Shalom aleichem or something like that, says the Radio City stage manager who’s gladhanding, gelthandling to haggle around too early the next morning and this, when everything’s long been set out and signed…and how’s everything by you?
Me, it’s like having a heart attack.
We have an hour left to rehearse, Mada says while ignoring the mensch’s shaking all over to root around for his pocketwatch where, in his pocket — and then the press conference, an hour to rest, shower, and eat; we’re back here for soundcheck at — winding it, noon.
Interviews throughout the afternoon, at the sponsoring hotel the Midtown One Season, demoted by three thanks to frost.
Then to Ben, remember, let us do the talking.
All set?
Gelt puts a goy on the boxoffice, why not.
A phalanx of security shall fill the frontrow tonight, retired police and fire will arise to keepsafe the wings. As for the hall without, its lobby’s been hastily whitewashed, overnight, moonlit by unions: a stretch of wall that used to host a vast verdant mural, famous for its artistry forgotten, redone into this pure snowlike swath, obliterating its representation, made to reflect virtuously above the marmoreal floors, polished and shining. The short agitable stage manager spits a mucose hock of morning chaw to the cuspidor at the side of the stagedoor, retreats from his briefing by Mada and Gelt, heading backstage to overlord the Rockettes’ lastminute refittings for long shapeless skirts, modest wigs frayed to frump, setting hems, renegotiating necklines with what he calls upper management that’s probably only his conscience. A rumbling wells, quakes the theater’s vault, diapasonic, shakes draped forms on flutes, flakes goldleaf, rattles mirrorglass foxed in smoke and framed in chrome and cracking: statuesque Eve dropping her marble apple to roll to a doorstop, let in a draft; the sounding not of His stomach, nor that of the grumbling of those waiting out in the weather for their tickets reserved, a kvetch over price, it’s the warmingup of the organ, swelling initially a pillowlike softness, then rising into a dignified pad of a devotional nature, underscoring the fumbling of a handful of His lookalikes, Ben’s bit players, A Pharisee, Sadducee #3…these understudies curtain up and stumbling through staging, which like the streets connecting crosstown and the avenues north and south has been amateurishly blocked, made safe for the public — them klutzy with smashing their irreplaceable props, and persisting, too, in mispronounciating their lines if they don’t just forget them entire.
A night spent on bed’s edge, rawthroated on the lip of the toilet — Ben bowed to gut up what’d been ordered to be the most settling of catering — after a debut that went, He’ll admit, maybe just an encore short of wellreceived, nu, thank you very much despite; and this despite the encouragement, the kudos, kisses and hugs XO again, VSOP the cartons of cigarettes and the chocolate balloons and the flowers they’d brought Him, that bouquet of bouquets composed only of the flowers to which He’s allergic, He thinks though they’re artificial, silled in every shade known to mortification, disaster: yellow, red, pink, deathwhite, paling petals; the clutch of them Mada, Gelt, Hamm, and Him crowded into His turret atop the Great Hall to wait for the morning editions, the mediated response, the silent radio, imageless teevee, any pitch or delivery, for the earliest word of the cheaping bird; Mada calling downstairs to Garden Control every ten minutes with Gelt, too, listening in on the line from the hallway, after any indication, any news breaking late the already broken. Insecure, maybe, hungry for feedback, thirsty for praise. Under the veil, His face an open book: page Doctor Tweiss, then take cover. As wide as any newspaper spread, the next magazine feature or foldout. His ears “are marks of quotation.” His mouth an indiscretion, if still forgivably young.
What are they saying, Ben’s asking, like tell me, what Are they saying, as if they’re saying nothing at all…what are They saying, as if to say who are they to say anything to me, what are they Saying, as if to ask they’re saying That and why — you want they should stick to the script, repeat after me…and the answer Mada gives to Him’s what, don’t worry, no cause for alarm, the baseless threat of your fret — always a hundred different if equally ridiculous things, Ben, listen up, what they’re saying, it’s still much too early to tell…then, with efficient, neat hands Hamm straightens His false hair, elasticized, once pasted, bearded over His bite: Ben’s never changed out of costume. They’ve got a thousand different agendas, is what Mada’s saying, all demanding the same thing in a million different ways, Ben, bear with us; the door opens and Gelt comes in cloudy in the face and says, though he doesn’t quite seem to believe it, what it really is, Ben, is an issue of popular response, we’re talking appeal. Wide, cutting across like a knife disemboweling. To hell with the critics, the role of the public’s to criticize them…their responsibility, that’s what they do: our polling, our surveys, demographics, you name it — there are methods, there are ways, Ben, take it from me, we’ve got it under control.
It’s all in the packaging (Hamm): we’re poring over the research, the data (Mada), samples, testmarkets (Gelt)…that’s what this tour’s about, after all — the Messiah opening in selected wherevers this summer, or this season passing for…but, goes the Garden’s latest questionaire, how do they want their salvation, with hot beverage, maybe, and their choice of dessert; and so there’s optimization, specialization, brandjobs supercustom. A question, another, half of what’d been asked to last session: should Ben conform to them, or them conform to Ben — asked to eighteen different groups of eighteen different adolescents selected at the holy and holying random, railroaded at Times Square, pennedin ten floors up — a focusgroup, with attention operating at deficit. Them giddy excitement and performance anxiety at the prospect of giving any right answer at their individual rolltop desks in this space luxurious with panes formerly used as a screen studio lit over the foot traffic and growing pools of manure; quills in hand, ink welling, the surveyed stare at parchment scraps; asked their names, ages, purchasing habits, the usual blah and then
Q. A Messiah should be ____:
A.) Male
B.) Female
C.) All of the Above
D.) None of the Above
E.) All & None of the Above
(Circle One)
Q. A Messiah should look ____:
A.) Good
B.) Eh
C.) Feh
D.) Down upon us all
(Circle One)
Q. Match the following words with their definitions, and then use one in a sentence:
1. Kvetch
A. To take pride in pathy.
2. Kvell
B. Me
3. Mitzvah
C. To bitch, complain, or whine
4. Goy
D. A good deed, or, better—commandment
Sentence:
I am a goy.
Fun Fillins:
My mother is a
______.
Your mother is a
______ ______.
I hope you
______ ______ ______.
On a scale of one to five, one to a thousand and a millionfigured unto innominate more please rate your satisfaction with the salvation of your soul in the fields preparest the green pastures provided, then list in the space designated nowhere what your Savior’s name should be, ideally: Benjamin Israelien, how does that sound, strike you closefisted, the beaten goat drum of the ear; those seven sialogogic syllables — the tongue to the roof of the mouth on the assenting Ja of the vorname, how’s that feel, a good tolling rolclass="underline" Benjamin — or so they’re informed, who to confirm or deny — from the Hebrew Binyamin, meaning A son of the right, or Of the tribal south, alternately, wandering, the kingdom of them and of Judah, there’s no time to get into that now; though others hold it to be a corruption of A son of days, born to His father Jacob’s old age, Israel’s, Him like the first Benjamin, a Ben-oni, A son born of sorrow, of pain, or according to such an authority as the Rambam Of mourning—no relation to the tour’s opener, shortlived, the Amazing Benoni, a fleacircus veteran who had to pull out of his contract when the union impounded his wand for you don’t want to know what; his opening patter: Ram-bam, thank-you-ma’am, I’m just saying…