Now, convoyed by Rodney Harrison, I"m off to the Booking Office with a "script, enchantingly typed in black and scarlet, under my arm and hope in my heart.
Jauntily,
JANE.
_Later._
P.S. They were quite wonderful to me, which is to say, they p.r.o.nounced "not bad" and will cast it at once. They talk vaguely of changes and "gingering it up," and "adding a little pep," but say that can be done at rehearsals.
I started to say I preferred not to have any alterations made, but I thought it would be more tactful to wait and see.
Oh, but the forlorn wretches in the waiting room! Some of them had been there for hours and when the proud and prosperous-looking Rodney sent in his name and we were taken in at once without waiting for our turn and they looked at me with their mournful made-up eyes I felt as if my wicked French heels were on their necks. I noticed one girl, particularly; there was something so gallant about her cracked and polished shoes, her mended gloves, her collar, laundered to a cobweb thinness, and about the improbable sea-sh.e.l.l pink in her hollow cheeks. She had a sort of eager, sharpened sweetness in her face and a regular Burne-Jones jaw.
I refused tea and said farewell to Rodney uptown and walked home, and on the way I saw her again, standing outside of one of the white and shining _Cafe des Enfants_, watching the man turn the m.u.f.fins. She opened a collapsed little purse and poked about in it for an instant and then shut it again and turned away. Before I knew what I meant to do, I heard myself saying, "h.e.l.lo! I saw you just now at the Booking Office, didn"t I? I wish you"d come in and have some coffee and b.u.t.ter cakes,--I detest eating alone!"
She hung back a bit but they are not formal in her world, and in we went. Sally, I wish you could have seen that poor thing eat! She"s been sick and out of work and fearfully depressed. I"ve got her name and address and if all goes as well with this vaudeville work as Rodney thinks it will, I may be able to help her. At any rate, she"s stuffed like a Christmas turkey at this moment.
Sally, I can"t tell you how happy I am!
Much love, old dear,
JANE.
P.S. II. I read the act to Michael Daragh and he set the seal of his sober approval on it. He thinks I"m going personally to uplift the two-a-day.
CHAPTER IV
_Friday._
DEAREST SALLY:
It just happened that they need a new sketch act, so they cast "ONE CROWDED HOUR" at once and it is already in rehearsal.
BROTHER is excellent, a wistful-eyed, shabby youth who really looks convincingly ill and coughs in a way to carry conviction. Oh, but THE GIRL! My quaint New England spinster is gone and with her all the point of my playlet. They"ve given the part to a blooming, buxom, down-to-the-minute young person, late of "Oh, You Kewpie-Kid!" (in the chorus) and frankly contemptuous of this role. And THE MAN--the bandit--a fair-haired canary, an inch shorter than she is! They quarrel like fishwives and scold about the number of "sides" each other has, and refuse to play up prettily, and I"m heartsick over it all, Sally. The producing agent says it would be utterly impossible to "put it over" with the characters as I wrote it. He was fairly mild and merciful with me (thanks to Rodney, I daresay) but unbudgably firm, and at every rehearsal some touch of coyness or kittenishness is added. As an elixir of youth, I recommend him.
The girl patronizes me until I am ready to fling myself on the floor and squeal with rage. "Listen, girlie," she cooes, "don"t you worry about this lil" ol" act! You leave it to me, hon"! I"ll put the raisin in it!"
Rodney Harrison is hugely amused at my woe. He says I must remember that you can"t slip the Idylls of the King in between the Black-faced Comedian and the Elephant Act. I suppose I must just bear it, grinning if possible, until I have won my footing and then I won"t allow so much as a comma to be changed.
BROTHER is a dear. He opened his heart and gave me a five-act play of his own to read. The stage business is much funnier than the dialogue. After a melting moment he has--"Exeunt Mother." The old lady was clearly beside herself. Also me.
Wearily,
JANE.
_Tuesday._
DEAR SALLY,
We open Thursday afternoon at a weird little try-out theater "way downtown. I am like to perish of weariness and exasperation. GIRL and MAN have been fighting like Kilkenny cats. Yesterday she said, "Dearie, G.o.d is my witness, he uses me like I was the dirt under his feet!" The brother of BROTHER, a lean, clean-looking chap, lounges about at rehearsals and comforts me vastly with his under-the-breath comments on them. She has worked up the bit before THE MAN arrives, when she is pretending, you remember, into screaming comedy. She a.s.sures me it will "knock "em dead!" And they have introduced a dance! Yes. He shows her "the coyote lope." I"m telling you the solemn truth, Sarah Farraday. Do you wonder that I"m an old woman before my time?
And as if I did not have enough to annoy me, Michael Daragh has been quite superfluously unpleasant about it. I wrote you how much he liked it when I read the original "script to him? Well, he has kept talking about the glorious privilege of doing really good work and leavening the lump, and of how the public really wants the best, only the managers haven"t faith to know it, and when I had to tell him about the changes,--the comedy and the dance and so on, he just looked at me and looked at me as if I were a lost soul. It was very tiresome.
"Good gracious, Michael Daragh," I said, "you don"t suppose I like it, do you? But I"ve got to get my foothold. You can"t be high-brow in the two-a-day, it seems. You"ve got to capitulate. It"s simply what they call "putting it over.""
And he said, "I should be calling it "putting it under,"" and stalked away.
Excuse a cross letter. So am I.
J.
P.S. Just for which, I won"t even tell him when or where the tryout is to be.
_Thursday Night._
Well, my dear, they say it went fairly well. But it was absolutely the most harrowing thing I ever had to bear. BROTHER was a gem but GIRL and MAN messed up their lines and gave an alien interpretation to everything. How I hated the audience for roaring at her common comedy! They howled with delight when she pushed BROTHER over, and the coyote lope got the biggest hand of the day. I was behind the scenes, holding the "script. Oh, but it"s a grim land of disillusion back there! As she came off she gave me a kindly pat and said--
"Ain"t they eatin" it up? Say, girlie, didn"t I tell you I"d put the raisin in it?"
Unbelievably, heaven alone knows why, we are to open at the Palace next Monday. Some big act is canceled owing to illness and they have to have a sketch. We play two more performances downtown and then rehea.r.s.e day and night to smooth over the rough places. I ought to be bubbling with thankful joy--the Palace! But I"m not. I doubt if I go on with vaudeville work after this.
Jadedly,
JANE.
_Friday._
DEAR S.,
Something made me think of that girl I fed the other day and I looked her up. She was actually starving and her room rent long overdue and her landlady a regular story-book demon, so I fed her up and brought her home and coaxed Mrs. Hills to put a cot in my room for her. Her Burne-Jones jaw is sharper than ever and she has the mournfully grateful eyes of a setter. She"s sleeping now as if she could never have enough,--just thirstily drinking up sleep.
Performance no better to-day. Terrific rehearsing starts early to-morrow morning.
Hastily,
JANE.
_Sunday Morning._
DEAREST SALLY,