Midsummer Madness Read online

  Midsummer Madness

  Stella Whitelaw

  To

  Martin Patrick, Director, the cast and team of the Oxted Players’ production of Twelfth Night in 2005 at the restored Barn Theatre, Oxted. Guess who was the prompt?

  And guess who read the entire part of Olivia at the last dress rehearsal, to resounding applause?

  My sincere thanks

  to

  Paul Longhurst

  Martin Patrick

  Robert Stevens

  directors

  Andrew Killian

  lecturer on Shakespeare

  Gill Jackson and Lee Bowers

  editors

  William Shakespeare

  playwright

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Copyright

  MALVOLIO: Go to, thou art made, if thou desirest to be so.

  OLIVIA: Am I made?

  MALVOLIO: If not, let me see thee a servant still.

  OLIVIA: Why, this is very midsummer madness.

  Twelfth Night, III. iv. 50–53.

  William Shakespeare

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘Line, Prompt. Line!’

  I leaned forward from the prompt stool huddling into the banana-striped Mexican poncho around my shoulders. The icy draughts in the Victorian theatre in a tiny street off the Strand end of Waterloo Bridge were homing into my corner with spiteful, scissor-sized fingers. Why didn’t the cast just learn their lines? I thought irritably. That’s what they were paid for.

  My feet were still frozen, despite the thermal socks over bootleg jeans – standard prompt wear. The prompt corner was off-stage left, by the footlights.

  ‘Wake up in the corner there!’

  I peered at my copy of Twelfth Night, trying to recall where we were in the play.

  ‘A blank, my lord,’ I said clearly, best Emma Thompson voice, Sense and Sensibility posture. Under my breath, I continued: ‘She never told her love, but let concealment, like a worm in the bud, feed on her damask cheek.’

  The words of hidden love filtered through my mind in a never-ending stream of glittering goldfish. I savoured them. I knew all about hidden love. In fact, I am the world’s number one concealment expert.

  I stared dreamily up into the tangle of ropes and wires in the flies. Twelfth Night was my favourite play – when I wasn’t so cold.

  Our leading lady, Elinor Dawn (she was born Elinor Entwistle, try saying that when you’re tired) was divine as Viola, making the dual roles of a lady of Messaline and a page boy at the court of Duke Orsino look easy. She was a good actress but Father Time was not on her side. Elinor was knocking the late forties even though she peeled back the years with Botox and Restylane injections to help relax her wrinkles and lines. She was a lunchtime Botox junkie. Hardly time for a fat-free shrimp and rocket sandwich.

  ‘I can’t help the wrinkles,’ she’d say, coming back from the Harley Street clinic with a stiff mouth after a lunchtime appointment. ‘My face is expressive.’

  West Enders was a newly formed company, brimming with talent, surviving on an Arts Grant. I thought myself lucky to be part of the production team even in my humble role. My enthusiasm was taken for granted and I was asked to help out with everything. Sophie, do this. Sophie, do that. And Sophie did, like a frantic hamster on a treadmill. I make a lot of lists which spectacularly self-destruct.

  The second lead was the tall and icy Jessica Bond. She was a graduate from a top stage school, playing the role of Olivia. She took everything seriously, had an iron grip on humour. I’d never once seen her laugh so she was right for Olivia, a rather cold and self-contained character initially. I wondered how she was going to cope with Olivia’s sudden wild infatuation for Viola, the socially inferior page boy. She’d be feeling her way.

  Claud Rudolph played the pompous servant Malvolio, and Byron Tantrick was in his playboy element as the gracious Duke Orsino. Poor Claud had selective deafness which made him difficult to prompt. Byron was hopelessly forgetful and needed every word I could give him. I thought of charging them both by the minute, like a lawyer. I’d make a mint.

  I looked over at the others. Elinor was biting her nails, neck muscles taut, which didn’t help her chin contour. She was wearing her uniform black trousers, black silk shirt, black ribbed M&S cardigan. I was disturbed by the look on her face, a haunted look, and wondered why she was worried. She had more talent in her big toe than the whole of Fran Powell’s skinny size eight body. Fran Powell was a hungry understudy in more ways than one. She wore cleverly knotted scarves to conceal the hollows in her collarbones. Her false eyelashes looked like a pair of spiders perched on her eyelids.

  ‘Line. PROMPT.’

  The strong voice vibrated round the auditorium. I had been daydreaming and had no idea where we were. I flipped a few pages hoping the prompt good fairy would help me out but she was taking a sickie.

  ‘Do we have a prompt, or am I expected to perform this duty as well as direct the show?’

  Joe Harrison leaped up on to the stage and walked over to the wings, carrying a hand mike. Talk died away. No sirens, no outriders. Everyone waited apprehensively. He caught sight of me in all my thermal glory and I knew from his expression that he had found his prey.

  ‘So you are Madam Prompt? How nice to meet you. Would it be too much trouble to ask you to contribute a minimum of attention to this afternoon’s rehearsal? Is the time convenient or have you something more important to do? Like looking for another job?’

  He hadn’t recognized me and I breathed a sigh of relief. This was Joe Harrison. I had managed to keep out of his way the previous day when he arrived from New York, jet lagged and overstretched, and hoped he would stay that way. It was my own fault for losing concentration. A good prompt needs all her power of concentration.

  My voice was trapped inside my own head. It was the shock of seeing him again, hearing those gravelly tones, dodging the piercing eyes. He hadn’t changed much.

  ‘I apologize,’ I said, pushing my mop of hair out of sight. It was considerably longer now and back to its natural outrageous red. ‘But it isn’t the end of the world. The theatre won’t close. It’s a routine rehearsal. The punters can hardly demand their money back. They aren’t asking for all the blue Smarties.’

  The cast were stunned. Sophie rarely answered back.

  ‘The first thing my company has to learn is that every rehearsal is a performance,’ said Joe Harrison, coldly. ‘You give your utmost at all times even if the only person in the auditorium is a deaf cleaner.’

  ‘Understood, sir,’ I nodded. ‘Even a deaf cleaner.’

  ‘And do you have to be wrapped up like a bundle of putrid Mexican washing? You look about as glamorous as a reject pile in a charity shop.’


  ‘Raise the temperature in the prompt corner and I’ll wear a gold Lurex bikini,’ I offered. The draught had settled round my neck like a hoar frost.

  A short grunt was my only reply. Joe Harrison turned on his heel and jumped down into the auditorium, an athletic movement. He was a powerful man. The cast used the moment to snatch a glance at their scripts. I knew that Joe Harrison could heave scenery like any scene-shifter. I’d seen him do it, long ago. He had stamina that drove him on when everyone else was falling apart and calling for a drink or a doctor or both.

  ‘Back to work, if Madam Prompt can find the place,’ he bawled. Some of the cast tittered, the two-faced traitors. I’d been saving their skins all day.

  ‘Let’s take your line, Orsino, down left centre. Can you remember that? “What do you know, Cesario?” Quiet, please. If you want to chat, go outside, and pick up your cards on the way.’

  I shrank back into my corner and turned the dimmer light on to the page. I had never wanted to see Joe Harrison again and yet here he was, causing chaos, upsetting cast, alienating stage crew. He might be big in New York but that didn’t give him the right to scare everyone to death.

  Time and time again my low clear voice had to feed a forgotten or fluffed line. I was an expert at pitching my voice so that the cast could hear but not the audience.

  Once I had longed desperately to be an actress. I walked away with all the best parts in school productions. Sophie Gresham, thespian star of the Fifth Form. (School report: Sophie has a real talent for acting. It should be encouraged.)

  I was lucky enough to win one of the coveted places at RADA, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, but that was when the torment started. I suffered from severe stage-fright and I mean severe. I was physically sick, every time I had to go on stage. It wasn’t fair. They had a bowl in the wings called Sophie’s bowl. Even if I was the maid and only had four identical lines, it was a nightmare. In the end I hung up my sooty black eyelashes and retreated to working backstage, relieved to disappear into part of an unseen team.

  ‘Cut! Stop! Cease! Or whatever one has to say to bring this charade to an end. Is this a one-woman show?’ Joe Harrison paced the aisle with an air of incredulity. ‘Shakespeare didn’t write this play as a monologue for the prompt. Doesn’t anyone know their lines? This is bungling, slip-shod work. I suggest ten minutes. Find a script and remind yourself of what this play is all about.’

  He switched off his laptop, slapped the seat in front of him with his clipboard, practically cracking it – the clipboard, that is – and strode off. Straight to the nearest Caffé Nero, I hoped.

  The cast grabbed their books. Their nerves were shredded. They collapsed into corners, thumbing worn pages. Some headed for the coffee machine, believing that caffeine was the answer to actor’s block.

  The Royale Theatre needed a Lottery grant spent on it. It was old and draughty despite all the velvet drapes and gold cherubs. I came out of my corner, rubbing a stiff neck, and ran tepid water over my hands to bring back the circulation. I might die standing up, I thought. My headstone: she never missed a line.

  ‘Don’t think I’m going to discover you,’ said a voice in my direction. ‘There’s no need to pitch that prose at me. This is not an audition.’

  I was momentarily confused. He still didn’t know me. He towered six feet tall, no shrinkage with the passing decade. Spikes of floppy dark hair were falling over his granite-bright eyes. But there were lines of fatigue on his face. Fame brings stress despite three layers of packaging called money, money, money.

  ‘Are you picking on me again?’ I said in my most Natasha Richardson voice, definitely Natasha, sucking in my cheek-bones.

  ‘No voice beautiful, please. It doesn’t work. I have starlets from here to New York trying to impress me, dressed or undressed. So don’t waste your time or mine.’

  A calm temperament does not go easily with red hair. He’d walked out on me all those years ago without even a scribbled thank-you note on the back of an envelope.

  ‘I have no intention of trying to impress you, Mr Harrison. If you would prefer me to prompt in a flat, boring monotone, then I will oblige. But you, of all people, with your reputation for the feel of words, should know that the emotion in a line is as important as a reminder of the actual words. I try to put myself in the character of the part. As for impressing you, a two-ton steamroller wouldn’t make any impression.’

  It was a great speech. I was proud of it. Perhaps I could get a job as a speech writer (freelance) now that I’d blown this job. Pity. Being a prompt required considerable skill.

  ‘Heaven preserve us,’ Joe Harrison muttered, rubbing his chin. ‘I’ve a prompt with attitude. I don’t deserve this.’

  He walked away, not even looking at me properly. He didn’t remember me at all and that’s how I wanted it to stay. I might shed a tear or ten, late at night, but not now.

  ‘For goodness sake, Sophie, be careful. You’re treading on dangerous ground.’ It was Bill Naughton, the stage manager, strolling over to my side. ‘We don’t want the great Joe Harrison flying back to New York on the next Virgin Atlantic, do we?’

  Bill Naughton was younger than me. He was having a hard time from our guest director. Even his thatch of fair hair looked dejected.

  ‘Does he need a plane?’ I asked. ‘Surely this guy can walk on water?’

  I heard a short chuckle. Joe Harrison, again. Could he hear everything anyone said? ‘I don’t need a commercial airline, for sure,’ he called out. ‘I hire a private jet, use my pilot’s licence, fly myself over. No queueing at the check-in desk.’

  I decided to make myself scarce. The last thing I wanted was a conversation. I fled to the scenery dock, shielding my tea from spills. The flats and boat trucks were a good place to hide. I’d been hiding all my life and I needed to hide now, tuck my head under my arm like a bird. Was there a prompt bird? I knew there was a secretary bird.

  One of the attractions of working for West Enders was the series of guest directors. The great and the famous flocked to our stage. Joe Harrison was the latest. He had crossed the Atlantic from Britain to the USA a decade ago and proceeded to make his name on Broadway with his stunning stage designs as well as production skills. But his reputation preceded him like a bad weather forecast. Watch out for squalls.

  His rehearsals were dreaded by most of the company. We had a hot-line to the Samaritans. Nervous breakdowns were epidemic.

  I leaned against a solid piece of court scenery, cupping my hands round the warm polystyrene beaker. Scenery was all front and no back. I couldn’t remember all the shows Joe Harrison had directed but he demanded perfection from everyone. His rehearsals were fast and furious, reducing the cast to the point of mental and physical exhaustion.

  Once Joe Harrison had been a struggling actor, lean and hungry, out of work and with nowhere to stay. I’d landed my first job as an ASM (assistant stage manager) with an out-of-town repertory company and was flat sharing with another actress. It was optimistically called a flat. It had two small, cramped bedrooms and a shared kitchen area the size of a wardrobe.

  Joe had applied for work with the same company but was turned down for being too opinionated, too tall and too inexperienced. He was a late starter, having drifted around commercial art school for a couple of years, daubing paint on scenery and getting under everyone’s skin.

  We were in the cheap café next to the theatre when he came in and joined our crowded table of actors and crew in the steamy, smoky atmosphere. He was wet and cold, wearing unsuitably thin summer clothes that clung to his lanky body. He’d been moving and making scenery all day to earn the fare back to London. The weather was locked into winter and the day was dark and gloomy, the sulphur street lights already on, eerie and disconnected, casting shadows like slate across the pavement.

  ‘Hi, come and sit down with us,’ I said, brightly. I was barely nineteen and not gifted with tact. ‘So, did you get the job?’

  Usually I found it hard to talk to stra
nge men but he looked so wet and forlorn, long hair flattened to his head like strokes of paint. His eyes were dulled with despair as if he was lost.

  ‘No. They didn’t like me. Everything about me is wrong. They didn’t like my ideas.’ But his voice was rich, resonant. It stirred some kind of lunacy in me. Being the one with a job and a salary gave me a small cushion of confidence.

  ‘Perhaps they were looking for an actor, not someone with ideas.’

  ‘The theatre lives on ideas.’

  ‘Mostly other people’s,’ I said flippantly. I didn’t know what I meant.

  He was looking at my plate of tangled spaghetti topped with tomato sauce and grated Parmesan cheese. I was an early-stage vegetarian. The cheese was melting and glistening like a gold-spun volcano. It was an ‘eat all you can for two pounds’ meal. A special offer which no one could resist. So here I was, eating all I could, stacking it within for imminent Stalingrad siege.

  He said nothing but his eyes were hungry.

  ‘Would you like some lunch?’ I said.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘So why are you in this mad, mad world?’ Joe asked, not really looking at me, eyes still blanked with recent rejection. He was focused on my spaghetti.

  ‘I’ve been stage-struck since the age of six, dressing up in my mother’s dresses and hats, tottering about in her shoes, you know,’ I said, sipping my coffee. At least he wasn’t invading my caffeine. I knew I was rambling. I rambled when I was nervous. ‘I made up plays and copied television, acted them all out. Adverts were the best. Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Goldie Hawn, Emma Thompson … I can do them all.’

  ‘Like Minnie Mouse, wearing your mother’s shoes,’ he said vaguely, sucking up pasta like he hadn’t eaten for a week. It seemed he hadn’t.

  ‘That’s right. I learned Shakespeare by the yard, spouting Ophelia in the bath, Juliet from the roof of the garden shed.’