The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [80]
I said, “Of course the Black Queen.”
“Just read a little of both roles.” He got up and went away, returning with an open manuscript.
“Read this section.” He flipped pages. “And then read this underlined part.”
I stepped up on the low stage and without raising my head to look at the audience began to read. The section was short and I turned the script to the next underlined pages and recited another monologue without adding vocal inflection.
There was scattered applause when I finished and a familiar husky voice shouted, “You've got all the parts, baby.” Another voice said, “Yes, but let's see your legs.”
Godfrey Cambridge flopped all over a seat in the third row and Flash Riley sat next to him.
I joined them and we talked about Cabaret for Freedom, while Frankel, Bernstein and Glanville stood together on the stage muttering.
Frankel shouted, “Lights” and the house lights came on. He walked to the edge of the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you to each other, and please mark your scripts. Godfrey Cambridge is Diouf. Roscoe Lee Brown is Archibald. James Earl Jones is Village. Cicely Tyson is Virtue. Jay Riley is the Governor, Raymond St. Jacques is the Judge. Cynthia Belgrave is Adelaide. Maya Angelou Make is the White Queen. Helen Martin is Felicity, or the Black Queen. Lou Gossett is New port News. Lex Monson is the Missionary. Abbey Lincoln is Snow and Charles Gordone is the Valet. Max Roach is composer, Talley Beatty is choreographer and Patricia Zipprodt is costume designer. Ethel Ayler is understudying Abbey and Cicely. Roxanne Roker understudies Maya and Helen.”
I looked around. Ethel and I exchanged grins. We had been friends years before during the European tour of Porgy and Bess.
Frankel continued, “We've got a great play and we're going to work our asses off.”
Rehearsals began with a playground joviality and in days accelerated into the seriousness of a full-scale war. Friendships and cliques were formed quickly. The central character was played by Roscoe Lee Brown, and within a week he became the chief figure off stage as well. His exquisite diction and fastidious manners were fortunately matched with wit. He was unflappable.
James Earl Jones, a beige handsome bull of a man watched Frankel with fierce stares, reading his lips, scanning his hairline and chin, earlobes and neck. Then suddenly James Earl would withdraw into himself with a slammed-door finality.
Lou Gossett, lean and young, skyrocketed on and off the stage, innocent and interested. For all his boyish bounding he had developed listening into an art, cocking an ear at the speaker, his soft eyes caring and his entire body taut with attention.
Godfrey and Jay “Flash” Riley competed for company comedian. When Flash won, Godfrey changed. The clowning began to disappear and he sobered daily into a drab, studious actor.
Cicely, delicate and black-rose beautiful, was serious and aloof. She sat in the rear of the theater, her small head bent into the manuscript, saving her warmth for the character and her smiles for the stage. Raymond, looking like a matinee idol, and Lex were old-time friends. They studied their roles together, breaking each other up with camped-up readings. Helen and Cynthia were professionals; just watching them, I knew that they would have their lines, remember the director's blocking and follow the steps of Talley's choreography without mistakes in a shorter time than anyone else. Charles Gordone, a finely fashioned, small yellow man, made slight fun of everything and everyone, including himself as another target for sarcasm.
There was some resistance to Frankel's direction on the grounds that, being white, he was unable to understand black motivation. In other quarters there was a submission which bordered on obsequiousness and which brought to mind characterizations of Stepin Fetchit.
Each day, tension met us as we walked into the theater and lay like low morning fog in