When he was done, Peggy and two others were given scripts and told to come to the theater on Saturday. Feeling lightheaded and giddy, Peggy settled herself on one of the folding chairs that lined the back wall, and waited for Mal, Randy, and Amy to finish so she could join them for coffee.
Scarcely noticing the rest of the proceedings, she thought only about the coming readings. She was so familiar with the play that she knew she had an advantage, perhaps unfairly, over the other two girls. She had watched the script grow from its first rough draft to the finished text now in her hands, and had discussed it with Randy through each revision. She knew she could play the part; in fact, she suspected secretly that Randy had written it for her, and the thought made her blush. Still, it would not be easy, she knew. Mal’s sense of fairness and his absolute devotion to the play above everything else would keep him from making up his mind in advance.
But despite this knowledge, she could not help looking ahead—all the way ahead—to the restless stir of the opening-night audience out front, the last-minute preparations backstage, the bright, hot lights and the smell of make-up and scenery paint as she waited to go on in Act One, Scene One of Come Closer, Randy Brewster’s brilliant new play in which Peggy Lane would be discovered!
II
The Hopefuls
The audience consisted of a handful of actors and actresses, and Randy Brewster and Mallory Seton. The stage lighting was a cold splash produced by two floodlights without color gels to soften them. The scenery was the brick back wall of the stage, two ladders, a table and two straight-backed chairs. Only the front row of house lights was on, and the back of the theater was dark, empty and gloomy, a shadowy wasteland of empty rows of seats like tombstones.
On the stage, a “businessman type” was reading his lines. Peggy knew, after the first few words, that he would not do. He had somehow completely missed the character of the man he was portraying, and was heavily overplaying. Mal, being perhaps more patient than Peggy, listened and watched with great care. Amy, who was acting as Mal’s assistant for the production, sat in a chair by the proscenium, reading her script by the light of a small lamp and feeding the actor cue lines. Mal followed the whole sequence with no visible sign of impatience and, when the actor was through, said, “Thank you. We’ll let you know our decision in a day or two.”
The next “businessman type” was better, but still not quite on target, Peggy thought. He seemed to be playing the part for laughs, and although there were some comic values to be extracted from the role, it was really far more a straight dramatic character. Still, he was clearly a better actor than the first, and with direction might do well.
Following his reading, Mal again repeated his polite, invariable formula, “Thank you. We’ll let you know our decision in a day or two,” and called for the next reading.
Peggy watched the remaining actors try for the role, and made mental notes of which ones were possible, which probable, and which stood no chance at all.
The same process was then followed for the leading men, and the same wide range of talent and understanding of the part was displayed. Some seemed to have no idea at all about the play or its meaning, and Peggy was sure that these men had read only the parts marked for them. Others had a clear understanding of the kind of character they were playing, and tried to create him in the brief time they had on stage. Others still were actors who had one rather inflexible way of playing, and used it for all kinds of parts. Their performances were uniform imitations of each other, and all were imitations of the early acting style of Marlon Brando. They seemed to forget, Peggy thought, that Brando’s style developed from the roles he had to play, and that as he got other roles, he showed other facets of a rounded talent. It made her angry that some actors thought they could get ahead in a creative field by being imitative.