Rehearsals of “Todgers Intrudes” went on at a small theatre below Forty Second Street. Gurdy drifted into the warm place and watched the director, Russell, working. On the bare stage five people progressed from point to point of the tepid comedy. Russell, a stooped, bald man of thirty-five, sat near the orchestra pit. Gurdy had watched the rehearsal ten minutes before Russell spoke. “Don’t cross, there, Miss Marryatt. Stand still.” Then, “still, please, Mr. Rand.” On the stage Cosmo Rand gave the director a stare, shrugged and strolled toward the cockney comedian, the intrusive Todgers of the plot. Russell said nothing until a long speech finished, then, “You’re all rushing about like cooties. Go back to Miss Marryatt’s entrance and take all your lines just as you stand after she’s sat down. Dora isn’t pronounced Durrer, Mr. Hughes.” Gurdy was thinking of the long patience needed in this trade when Russell spoke sharply, “Mr. Rand, will you please stand still!”
“My God,” said Rand, “must I keep telling you that I played this part in—”
“Will you be so good as to stand still?”
Rand continued his lines. Gurdy walked down and slipped into a chair beside the director, aware that the players stiffened as soon as they saw Mark’s nephew. The handsome Miss Marryatt began to act. Cosmo Rand sent out his speeches with a pleasant briskness. Russell murmured, “Glad you happened in, Bernamer. This was getting beyond me. School children,” and the act ended.
“Three o’clock, please,” said the director. The small company trickled out of the theatre. Russell lit his pipe and stretched, grinning. “Rand’s very capable and a nice fellow enough but he’s difficult. Fine looking, isn’t he? Come to lunch with me.”
It was startling to be taken into an engineer’s club for the meal. Russell explained, “I was an engineer. It’s not so different from stage directing. You sometimes get very much the same material. I’ve often wanted some dynamite or a pickax at rehearsals. Nice that you floated in just now. I’ve a curiosity about this piece. Does Mr. Walling see money in it? I don’t.”
“He thinks it may go,” said Gurdy.
“It won’t. It’s sewed up in a crape. If you had a young John Drew and a couple of raving beauties playing it might run six weeks. And Dufford hasn’t any standing among the cerebrals. We might try to brighten the thing with some references to the Nourritures Terrestres or Freud. It’s a moron. Prenatal influence. Mr. Walling tells me we’re to open in Washington, too. My jinx! I went down there to offer up my life for the country and got stuck in the Q.M.C. supervising crates of tomatoes. Did you ever argue with a wholesale grocer about crates? It’s worse than staging a revue.”
“That’s a dreadful thing to say!”
Russell broke a roll in his pointed fingers and shook his head. “No.... The revue’s a very high form of comedy when it’s handled right. It gets clean away with common sense, for one thing. And it hasn’t a plot. I hate plots unless they’re good plots. That’s why this miserable ‘Todgers’ thing affects me so badly. I hoped Mr. Walling would let me help him with ‘Captain Salvador.’ But it’s his baby.”