The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [28]
After a week, our plans were gelling. Godfrey had lined up actors. I telephoned singers and dancers, Hugh arranged with musicians, but we still had no script. I had sat late into the night trying to pick plots out of the air. We needed a story which had the complexity of Hamlet and the pertinence of A Raisin in the Sun. Facile ideas came swiftly and had to be discarded without regret. My characters had the predictability of a B cowboy movie and the naïveté of a Sunday-school play.
Godfrey, Hugh and I met Jack Murray down at the Village Gate. Art D'Lugoff, reminding me of a tamed California bear, said we could use the theater on Sundays, Monday and Tuesday nights. We had to pay the lighting technician unless we furnished our own, but D'Lugoff would contribute the room free. By the way what was the play about and could he see the script?
Guy had found a part-time job in a bakery nearby and dawns found him showering and dressing, and me sitting at a typewriter, constructing plot after unacceptable plot and characters so unreal they bored even me.
One morning, Guy stood looking over my shoulder at the blank page in the typewriter.
“Mom, you know, you might be trying too hard.”
I turned quickly and blurted, “This is important. It's for Martin L. King, for the SCLC, for black people everywhere. I can't possibly try too hard.”
He stepped back, hurt by my brusqueness. “Well, I'm just reminding you of something you say all the time. ‘If it don't fit, don't force it’ Bye, I'm going to work.”
I hadn't spanked him since he was seven years old. Now that he was a tall fifteen-year-old the temptation to slap the water out of him was almost irresistible.
John Killens was expectedly sympathetic and, unfortunately, unhelpful. “You've got a theater and no cash, a cause and no play. Yep. Your work is cut out for you. Good luck. Keep trying.”
Time and need had me in their clutches. Entertainers who had been contacted were calling Hugh or Godfrey every day; they in turn, telephoned me, asking when we could start auditions. I wasn't working, so at fifteen Guy was the only breadwinner. His money provided food, and John and Grace lent me money for rent so that I didn't have to touch my small savings account. I needed the American Guild of Variety Artists scale I would receive once the play was on.
Desperation had triumphed the day Godfrey stopped by my house. He had dropped off a fare in the next block and decided to ring my bell and see if I was in.
When I opened the door and saw his face, I started crying. He stepped into the foyer and took me in his arms.
“I've had women scream when they saw me, and some broads laugh when I come up on them all of a sudden, but I never had anybody break down and start crying.” He was patting my shoulder. “You're a first, baby. I appreciate what you're doing. You're a first. Cry on. Cry your heart out. I'm enjoying this.”
I had to laugh.
“No, keep on crying. I'll write you down in my diary. I've heard of women who cry when a man leaves, but you cry when …”
Laughter defeated my tears. I led him into the living room and went to the kitchen for coffee. I washed my face and composed myself. The tears had been as much a surprise to me as they were to Godfrey.
“Godfrey, I can't write the play. I don't even know where to start.”
“Well, hell, you start with Act I, Scene I, same way Shakespeare started.”
My throat hurt and tears began to well up behind my eyes.
“I can't write the damn thing. I've agreed to do something I can't do.”
“Well, don't do it, then. Nobody's going to die if you don't write the damn play. Fact is, it might be better if you didn't write a word. There's a lot of people who would be grateful not to have to sit through one more bad play. Personally, I wish a lot of playwrights would have said just what you said. ‘I can't write the damn thing’” He laughed at himself.
“But what can we do? The SCLC is waiting. Art D'Lugoff