Reign (56 page)

Dennis smiled at him. "
I'd
do," he said.

"Good Christ, I should've seen this coming," said Quentin, pushing his glasses down onto his nose, glaring over the top of them at Dennis, and shaking his head in mock rue. "Our boy's gone method at last. Call back the cast. Let's
reblock
the whole damned show . . ."

They laughed, Dennis hardest of all. "I know," he said, "this is a terrible thing to put you through, Quentin. I know you believe what's set is set. But I'd just like to do . . . something different, something more real. I'd like to make it fresh."

"Fresh — what are we doing, a show or a salad?" He chuckled. "All right, what would you like to do that feels fresh? Besides accosting Ann, that is?"

They worked on nearly all of Dennis's scenes, Quentin jotting down the changes in the prompt book. There would be time in the next four days to acquaint the other principals with the subtle variations Dennis had made. They all knew there would be more than enough time, while waiting for scene changes, or while lighting cues were being set, or difficulties in quick costume changes were being dealt with. The rehearsals leading up to dress rehearsal were filled with such empty moments, performers waiting impatiently while unseen technicians labored to bring the show's various and unruly parts not only under control, but to the perfect precision of a clockwork.

There was time. There were hours worth of time, in which all the actors who had scenes with Dennis were apprised of his changes, and worked out business of their own to respond in kind. The technical rehearsal days plodded, enlivened only by the presence of the orchestra for several hours of musical rehearsals when the technical work was done for the day.

Although the company did little but stand around from Monday through Wednesday, they went to bed early, exhausted by the frustration of being unable to move, to dance, to act for more than a few minutes at a time before Curt's voice would come over the speaker: "Hold it, please. Have to work out this cue." And five, ten, fifteen minutes would pass before he would say, "Okay, top of the scene, please," and they would start again, ever alert for the next interruption. It was, the actors complained, more like making a movie than a show. There was not an actor alive, it was often claimed, who liked technical rehearsals.

So, on Thursday at eight o'clock, when the overture played and the curtain rose, revealing the kitchen of the castle of the Emperor of
Waldmont
, everyone was bursting with unreleased energies. John Steinberg, Ann Deems, and Evan Hamilton sat together half way back in the auditorium, Ann's hand nervously clutching Steinberg's arm. She was tired, happy, and excited. Twelve hours of work a day for the last week had barely been sufficient to make all the preparations needed, even after hiring three temps. They booked hotels in Philadelphia for the guests, rented a fleet of limousines to transport the rich, famous, and infamous to the theatre, hired ushers, ticket takers, and parking lot attendants, and, most time-consuming of all, handled the financial paperwork for a cast of fifty, a crew of fifteen, costumers, designers, and a sixteen-piece orchestra.

Still, the possibility that Ann Deems would drift off to sleep during the rehearsal was unimaginable. It seemed to her that she was to watch her future unfolding tonight on that stage in the form of Dennis's performance. If he was good, if he fulfilled the promise of the past few days, that future could be filled with wonder. But if not . . .

The curtain went up, and the time for worrying was past.

The cast seemed electric, the music crisp, the dialogue as involving and witty as it had ever been, and when, in Scene 2, the set revolved, revealing Dennis as the Emperor Frederick, she knew that everything would be all right. He was strong, thoroughly in command of his lines, his movement, his voice, and before long she was not aware that she was watching a show that starred her lover. Instead she was caught up in a musical romance of royal intrigue, love, and honor, caught in the web of words and music, lost in the reality of the performances and the emotions that poured in waves over the stage, into her empathetic soul.

Her responses were so intense that she was almost relieved when the curtain fell on the first act. She relaxed in her seat, and turned to John. "That was . . . wonderful," she said.

He nodded. "It was indeed. I've never seen Dennis better. Or a better production, for that matter. Extraordinary what can be done in a limited amount of time on an unlimited budget."

"You know what they say," Evan said, "about a good dress rehearsal."

Ann looked at him and thought the boy's face looked just like Dennis's when he was teasing. "That it means a bad opening? And vice versa?"

"That's one of the most absurd theatrical superstitions of all," said Steinberg. "In all my years in the theatre, the only thing that I've seen a bad dress rehearsal mean was an even worse performance and an extremely short run. I don't know where that one ever came from. It's completely illogical."

"Probably from the same people," said Ann, "who believe it's bad luck to say 'good luck' to an actor before a performance instead of 'break a leg.' I did that one time to a cast in my little theatre, and you'd have thought I cursed them all."

"Actors are not cattle, as Hitchcock once said, but children, and it's not only their egos that make them that way. They're even more superstitious than baseball players. Things they have to carry on stage with them, the way they leave their dressing rooms. To say nothing of the ghosts and creepy crawlies that have supposedly haunted every damned theatre I've ever been in."

"You don't believe any of it, John?" Ann asked.

"My dear," and he gave one of his rare smiles, "I've been involved in theatre since you were a toddler, and I have never seen a thing that could not be explained by perfectly natural means."

"Which helps to explain why you were so scornful of our psychic."

"Yes. That and the fact that it surprised me that Dennis would engage someone like that. It's a coastal snobbery of mine."

"Coastal?"

"I've always been an east coast person. Rational and clear headed. I feel the west coast entertainment establishment, with few exceptions, is made up of bubbleheads who live to channel, cross their legs in uncomfortable but trendy positions, and watch Shirley
MacLaine
pretend to be something other than a very limited actress. Then, bolstered by their newly found spiritual inner strengths, they feed the American public with television and films that everyone has seen before and which they feel quite comfortable in producing again. They're a bunch of clucks whose souls come out of weekend psychic seminars, and I hate to see Dennis fall victim to them."

"Why, John," Ann said, "I've never seen you this worked up."

"I always get this way when I see something . . . as damned wonderful as what's happening on this stage tonight. It's live theatre, it happens new every night, it's real, it's felt, it makes
me
feel, and it's more
spiritual
than all the third-rate drivel coming out of cameras." He shook his head. "I'm proud of him, Ann. He looks good up there. And he's going to be even better tomorrow." He stood up. "And if that damned psychic helped, all right then, put the bitch on the payroll."

He gave a final humph, and walked up the aisle.

Ann turned to Evan, who was laughing beside her. "He's amazing, isn't he?" Evan said. "Everybody should have a John Steinberg to run their lives." His laughter subsided, and he looked up at the stage, the heads of the orchestra members visible in the pit as they stood and stretched after their long incarceration, then disappeared through the tunnel to backstage. "He was good, wasn't he . . .
is
good, I mean."

"He's wonderful."

Evan nodded. "Seeing what he does . . . it makes me feel better. About being here. Like I'm not scared."

"What about tomorrow? When the place is filled."

"I'll be one of the audience, that's all. I won't be up there. It'll be all right." All around them came sounds that would be unheard the following night with the audience in attendance — people talking, laughing backstage, Linda Oliver, the sound designer, calling from the rear of the theatre to her onstage technicians, Curt Wynn shouting down to Dex from the booth.

"You know I love him, Ann," Evan said, not looking at her.

"I know you do. And he loves you too."

"I was angry at him for so long. Half my life. But I think things are going to be better now."

"Good," she said. "That's good."

The intermission was twenty minutes long, and they sat together, not talking, not saying what they both were wondering, not until the orchestra reassembled, the heads and the tips of instruments bobbed up over the brass rail holding the red velvet curtains that hid the pit. Evan was the one to voice it.

"I wonder where he is."

Ann wondered too, but to say so, to reveal to Evan that she knew who he was talking about, would have been too much of an invitation, as though thought alone could produce him. And Ann knew that that was precisely what
could
happen and what had, that Dennis Hamilton's creative thought had brought him, or it, into being. "Who?" she asked. "Where who is?"

The smile he gave her was thin and hard, and told her he knew the question was unnecessary. "The Emperor," he said. "The one who calls himself the Emperor."

"I don't know," she said, and the music started, and John Steinberg returned, and she turned her attention to the stage and tried to lose herself again in the marvelous story that continued before her.

But she could not. As she watched Dennis sing and act and take on the character of the Emperor, she wondered who was on that stage, if what had been the Emperor had gone back inside of Dennis. And if so, had it gone involuntarily, weakened by Dennis's power, to stay forever? Or had it gone of its free will, because it would be safe there until . . .

Until the performance.

The thought gave her such a fit of trembling that both John and Evan turned to look at her. She made herself calm, gave them both smiles, and concentrated on the story unfolding so perfectly in front of her, finally drawing to a close with Frederick's discovery of
Kronstein's
imposture (it was remarkable, she thought, how closely Wallace Drummond resembled Dennis), the final duel in which Frederick runs
Kronstein
through, and Frederick's final speech to the people, telling them that if he is killed leading his army against
Wohlstein
, the people will be his heirs, and democracy reign.

Then came the reprise of the song, "A Private Empire." Dennis's voice, expression, movements all blended together to break Ann's heart as he sang of his lost love, and how he would soon be with her again, and the two of them would dwell forever in an empire of their own making, a realm of transcendent love. As the strings faded away on the last line, the trumpets entered, blaring martially, and Dennis straightened, blinked away tears, and marched upstage, his back to the audience, to lead his army into glory and to meet his own dearly sought for death.

The curtain fell, the music ended, and Ann thought she had never before heard such an absolute silence in an occupied theatre. Then the applause began, from the dozens of technicians and costume people who, no longer needed at the show's end, had come into the auditorium to watch the final scene. The curtain opened, the orchestra played the bows music, and the curtain call began, the chorus and dancers entering first, the secondary principals coming out in pairs or alone, and finally Dennis, striding through the great door center stage, sweeping imperially downstage, the company bursting into a tremendous ovation at the miracle they had seen occur over the last week, Dennis bowing low, accepting the applause as his due, but finding Ann's eye and smiling at her, letting her know that the imperiousness was an act, but that he could and was by God
acting
it.

Then he dropped the character of the Emperor like an old cloak, and beamed at the company, embracing them in turn, causing Steinberg to mutter, "I hope he remembers that the performance is
tomorrow
night . . .”

"It was hard just getting
here
, John," Ann said. "Let him enjoy it, can't you?"

Steinberg nodded grudgingly. "All right. But I'd rather he waited until tomorrow to congratulate himself."

Everyone got out of their costumes, then came down into the auditorium for the notes that followed every run-through. Quentin pointed out a few dance errors, and Dex cautioned the chorus about a certain vocal entrance that was less than sharp. Finally Quentin nodded and smiled. "I think we've got a very nice show here, ladies and gentlemen. But the proof of that will be tomorrow night. We'll have a full house, all paying a pretty penny. And there will be dozens of press people here as well. As we've discussed before, feel free to talk to them, but have no comment about any of
the
. . . tragedies that occurred here, or any disquieting feelings you might have about working here. I think your performances tonight proved that there's certainly no curse on this place.

"But don't relax. Stay sharp. I liked what I saw tonight, and I think we'll knock everyone's socks off tomorrow. Go home, get some rest, do something lovely and relaxing tomorrow during the day, think pleasant thoughts, and show up at . . . Curt?"