Sound—Door closes
Curtain
Motionless, silent, Vic Wylie had sat through the dress. He lifted his head.
“No. You’re expecting a bomb-shell and all you get is a bubble. The curtain’s a phony.”
The studio was silent.
What was it, Joe wondered, that left that sensation of hollowness? There should have been drama. Sue’s distress, Dick’s return—and a door closed. That was all—a door closed. He brought his hands together with a clap.
“Got something, kid?” Wylie’s eyes, despite their weariness, burned.
“What happens?” Joe asked. “A door shuts. You don’t know whether Dick’s simply shut the door or whether he’s walked out. It’s just a sound. The show’s too human for that. It must end on a human note. The door’s an anti-climax. Dick says: ‘A check from Tice? You didn’t—’ That’s where the door should close, slowly, as though all the pep’s been knocked out of him. Then he says that one word. ‘Oh!’ Isn’t that your curtain?”
Once before, on the day he had suggested a change in Pop Bartell’s reading in the Bush-League Larry show, the producer had studied him with that strange intentness.
“I should have seen it, kid. Tired. We’ll see how it goes. Got your script marked? Stella. Take it from ‘Mr. Tice left.’”