Death Of A Hollow Man by Caroline Graham Read Free Book Online Page B

pan, then took her script for the next production, Uncle Vanya, from the dresser. It has been dissected and reassembled, interleaved with blank pages, as had all the copies of plays on which she had been assistant stage manager. Deidre worked long and ardently on every one before the first rehearsal. She would read and reread the play, getting to know the characters as well as if she had lived with them. She struggled to realize the subtext and sense the tempo. Her head buzzed with ideas on staging, and she used long rolls of thin cardboard to design her sets. She was as enthralled by Uncle Vanya as she had been by The Cherry Orchard, intoxicated by Checkhov’s particular ability to produce a seemingly natural world full of precisely observed, psychologically real human beings, then reconcile this world with the urgencies of dramatic necessity.
    Now, becoming aware that she was hungry, she closed Uncle Vanya and put the book aside. She hardly ever managed to eat on theater evenings, not if she wanted to be on time. She found a bit of salad dressing in the fridge together with a small, hard piece of leftover beef and two slices of beetroot, and while spreading margarine on the stretchy white bread that was all her father’s gums could tackle, she slipped into a frequent and favorite reverie in which she reviewed edited lowlights from the latest rehearsal, rewriting the scenario as she went along.

    DEIDRE: I think the Venticelli are far too close to Salieri in the opening scene. They wouldn’t huddle in that intimate way. And they certainly wouldn’t be touching him.

    ESSLYN: She’s quite right, Harold. They’ve been getting more and more familiar. I thought if someone didn’t say something soon, I’d have to myself.

    HAROLD: Right. Stop nudging the star, you two. And thanks, Deidre. Wish I’d taken you aboard years ago.
    OR

    HAROLD: Coffee all around, I think, Deidre.

    DEIDRE: Do you mind? Assistant directors don’t make coffee.
    (genial laughter)

    HAROLD: Sorry. We’re so used to you looking after us.

    ROSA: We’ve been taking you too much for granted, darling.

    ESSLYN: And all the time you’ve been hiding all these dazzling ideas under your little bushel.

    Harold: Careful—I’m turning green.
    (more genial laughter, kitty gets up to make the coffee.)
    OR

    HAROLD: (SLUMPED IN A CHAIR IN THE CLUBROOM)
    Now the others have gone, I don’t mind telling you, Deidre, I just don’t know what I’d have done without you on this production. Everything you say is so fresh and original, (heavy sigh). I’m getting stale.

    DEIDRE: Oh, no, Harold. You mustn’t think—

    HAROLD: Hear me out, please. What I’m working around to is our summer production. There’s such a lot of work involved in Uncle Vanya …

    DEIDRE: I’ll be happy to help.

    HAROLD: No, Deidre, I’ll help. What I’d like—what we’d all like—is for you to direct the play.
    Even Deidre’s feverishly yearning soul found this final dialogue a bit hard to credit. As she scraped out the last bit of solid, shiny yellow salad dressing and distributed it patchily on the spongy bread, she reverted to simpler fantasies. Harold crashing his car. Or Harold having a heart attack. The latter was the most likely, she thought, recalling his stout tummy under its popping brocade vest. She surveyed her completed sandwich. The beetroot was falling out. She caught it, stuffed it back in, and took a bite. It wasn’t very good. The milk boiled over again.
    “How do you think it went then, Constanze?”
    Kitty was sitting by the dressing table. She had peeled off her tights and propped up her milk-white legs on an embroidered footstool. Although she had announced her pregnancy barely three months ago, she was already inclined to hold the small of her back and smile brave, aching smiles. She winced sometimes, too, in the manner of one reacting to tiny blows. Now, she carefully dotted cleansing cream over her face before giving the expected