‘We can’t really work out sound levels properly until we get into the theatre. Better just work on timing the lines,’ advised Wallas Ward.
‘Come the day,’ asked Alex languidly, ‘where will I perch? On the Prompt Side?’
‘No. You’d be too near the Stage Manager’s desk there, might pick up his cues on the transmitter. No, you should sit OP.’ Wallas Ward used the theatrical jargon for the side opposite the Stage Manager.
‘Fine,’ said Alex, obtrusively cooperative.
They started. It was not easy. Michael Banks was not used to acting with a voice murmuring continuously in his ear, and Alex Household found it difficult to time the lines right. If he went at the natural pace, Michael Banks got lost and confused, unable to speak one line while hearing the next. The only way they could get any semblance of acting was for Alex to speak a whole sentence, Michael to wait for the end, and then repeat it. This method didn’t work too badly in exchanges of dialogue, but again it was disastrous in the long speeches. With all the waits as the lines came in, the pace slowed to nothing. The lines were coming out as written, but the play was dying a slow death.
Michael Banks struggled on gamely for about an hour, but then snatched out his ear-piece and said, ‘I’m sorry, loves. It’s just not working, is it?’
‘Persevere,’ said Wallas Ward. ‘Just persevere. It takes a long time to get used to it.’
‘How long? We don’t have that much time.’
‘Keep trying.’
It was painfully slow, but Michael Banks kept trying. His memory might have gone, but he showed plenty of guts.
Bobby Anscombe was due at three. Then they would do a run for him. By then they had to have mastered the device. By unspoken consent they worked on through their lunch-break. Every member of the company was willing their star to succeed.
Slowly, slowly, the pace started to pick up. Alex spoke more quickly and Michael Banks lost the flow less often.
It was a cooperative effort between the two. It had to be. Alex’s task of dictating the pace was quite as difficult as Michael’s of delivering the lines. And Charles noted with relief how Alex was rising to the challenge. Whatever resentments he might feel, whatever threats he might have voiced against the star, the understudy was now totally caught up in his task, spacing the lines with total concentration, caught up in the communal will for the subterfuge to work.
They staggered through the second act. It was half-past two, and the minutes were ticking away till Bobby Anscombe’s appearance. The tension in the room built up, the concentration of the entire company focusing on Michael Banks, living every effort with him.
He was approaching the big speech about the Hooded Owl, the speech which Malcolm Harris had rightly claimed to be the centre of his play, the speech that the star had not once got through since he had abandoned his script. All was silent in the rehearsal room, except for the actors speaking their lines.
The big speech was the climax of a scene between Michael and Lesley-Jane, playing his daughter. The dialogue which ran up to it showed good pace, and the strength of the star’s performance, absent in recent days, began again to show through.
The speech was partly addressed to the Hooded Owl of the title and ended with the bird in its glass case being smashed on the floor. Though this was to happen every night in the run, the Stage Management had requested that, to save on glass cases, the action should be mimed during rehearsal.
Lesley-Jane cued the big speech, and no one breathed. ‘But, Father,’ she said, ‘you will never be forgotten.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Michael Banks with new authority. ‘Oh yes, I will.
‘Three generations of us have lived in this house. Three generations have passed through this room, slept here, argued here, made love here, even died here. And the only marks of their passage have been obliterated by the next generation. New wallpaper, new furniture, new window frames. . the past is forgotten. Gone with no record. Unless you believe in some supernatural being, taking notes on our progress. A God, maybe — or, if you’d rather, a Hooded Owl. .
‘Why not? This stuffed bird has always been in the room. Imagine it had perception, a memory to retain our follies. Oh God, the weakness that these walls have witnessed! And this bird has lived through it all, has seen it all, impassively, in silence.’
He picked up the glass case and looked at the bird reflectively. Then, with a sudden change of mood, he shouted, ‘Well, I’m not going to be spied on any longer!’ and dashed it to the ground.
They all burst into applause. Lesley-Jane threw her arms round Michael Banks’s neck. The sense of achievement was felt by every one of them. Not only had he mastered the lines, he had also delivered the speech with greater power than it had ever received, either by him in rehearsal, or by Alex in performance. And yet Alex had contributed. Something of his timing, something of his delivery had come into Michael Banks’s performance, giving it new depth and stature. The applause was for the joint effort.
It was five to three. Paul Lexington held up his hands for silence. His glowing face showed that he was aware of the breakthrough. ‘I think we’re going to be all right. We’ll stop it there. Thank you all for your hard work. Bobby’ll be here in a minute, and I want you all to give him a performance that’ll blast him out of his seat!’
The run was not perfect, but it was good. Occasionally the timing between Alex and Michael went and the star lost his lines, but for most of the play the flow was maintained. Bobby Anscombe, who had reacted badly when he had first heard of the deaf-aid idea, was forced to admit at the end that it might work. Like everyone else, he recognised that there was no alternative.
‘O.K.,’ he announced to everyone in his usual grudging style. ‘We’re still in business. Just. But you’re all going to have to work a darned sight harder. The last week’s rehearsal has been a virtual write-off, and you’re meant to be facing a preview audience on Monday.’
‘You think we go ahead with that?’ asked Paul Lexington. Clearly cancelling the previews had been one option the producers had discussed.
‘We’ll go ahead. The show needs the run-in, and even if it’s bad, there won’t be too much word-of-mouth outside the business. And any word-of-mouth’d be better than what we’ve got at the moment. What the hell’s happening on the publicity front?’ He rounded on his co-producer as he asked the question.
‘Show-Off say it’s all in hand.’
‘A bit late to have it in hand. It should be out of hand and all over the bloody media by now. Is anything happening?’
‘Micky’s doing Parkinson tonight — the Beeb’s sending a car about six, Micky. .’
The star acknowledged this information with an exhausted nod.
‘. . and then there’s supposed to be an interview in Atticus in The Sunday Times tomorrow.’
‘Better than nothing, but where are the bloody posters?’
‘Apparently some delay about those. You know, the people who put them up are quite difficult to organise.’
‘I know that. .’
‘But it’s supposed to be sorted out now.’
‘I should bloody well hope so. We open on Thursday and at the moment we’ve made about as much noise as a fart in a hurricane.’ Bobby Anscombe turned to Peter Hickton. ‘All set for the get-in at the Variety tonight?’
The Director nodded with relish at the prospect of a sleepless night of hard work.
‘Tech. run tomorrow night and D.R. Monday afternoon?’
‘That’s it,’ Peter Hickton confirmed.
‘Hmm. Well, for God’s sake see that Micky and Alex get some practice with that bloody walkie-talkie tomorrow afternoon. There’s a long way to go before it sounds natural.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Paul Lexington diplomatically. ‘We’ll sort it out. This is going to be a show you’ll be proud to be associated with, Bobby.’
The investor barked a short, cynical laugh. ‘Bloody well better be. Don’t forget, Paul, we still haven’t got a contract. I can still pull out if I don’t like it.’