The bills proved genuine, as did the mutual attraction. The audience responded with another silence of the sort that actors don’t soon forget. With the scene on stage growing more intimate by the minute, Flavy got on the line with the control booth and told them to get ready for a blackout with dropped curtain. Théodore took Pauline into his arms for an embrace that, if it wasn’t actually charged with intense eroticism, certainly showed great skill in its imitation. Darkness came and the curtain fell as the Usurper lowered the black garter he had just compared, elegantly, to a violin bow. Though indeed unprecedented, the end of the act didn’t come across as especially abrupt, and was met with a long round of applause.
This was not, however, a moment for congratulations. Flavy cried out, “Meeting! Meeting! Everybody backstage!” We had two minutes.
“Where is he? He has to go back on! There’s no other way!”
We looked everywhere for the Usurper, but he was gone. He had disappeared into the darkness. In an old-fashioned theater of that size there are more hiding places than you can count. Besides which, he could even have escaped out into the audience, for all we knew, and sat down without being seen by the ushers, since they’d all left to man the coat check. One (totally insufficient) minute was spent in a wild search for the Usurper, with each of us authorized to offer him a complete amnesty on the condition that he finish the play — whatever the price to be paid by Flavy’s text. If pressed, we were told to offer him monetary compensation and even a contract for a role in Flavy’s next play, which he was already working on.
The Usurper, however, was nowhere to be found. What’s more, he wasn’t the only one. Like him — and, perhaps, with him — Pauline had disappeared too, though this was of comparatively minor importance given that she wasn’t in the final act. It was then that Boehlmer — having recently regained consciousness, if not costume — appeared in underwear and socks, rubbing his head with the red, white, and blue gag that was still in his hand. At his request, the doctor administered a stimulant under the pretext that it was imperative he continue — or, more accurately, begin—to act. He had, however, nothing to wear. Things weren’t getting any easier, and the clock was ticking.
As the stagehands had no instructions to the contrary, they proceeded as though nothing were amiss and during the brief intermission moved the palace décor familiar from Act One back on stage. The real problem was that Boehlmer’s role — that of Théodore Soufissis — was not at an end. During a reception at the Presidential palace commemorating the reconciliation of the two main characters, he was meant to take his own life in the presence of his former friend. Though Boehlmer had now managed to revive the fury that had preceded the blow to his head, Jean-François Ernu’s energy level, in the wake of his simulated faint, had now plummeted in the opposite direction. He did not wish to continue — not under any circumstances — and was easily persuaded by Boehlmer to cede the role of the President. Certain that the Usurper would reappear in Act Three to complete his dramatic pronunciamento, Boehlmer intended to avenge himself.
At that moment, Annie Soulemenov, with no tears left to shed, had been making her way back to the dressing rooms; en route, she had discovered the costume of Boehlmer-Soufissis, which she now carried back to her colleagues as though it were the Shroud of Turin.
“What the fuck do you want me to do with that?” asked Flavy, before coming to his senses and thanking her.
“This could end badly,” muttered Jean-Pierre Capelier.
If Boehlmer was going to put on Ernu’s costume and insist with such tenacity on playing the President, Pascal-Bram said he wanted no part of it. Fixated on Botsinas and the fact that the crowd had reacted so well to the preceding act, Flavy saw matters in a different light: “The show must go on,” he said. “The show must go on! An actor’s calling is sacred! So long as there’s an audience, we act! There’s an audience out there, isn’t there? So we’re going to act!”
Jean-Pierre Capelier and myself, having been dispatched to find the Usurper, were now returning to the fold empty-handed. Looking to teach by example, Flavy took the Soufissis costume and quickly put it on. Capelier then called the control booth, where, alas, they misinterpreted this call as the signal to lift the curtain. And suddenly there was light. On an empty stage.
Boehlmer strode out as the President still disguised as a man of the people (we had forgotten about the character’s between-act costume change), with the red, white, and blue handkerchief now stuffed into his coat pocket. He was followed by a Sylvestre Pascal-Bram who moved as though mounting a scaffold. The audience showed no sign of recognizing that a change in cast had occurred. Clothes make the man. At least some of the time.
Act Three picked up largely as it was written. Boehlmer knew the role of the President — one he had always secretly longed to play — more or less by heart. The reconciliation between the President and Soufissis was announced. Considering the far more radical role Soufissis had played in the preceding act — for most of which Boehlmer had been unconscious — it fell to Pascal-Bram, as the President’s advisor, to express his reservations concerning a reconciliation on live television. But Boehlmer, hungry as he was for vengeance, held firm and gave the order to summon the cameraman (played by myself). I entered with my video camera and began discretely preparing my establishing shots.
At the precise moment when Flavy made his entrance as Théodore, a tiny black undergarment drifted down from the rafters. I distinctly saw Flavy turn pale — from jealousy? It wasn’t difficult to deduce that the lovebirds must have reached the loft via a narrow ladder that the Usurper had doubtless planned on employing for his escape, but which Pauline, in her high heels, wasn’t likely to have had an easy time with. It was, however, too late to act on this realization. For her part, Pauline later maintained that she’d never been up in the rafters, and had long since taken refuge in her dressing room. Alone. Did we believe her? No. Why not? Pauline’s testimony wasn’t especially rich in detail, and each time I went back to her for clarifications she responded with nothing more than an immense sadness. I never had the heart to push very hard. In any event, whether or not anything scandalous was going on in those dim upper reaches, we had to keep our eyes on the stage. There were a few laughs in response to the fall of the garment, though from where the audience was sitting they couldn’t possibly have seen that what had drifted down was lingerie.
When Boehlmer saw Flavy enter, was he still expecting the return of the Usurper? Impossible to say. Whatever his expectations, he wasted no time, seeming to relish the opportunity to rough Théodore up a little, at least verbally, even if it couldn’t have escaped his notice that it was Flavy and not the Usurper in the role. Having taken the Usurper’s place, Flavy began to pay his price. Or perhaps not. Unlike Jean-François Ernu, Boehlmer excelled at the art of improvisation, and was far and away the best at it in our troupe. Boehlmer began to harangue his special guest in a far more vulgar fashion than would be expected from the mouth of a President — even an angry one. Without the means to stem the tide of insults breaking over him, Flavy suffered in silence.
In my role as camerawoman needing to capture a few images of incontestable goodwill, I thought it best to interrupt Boehlmer with a reminder of what it was I was doing there. He marched over, took me by the scruff of the neck, and dragged me offstage, voicing, as he went, his contempt for the press in general, and television in particular. I think it’s worth noting here that when things start to go wrong, the first reaction always seems to be to usher all the women offstage. Curious. Or maybe not so curious. In any event, Flavy used this interruption to return to the letter of his text, launching with great conviction into a long monologue, one of the finest and most moving in his play: