The company began rehearsals for the next play, Charley’s Aunt, not knowing if they would even have an opportunity to play it! Rehearsals had never gone so badly. All the fire had left Chuck’s direction, and the cast responded just as dully. Toward the middle of the week, Richard and Chuck called everyone together and announced that the theater would definitely have to close unless everyone took a cut in salary. If the actors were willing to do this and work just for expenses, they might be able to pull through another week.
Rita and Gus looked at each other gloomily. Peggy knew that they had counted on saving something this summer to take a long-dreamed-of vacation. In the four years they’d been married, they had never had a honeymoon! Still, Rita and Gus were the first to say they’d be glad to forego their salaries.
Rita even laughed about it. “It’s fate, that’s all. We might have known it! And if we did leave now, we’d only have to go back unemployed to New York. It’s too late to get other jobs this summer. Might as well stay here another week and enjoy the scenery!”
Everyone else felt the same way. There was little point in not making one last effort, even though they knew the theater couldn’t last long.
“Maybe I can talk the manager of Kenabeek Inn into letting us stay for a few days after we close,” Chuck added glumly. “Then you could all at least have a little leisure and swimming after your work!”
“Do you remember when we had all that space in the paper after the commissioner of education made his decision about the theater?” Chris Hill asked. “It probably accounted for the good house we had opening night of Dear Ruth. Couldn’t we somehow find something else that would bring us space in the paper—maybe to be mentioned in some of the social columns—anything, as long as they write about us!”
“I’ve tried,” Richard said. “I’ve been to see everyone on that paper who could do us the slightest bit of good, and Aunt Hetty has used her influence, too. We do get things in. But the social columns aren’t the answer, Chris, as long as people regard us as amateurs. They don’t want to spend money on anything that isn’t professional! That’s why we only get the same small audience over and over again. Even people who bought season tickets before we opened aren’t using them! They’re beginning to regard their investment as some kind of charity to help the town! No, Chris, I’m afraid we’re licked.”
And for the first time, Peggy thought so, too. Until now she always had felt a stirring of hope, an optimistic sense that the theater would pull through somehow. But now everything looked too bleak. It would be unrealistic to hope for a miracle at this point.
Peggy began to visualize the letters she would shortly have to write home: “Sorry, we folded! How would you like a visitor for a while?” If, she thought dismally, she could even manage a ticket home now with the cut in salary. It would be too defeating to ask her parents for that. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to go home after all!
On the last night of Angel Street a pall hung over the entire theater. It was so thick the company could almost taste it. All the magic had deserted the dressing rooms and the stage, and Peggy realized anew how much the theater was a two-way romance. Plays needed an audience. One couldn’t work to a vacuum. Still, there was a job to be done, and although the actors had long since lost their excitement, they began the play with a determination to do the best possible job, and with that inexplicable feeling of loss that always occurred on the last night of a show. It was sad, saying good-by to a part and a story. Angel Street wouldn’t live again until some other company somewhere took it and molded it into being.