those little chunks of metal at the end of the video: they looked sort of melted, or crumbled, in a way that was oddly familiar. Of course! The remains that Keith had shown her bore a striking resemblance. Did that mean… was the metal strip made of aluminium, the same material as the padlock? If so, the metallic paste was presumably gallium, whatever that was. It seemed to have the ability to melt metal, quietly and without mess. But goodness, it was very slow. It seemed to take several hours to eat through the thin strip of aluminium. Surely the thief hadn’t had time to pour gallium on the padlock and hang around waiting for it to take effect? Still, it was at least as plausible as the blowtorch theory.
