The Fair Rewards
9781465636188
108 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
JOHN CARLSON began the rehearsals of “Nicoline” in early August of 1895. For a week he tried to correct the hot labours of the whole, large company. He was nervous about this production. His digestion interfered. His temper grew explosive. The leading woman was alarmed for her gentility. The leading man disliked his part of a cheap rake. Carlson abandoned the minor folk to his stage manager, Rothenstein, and nursed these two clumsy celebrities toward a certain ease. But his stomach suffered. He attended the opening night of “The Prisoner of Zenda” at the Lyceum, fainted during the second act and was revived with brandy in Mr. Frohman’s office. The brandy gave him fever; he spent the six days remaining before “Nicoline” opened, in his bed. Yet on a warm Monday night he dressed his gaunt body gorgeously, shaved his yellow face, thrust an orchid into his coat and dined at Martin’s with young Mr. Fitch who had adapted “Nicoline” from the French. Carlson swore in Swedish when agony seized his stomach. Mr. Fitch, sipping white Burgundy, observed that it must be pleasant to swear incomprehensibly. “Sure,” said Carlson, shivering, “but what was you sayin’?” “You’ll feel better by midnight,” Mr. Fitch murmured, “You’ve worried too much. This’ll be a hit. It’s been a hit in London and Paris. The critics”—the adapter smiled—“won’t dare say anything worse than that it’s immoral. And Cora Boyle will make them laugh in the third act, so that’ll be safe.” “Boyle? Who’s she? That black headed gal that plays the street walker, y’mean? She’s no good. Had her last winter in Mountain Dew. Common as dirt and no more sense than a turnip.” Mr. Fitch answered in his affable whisper, “Of course she’s common as dirt. That’s why I asked you to get her. Why waste time training some one to be common when the town’s full of them?” “But that ain’t actin’, Clyde!” “It’s quite as good. And,” Mr. Fitch declared, “she’s what the women like.” “You always talk as if women made a show pay!” “That happens to be just what they do, Mr. Carlson. That’s why Richard the Third doesn’t make as much money as Camille or East Lynne. Women come to a play to see other women wear clothes they wouldn’t be seen in and do things they wouldn’t dream of doing. Please try to eat something.” “You’re all wrong,” Carlson said, chewing a pepsin tablet. Mr. Fitch shrugged, arranged his moustaches and mentioned a dozen actresses whose success was built on the art of enchanting their own sex. Carlson had a respect for this playwright’s opinion and while the two early acts of “Nicoline” played he saw from his box that Cora Boyle’s swagger carried some message to the female part of the audience. For her, women laughed loudly. They merely sniffled over the well bred woes of the heroine. The heroine’s antics were insupportable. The second curtain fell and Carlson descended to the dressing room of this unsatisfactory gentlewoman, gave a rasping lecture that scared her maid away. He had to help hook her gown and yelled over the powder of her advertised shoulders, “If you want that sassy Boyle gal to be the hit of the show, go on! You act like you’d lost your last cent on the races and had sand in your shoes. Now, you!” A feeling of heated blades in his stomach stopped the speech. He heard the stage manager knock on the dressing room door. The actress moved weeping past his anguish. He leaned on the table and saw his sweating face in the tilted mirror. The thin, remote music of the orchestra began behind the curtain. This third act was set in the rowdy café of a small French city. If it went well, the play was safe, would last out the winter, make him richer. He should go up to his box and show himself unperturbed to rival managers civilly tranquil in their free seats.
