Authors: Garson Kanin
“What do you mean, the title wrong? How could that
be?”
“Wait. It read: 'Shine In, Harvest Moon.’”
“In?!”
I said, too loud.
“Sssh! So I thought—and he did, too, I suppose, that it was only that
one
marquee. We looked at each other and moved around to the middle one—facing the street—'Shine In,’ and so on. Other side, same. Then the house boards, and damned if they hadn’t gotten
those
wrong, too.”
“I can’t believe it!”
“So. By this time, our man had turned puce. And he said to me, 'Where is he?’ 'Who?’ 'That idiot.’ 'Which idiot?’ I asked him. 'Seems to me you’ve got dozens around.’ 'That goddamn stupid asshole supposed to be a fuckin’ press agent—’”
“Watch your language,” I said. “There are ladies present. A lady.”
“Sorry, madam. I am merely repeating word for word.”
“Go on.”
“Where was I?” he asked.
“…'goddamn stupid asshole supposed to be a fuckin’ press agent—’”
“Thank you, madam.”
“‘I’ll kill the son-of a bitch,’ he said. So we went inside and immediately, of course, seven people tried to grab him with seven hundred problems, but he was like a deaf man—and he just kept asking, 'Where’s Paul? I need Paul. Have you seen Paul?’ Finally, Paul came in with two of his assistants and one of the girls in her Everleigh Club costume—a knockout, by the way—and Jill Krementz, the photographer. Paul saw us and yelled, 'Whaddaya say, Chief?’ And saluted in that jerky way of his. And the Boss just beckoned to him with his index finger—like this. And Paul came toward us, and all I was thinking was—Is it hard to get bloodstains off a gray suit? When Paul reached us, he claps the Man on the back and says, 'What’s shakin’, Chief?’ And Chief says—so quietly, I could hardly hear him, he says, 'Have you seen the marquees?’ 'The Marquise of Queensbury?’ Paul asks. 'No, not lately. Why?’ And breaks himself up. Our boy just waits, and then says, 'No. The marquees out in front of this theatre.’ And Paul says, 'Sure.’ 'And the house boards, too?’ 'Sure, why wouldn’t I?’ Then there was a pause, and even that dolt, Paul, gathers something is wrong. So he says, 'Something wrong?’ 'Well,’ says the Boss, 'depends on what you call wrong.
You
might call it “wrong.” I would call it the stupidest fucking idiot blunder that only a useless dumb shitass halfwit incompetent phony like you could make.’ Paul had gone pale. 'What is it?’ he asks. 'Nothing much. Just the goddamn title of this goddamn show is wrong. That’s right.
Wrong.
So maybe you’re right after all. Maybe wrong
is
the best way to describe it.’ Paul can hardly speak, but he does manage one word, 'Wrong?’ 'The title of the show,’ says the Boss. 'Have you got a pencil? Get a pencil!’ 'I
know
the title.’ And the Boss suddenly screams. I mean, screams. Like a woman. He screams, 'Get a pencil!’ Paul gets out a pencil and stands there like a reporter. And the Boss says, quiet again: 'Write it down. The title of this show is—
Shine On, Harvest Moon.
Got it?’ 'Come on, Chief,’ says Paul, good and miffed now. 'Don’t hassle me, will you? I’m busy. I know the fucking title of the fucking show.’ 'Well, if you do—how come all over the front of everything out there it says, “Shine
In”
—not “Shine
On”
—“Shine
In”—’ 'In?’
asks Paul. “Yes!
Shine In, Harvest Moon.
All over the whole everything.’ Paul turns and walks off the stage, down those rehearsal steps, and up the aisle. The Boss after him, me following. Through the doors—lobby—out front. Paul looks at our house board, then at the other one—then one by one, the three marquees. The Boss just stands there out front, waiting. Paul comes over. He lights a cigarette, sort of nonchalantly. 'Well?’ asks Boss. 'Well,’ says Paul.
'That’s what we’re out of town for!’
And he turns and goes back into the theatre…Now I know I shouldn’t’ve laughed—but I swear I couldn’t help it. So the Boss transferred his fury to me. 'You’re as big an asshole as
he
is!’ he yelled. And he went home. I mean, back to The Ritz. In a way—I’m sorry for the little cockalorum. He’s out of his depth around here. Over his head. He doesn’t even know the lingo—so half the time, he doesn’t know what his own staff is talking about. It must be frustrating as hell. His only weapon is, 'You’re fired!’ But then what? Who’s he going to get? It’ll be the same again. And he needs all of us. And he knows it. That’s why he’s giving presents to everyone all the time. Even to
me,
for God’s sake.”
“But what
I
don’t understand—” I began, but was interrupted by a burst of laughter from the back of the house.
I looked up and saw The Barracuda and Alicia and another man at the top of the aisle in animated conversation. They seemed to be sharing a great joke of some kind.
Then The Barracuda looked toward the stage and yelled, “Midge? Midge around? Find her, somebody.
Right away!”
Six people started scurrying around. I started up the aisle, slowly. I looked at my watch: 9:56. So there was to be no nonsense about my being late or any of that noise.
“Coming!” I called out.
“Hurry up!” he hollered.
So I slowed down. As I got closer, I could see that other man more clearly. My first thought was, Wow! Why did I notice his clothes before I noticed him? A shepherd’s check tweed, not brown, but brownish, and a dark-blue shirt, yellow-figured knitted tie to pick up the yellow in the fabric of his suit. Tan suede vest, and the most beautiful shoes. His foot was up on the arm of the aisle seat in the last row, so the plaid socks added to the effect. His face—tanned—matched his suit. A strong face, a rugged body. An athlete, no doubt. Alicia and Art were head to head, talking. The new man was watching me as I came toward them. Our eyes met. Ah hah. He was one of those. The kind who makes a woman feel like a woman. Whoever you are, buddy, I thought, I’m ready for you. Just make your move, and if you don’t, I will. All those old song titles were whirling through my head: “Some Enchanted Evening” (Morning): “You’re the Top”; “That Old Black Magic”; “My Heart Stood Still.” What’s more, I felt confident. He smiled invitingly, as I passed him.
“Have you handed out those notes yet?” asked Art.
“Good morning, dear,” from Alicia.
“Good morning.”
“The notes?” he asked again.
“I just got here,” I said.
“Good. Let me have 'em. All of 'em.”
I took the copies out of my case, and handed them over.
He began to tear them up. We watched him, all three of us. The act of destruction appeared to be giving him blessed relief. He threw the torn bits of paper to the floor and said, “Changed my mind. That’s the one thing about me. I change my mind. I’m not ashamed to. Afraid to. These bums stick to one stubborn thing—they’re the ones go on their ear. Not me. I roll with the punches. I move with the times. Yesterday, I didn’t like the costumes. Today, I do. Because I got the idea of the inception.” (Did he mean conception? He avoided the word since that day in rehearsal when he had said it to Calvin, “You don’t fit into the whole contraception.” It was no more than a slip of the tongue, but everyone howled. And he added—“As Sam Goldwyn used to say.” But he didn’t fool me.) “Listen—tomorrow, I may hate them again. That’s all right—every day is different. Even in the sky, the stars change position. Always on the move. All the time in action. Remember Walt Whitman, what he said? 'Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself. I contain multitudes.’”
The stranger was surprised by this from-left-field reference; Alicia and I were not. Art comes up with them from time to time. Also esoteric words and phrases: “It’s turgid,” he said about a song one day. “Déjà vu,” pronounced perfectly, was one he used often. And during the auditions, when a somewhat bowlegged young actor-musician came on to read for the part of Tiny, the cathouse handyman, he said: “You know what Doctor Johnson would say?
'
How now, what manner
Of man is this—
Who carries his balls
In parenthesis?’”
These curious little intimations of erudition were mysterious indeed, until last weekend, when I met his son, Saul. How this monster could have spawned the brilliant, accomplished, charming Saul is beyond me. Saul, the scholar, preparing for teaching, was, at twenty-eight, about to take his third Ph.D.—adding philosophy to American history and world drama. An admirable young man in every way, with only one incomprehensible quality: he genuinely loves his horrible father. As for Art, he considers his son the greatest living human and dotes on him—often traveling six thousand miles to spend two hours with him.
“Come on,” said Art. “Let’s go across to the pancake house and have a second breakfast. You bastards probably haven’t even had a first one, right?”
Alicia and I looked at each other. Art went on. “I don’t mean you, John. But you’re normal, not show business.”
We started out.
“Oh,” said Alicia. “I’m so sorry. Distracted, really. Midge, this is my husband, John Marble. John, this is our left lung, Midge Maghakian. We all breathe through her.”
I stopped dead in my tracks, wondering if I would ever get the top of my head back.
John took my hand—what was he communicating? Something, surely.
“Maghakian,” he said, and went on, in perfect Armenian.
“Va veela don sahg orcatt.”
Which means: A new friend adds a new year to life.
Crossing the street, Alicia walked with Art. She was trying to explain why the period shoes had to be made, why they could not be bought.
John Marble had taken my arm as we crossed against the light.
“I don’t speak Armenian, really,” he said. “I wish I did. I wish I spoke every language on earth—or that we all spoke one language. Of course, in some ways, we do.” His accent: American. Southern.
He got us across skillfully—and even more skillfully, managed to check out both my breasts on the way.
At the pancake house, I had a cup of coffee, but could not eat a thing.
Larry to the company this morning.
“During the performance last night, a few new things happened—good things. A simply stunning rhythm in the 'Brawl,’ remarkable teamwork with the pit in 'Nightfall’ and 'Big Town,’ and that rollicky let-go feeling in the courtroom scene. And I found myself thinking about a crazy part of my career that happened many years ago, before most of you were born, I expect. Things were really rugged and the sister of a girlfriend of mine, who ran a traveling marionette theatre, offered me a job. It was going to pay fifty dollars a week, which was great. So I became part of this little troupe. I was a complete tyro—didn’t know the difference between a puppet and a marionette, didn’t know that a puppet was worked from beneath and a marionette from above. This particular production I was engaged for was a private-school tour—a production of the opera,
Hansel and Gretel
by the original Humperdinck. We used a recorded score, so it was only a question of learning to fit the movements of the marionettes to the record. There were passages where dialogue was spoken and, since that was not on the recording, we each spoke the dialogue for our own marionettes.
“There was my friend’s sister, and her girl assistant, two more fellows, and myself. I think that was all. Five of us, and someone who ran the sound. Rehearsals were difficult, particularly for me. I was, by far, the worst, because I was the least experienced. And I found that marionettes were terribly complex. Each one had a string for each arm, for each knee, for each ankle, several for the head, the wrists, the fingers, and as you worked with the suspended marionette the tiniest movement of your finger or your hand would make the marionette seem either splendid and alive, or mechanical and ridiculous. The whole doll had to be supported by both arms at all times—extremely fatiguing—and there were also complicated logistic questions of bumping into one another, getting in one’s way. Moreover, when your marionette was finished with a scene it had to be hung back in exactly the right way, so as not to tangle with any of the others. During the early rehearsals, we constantly got our marionettes tangled, but I was assured that would all be straightened out.
“We rehearsed for about two weeks; then we gave about twenty performances.
“Now I’m getting to the point of this remembrance which has to do with
Shine On, Harvest Moon
and what’s beginning to happen with it right now. Listen. One night near to the opening performance of
Hansel and Gretel
we were working late. Something had gone wrong technically. It got to be eleven o’clock, then eleven-thirty, and finally midnight—no Equity deputies around to bother us, so we were still there, still rehearsing. I got terribly sleepy and was already bone-tired, but the music was playing and we were doing one scene for the fifth or sixth or fiftieth or sixtieth time, and all at once, now listen to this, I had the sensation that I wasn’t working this goddamn marionette at all, but that
it
was working
me!
The marionette had taken on a life of his own. I wasn’t doing anything to him; he was actually controlling my fingers and hands. I let go and relaxed to the situation completely, when suddenly I heard Dorothy—that was the girl’s name, Dorothy—I heard her yell, 'Wonderful! Oh, that’s just wonderful!’ I didn’t know what I was doing that was wonderful, I wasn’t doing
anything.
I just kept looking down at this bloody doll and it was doing things it had never done before! There it was attached to my fingers and I was watching it doing its thing.
“I found this experience so extraordinary, so eerie and unnerving that I didn’t say anything to anybody about it. But I thought about it for a long time. Now, what was even more interesting was that in every performance that followed, every time we got to that particular section, I found that if I just let go, the marionette would take over. As we went on playing
Hansel and Gretel
I was able to do that more and more—simply let go and let the marionette take over.
“In acting, you’re not supposed to be thinking about being the character, or
trying
to be the character, you have to
become
the character. And it’s that breakthrough moment you wait for in the course of your work.
“The reason I’ve gone to such length about all this this morning is that I feel not enough of this breakthrough has yet happened. I’m still seeing too much of the marionetteers and not enough of the marionettes. So, we’re going to run the first four scenes of Act One right now, and please let me see as little of you yourselves as you can manage.
“All right, let’s take ten and begin. Thank you.”