The Dud Avocado - Elaine Dundy [56]
Out in front the unexpected silence surprised and flattered me. I imagined there must be hundreds and thousands and millions of people quiet in the dark out there, waiting with baited breath for me, up on that stage and bathed in colored lights, to say something. I opened my mouth and—hooray—they were going to listen.
I suppose Larry was right. I suppose it was a pretty revolting spectacle to come into a dressing room after a show and find two of its leading players screaming abuse at each other. Especially since I was back in my slip again and sitting on the floor (I’d had such a bad attack of post-something-or-other nerves, that I couldn’t even sit on the chair), while Blair was staring starkly at himself in the mirror. It was all Blair’s fault, of course. I loved him passionately and devotedly, but I never wanted to see him again. As I said, he was in this for laughs and he never knew when to stop. I know what I’m talking about. I’ve giggled along with the best of them but dammit this just wasn’t funny. I could have killed him.
“Children, children,” said Larry, closing the door quickly behind him. “What’s all this?”
I got in first. “I should have known. Oh God. I should have known. Sure we have this scene together, sure I know what he’s like on stage, but this is Tennessee Williams, I kept telling myself and Blair approves of Williams so it’s going to be all right. So what does he go and do, the bastard? Oh sure I’ve seen him horsing around with the butler part, but that’s got nothing to do with it, I kept telling myself. I’ve got nothing to worry about. It isn’t Saroyan, it’s Williams.…”
“So what does he do?” said Larry.
“Didn’t you see? Didn’t you see him prancing onto the stage with that cockroach on his lapel? He comes on with a real cockroach on his bathrobe and it jumps off him and starts crawling around the set. I nearly died of fright. I tell you if it had started to fly, play or no play, I would have just curled up and expired.”
“May I point out that the place is supposed to be crawling with cockroaches,” said Blair in his fruitiest voice, ponging every other word, “and that you spend the first twenty minutes of the play complaining to the landlady about them? I was merely trying to inject a little realism to help you along with your reactions. Stanislavsky himself couldn’t have done more. I was only trying to be helpful.”
“You were not. You were trying to break me up. You’ll do anything for a laugh and you know it. Where the hell did you find that cockroach anyway? It must have taken months to ferret it out.”
“In the places to which I have access they hardly need ferreting out.”
“I’m not going on tomorrow night if you’re here.”
“Oh well, if you’re going to be stuffy——”
“You’re damn tootin’ I am. I’ll report you to Equity and get you kicked out.”
“All right, all right, that’s enough,” said Larry. He turned to Blair. “Go back to your dressing room, I’ll see you later. By the way she’s right about Equity, you know. You could be kicked out for that.”
“Blair Perrins, if I ever see you again I will kill you. I’ll kill you and then I’ll kick you,” I yelled after him.
Larry picked me up off the floor and shook me until I calmed down. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself carrying on like this, screaming like a fishwife on the eve of your triumph? I was going to tell you how good you were, but now I won’t.” And then he burst out laughing. He dropped my shoulders and leaned against the wall for support and laughed and laughed.
“It’s the Old Pro in