Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas - Maya Angelou [100]
He stumbled across the stage from right to left. He asked Joy McClain and Delores Swan. “Where does he live? Where is he staying?” He then hurtled over to Freddie Marshall and Ruby Green. “Did you see that? He actually struck me. Oooh weee!”
The company was supposed to be shocked into silence by the murder, and the music rests during the scene, but when Ned began imitating the disaster of the night before, a few soft giggles could be heard onstage.
After thrusting, clutching and stumbling, Ned finally went down to the floor. He then sat up absolutely straight, putting one fist at the back of his head and another to his forehead, gave a vigorous tug, slipping both hands around until they were directly over his ears.
He said prissily in a loud whisper, “No one struck Ned Wright, I fell.” Only then did he lie down and close his eyes.
The giggles might never have increased except that Ned was hunched face down while his body jumped and shook with convulsions, and Bey let out a bass shout of such pure glee that we were all pulled along into uncontrollable laughter.
The conductor looked up from the pit, aghast. He lifted both hands, cueing the singers to begin the dirge; not one voice followed his signal. He lifted his hands higher, imperiously pointing his baton at the stage, but the sopranos had buried their faces in their aprons and the men had covered their mouths with their hats, their shoulders shaking with laughter.
Alexander Smallens' face darkened with fury. He held his baton between his fingers like a pencil and made short stabbing motions at the singers. The orchestra played the entire passage alone. On the cue for the cast to exit stage left in a wild attempt to escape a white policeman who enters stage right, we tripped over each other, falling into the wings.
People leaned on the walls or clung together—some even held on to the curtain—trying to keep laughter under control. Rhoda Boggs wiped the tears from her round face; she managed to steal a breath from her spasms and said, “That Ned Wright. Uh uh. That Ned Wright. He's crazy.”
Someone caught me and pulled me around. It was Martha. She looked at me and I wasn't sure if her wide grin was meant to be an attempt to apologize. Suddenly she put her hands on her wig and pulled it askew. Then she shoved it back to the correct position.
“Miss Fine Thing didn't fall. Somebody pushed her.”
I bent low, laughing, and she put her arms around my neck. Neither begged the other's pardon. We picked up our friendship as if it had not fallen but had only stumbled. A few weeks later she shed the wig. A Black beautician in Rome curled her newly grown hair in a high and luxuriant coiffure, and we never mentioned the incident again.
CHAPTER 26
Porgy and Bess was to be the first American opera sung at La Scala. Famous white sopranos, tenors and baritones from the United States had soloed at Milan's renowned opera house; now an entire cast of Negro singers were nervously rehearsing on the legendary stage.
Photographers and journalists lounged around the stage door and waited in our hotel lobbies.
“Miss Davy how does it feel to be the star of the first … ?”
“I am honored, of course, but then, we all work hard. I am just one of the Besses.”
“Mr. Scott, are you nervous about singing at La Scala?”
“Nervous? No. I am excited, yes, but then, I am excited each time I sing.”
“Miss Flowers, did you ever think you would have the opportunity to sing in Milan? At the world's most prestigious opera house?”
“Certainly. I do believe in the work ethic. Work hard and be prepared. Naturally, we are all pleased.”
Oh, I was so proud of them. Their hands were knotted with tension and their brows moist with perspiration, but they acted cool.
We were told that La Scala audiences reacted to singers in the same way patrons of the Apollo in Harlem responded to the acts. That warning didn't need to be spelled out.