V
An Unexpected Scene
Peggy had not been wrong. Far from grumbling about the extra weeks of rehearsal, most of the actors were happy about being assured of the additional pay. Of course there was the inevitable disappointment that comes from the postponement of an opening night, but this did not seem really to upset anyone. Most of the actors agreed that the extended rehearsal time was needed, and everyone felt a relaxation of some of the pressure under which they had been working.
Of course, the main question in the air was the identity of the secret investor, but Randy maintained a stubborn silence on this score.
Peggy attended all of Paula’s rehearsals as well as separate readings of Paula’s role for Mal. She wrapped herself so thoroughly in Paula’s part that she nearly forgot her own, which was not difficult, since rehearsals of all other scenes had been stopped.
Even her lunch hours at the Academy were spent studying Paula’s lines.
It was not an easy part at all. If the other characters had seemed difficult because of their double or triple points of view, the leading role was almost impossible. It had no point of view at all, and every point of view imaginable!
Paula was to play the part of the daughter of a pair of embittered millionaire eccentrics who had withdrawn from society and had never allowed their only child any contact with the world. She had been educated by her mother and father and had grown to the age of twenty-three without ever leaving their enormous estate. She had never seen any adults except her parents and a few servants. Before the action of the play, both of her parents have died within a few months of each other, and the girl is suddenly left alone to cope with the problems of existence in a world for which she is completely unprepared. Dazed both by the loss of her parents and the new business of having to deal with people, she decides to come to the rest home which is the scene of the play, to slowly get used to her new position.
The principal difficulty of the role, Peggy saw, was quite the reverse of the difficulty of the other parts. Instead of having been two or three different people, this girl has never actually been anybody. As a result, she reacts to each of the actors according to their characters at the moment. And since each of them assumes many different roles, depending on whom he is talking to, the girl is in complete confusion.
Listening to Paula read, Peggy was filled with admiration. Somehow, in the short time in which the rest of them had been trying to grasp their roles, Paula seemed to have mastered hers. Each time she slipped into a new manner of speech and action, she gave the impression of doing so with a mixture of eagerness and fear. As the pace quickened and the characters and manners changed more rapidly, the balance between eagerness and fear changed until, as the scene rose to its climax, eagerness was replaced by hysteria, fear by terror. At the curtain, Paula sobbed wildly as the characters around her shifted as swiftly as the pieces in a kaleidoscope.