Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [79]
That first performance was a ragged affair, the set being insubstantial compared to what they would have in New York, but Tracy as Mears was letter perfect. “Tracy fought the role through rehearsal—not the doing of it, but the surrendering to it,” Erskine said. “When, however, he finally did surrender to it, it was total, absolute, and frightening. He did not simulate anger and violence, he was anger and violence. In one night—at the out-of-town opening—he changed from a presentable juvenile and a hopeful leading man to an artist, a true artist. He had crossed the threshold into that area where he could submerge himself in a role to the point of eliminating himself completely, to the point where he could no longer tell which was which himself.”
All the World Wondered brought forth a mixed reaction from the Hartford audience. One man was overheard to say to his wife, “It ain’t so pleasant to see Romeo and Juliet either.” Another, putting a brighter spin on the evening, said, “Well, it’s kinda good to see a show without any wimmen in it, ain’t it?” The notices were similarly conflicted, recognizing the power of the material but wondering just how much the general public could take. “One would call it rank melodrama,” said the reviewer for the Hartford Times, “if it were not so truthful a report of what all the world knows has happened at least three times in our large American prisons within the past six months … Either this show will be a dismal failure or it will pack them in.”
Erskine and Wexley set about doctoring the play, shaping the dialogue to accommodate the needs and characteristics of its individual actors. (“Some individuals simply cannot say things in a certain way,” Erskine explained, “no matter how splendid an actor or actress they may be. Expressing the same thought in another way is the director’s only alternative.”) About one thing both men were adamant: All six of the condemned men would stay guilty as sin—no cheap points for making one of the characters unjustly convicted. Erskine noted that of the three basic appeals in the theatre—eye, ear, and instinct—the oldest and strongest was instinct, and that his best chance for success would be to strive for “sympathy for a situation rather than for the people who are in that situation.”
The camaraderie of the cast was infectious, and when the company manager, in his line of duty, went through the group, asking which of them wanted Pullmans on the way back to New York, they decided en masse to take the midnight train instead and sit up in the coach together. “Hearing this,” said Shumlin, “the management (Erskine and myself) gave up our ‘sumptuous’ drawing room and all rode back together, playing poker (which cost me $26) eating sandwiches and in general having one swell time.”
The following Thursday night, Wexley’s revision, titled The Last Mile, opened at the Sam H. Harris Theatre before an audience that had only the vaguest idea of what they were about to see. At 8:50 p.m. the curtain rose on a stark row of identically configured cells, each but one inhabited by the pale gray figure of a condemned prisoner. Erskine had told the cast he didn’t want anyone wearing makeup, and it was Henry Dreyfus’ lighting scheme that took the place of greasepaint and eyebrow pencil. A slab of concrete had been poured to stabilize the iron bars, and the harsh acoustics lent a cold authenticity to the prison set. A steel door at stage right led to offices and the outside world. A green door at stage left opened into the bright white light of the death chamber.
Actor Howard Phillips, clutching the bars, spoke first: “Nine o’clock, Walters.”
“How do you know?” asked James Bell.
“Just heard the whistle blow.”
“Funny,” mused Bell. “I didn’t hear it. You’ve got good ears, Three.”
“Sure I got good ears. Nothin’ to do but listen, is there?”
“Nothin’ to do but listen,” Bell repeated listlessly. “Well, fellers, this is my last coupla hours …”
The words took on a forlorn, obligatory cadence,