“No comparison,” Danny said, and lifted his glass again. “Am I right, Beth? Two different shows.”
“Miracles don’t happen overnight,” I said.
“Are you telling me? Nothing happens overnight,” Danny said. “A lot of hard work went into making this show what it is.”
“About yesterday’s rehearsal...” I said.
“Forget yesterday’s rehearsal. Wait’ll you see it tomorrow. Listen, what kind of an author are you, anyway? How can you possibly stay away from your own show a week before it opens? He’s jaded, that’s what,” Danny said, and laughed, and nudged Edward. Edward, sitting with his back to the wall, the collar of his trench coat raised, looked like a Mafia henchman in horn-rimmed glasses. He had not yet said a word.
“I thought you gave them the wrong slant on the father-son scene,” I said. I knew I was pressing. A warning flashed in Beth’s eyes.
“What do you mean?” Danny said.
“Yesterday. At rehearsal. I think the actors came away...” I hesitated. “Confused,” I said.
“Yeah?” Danny shrugged. He lifted his glass and drained it. “You wouldn’t have known it tonight. If anybody on that stage was confused...”
“Well, I think Gene may be right,” Beth said cautiously. “I’m still not sure that scene is coming off.”
“Oh?” Danny said. He signaled to the waiter and then leaned forward. “Where do you think it’s wrong, Beth?” he asked. His voice was interested, concerned, respectful. He kept watching Beth’s face. The waiter arrived just then, sparing her an immediate answer. We asked for another round. “One More Time” started again on the jukebox.
“Beth?” Danny said.
“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” she answered.
The Beheading
“Oh, come on,” Danny said, and laughed. “The scene can’t be that wrong.”
“It is,” Edward said suddenly. The flatness of his voice startled all of us. Danny turned toward him as if he’d been struck with a closed fist.
“The scene with the father and son?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes,” Edward said, and nodded.
“Well, gee, I’m...” Danny paused. “Tell me what’s wrong with it, will you?”
“Great many things wrong with it,” I mumbled.
“What?”
“I said...”
“He said there are a great many things wrong with it,” Beth said.
“Like what?” Danny said, and reached into his pocket for a notebook. He produced a pencil, opened the notebook on the table before him, and poised the pencil over a clean page. “Okay, let’s have it,” he said, and thrust his head forward. “Come on, come on, that’s what we’re here for.”
“The actors don’t understand it,” I said.
“I’ve explained it to them often enough,” Danny said.
“Yes, but they still don’t understand it.”
“Then I’ll just have to explain it to them again,” he said, and nodded. He looked up at me suddenly, his head darting forward again. “I understand it, don’t I? I mean, I haven’t misinterpreted it, have I? If there’s one thing I think I know, Gene, it’s your play,” he said, and gave a short laugh.
“Well, the actors don’t seem to know what they’re doing,” I said, hedging.
“We’ll take care of that scene, don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll look at it first thing tomorrow.”
“It’s not just that scene,” Beth said. “The actors don’t seem to know what they’re doing at all.”
“In the play, do you mean?” Danny said.
“Yes.”
“In the whole play?”
“Yes.”
The waiter arrived with our drinks. Danny was staring at Beth across the table. Her eyes did not waver from his face.
“I’m not sure I get your meaning,” he said.
“I mean,” Beth said, “the actors need more direction.”
“Direction?”
“Yes.”
“You mean motivation?”
“I mean direction,” Beth said.
“Look, I’ve discussed motivation with them till I’m blue in the...”
“I said direction.” She paused. Her eyes were blue and hard and cold and bright. Danny was pinned against the wall, surrounded, and she would not let him escape those penetrating eyes. “Direction,” she repeated. “From a director.”
The first sign of fear flickered on Danny’s face. Hypnotically, he kept staring into Beth’s eyes, and then forcibly turned his head away, glancing first at Edward, and then fixing his gaze on me across the table.
“You think I should get tougher with them, is that it?” he asked.
“Danny,” I said, “we feel...”
“Danny,” Edward said, “it just isn’t working, really it isn’t. Maybe you’re too close to it, maybe...”
“No closer than any of us,” Danny answered. “I thought it went fine tonight. Give me a performance like that on opening night, and...”
“It was no different tonight,” Beth said flatly.
“I thought...”
“It doesn’t matter what you thought,” Beth said. “The actors don’t know what they’re doing, and you haven’t yet told them what’s wrong.”
“Well, look, honey, if you know what’s wrong, I wish you’d let me in on the secret,” Danny said, his voice rising. “Just tell me what the hell it is, and I’ll fix it.”
“We don’t think you can,” Beth said.
She delivered the words softly, the way she might have if she were underplaying a particularly powerful scene on stage, except that she was not acting. She turned her head toward me as she spoke, avoiding Danny’s eyes, ducking her chin toward her right shoulder.
“I don’t understand,” Danny said, but I knew he had understood at last, I knew that the meaning was now absolutely clear, he had been told, and he had understood, and there was nothing left to do now but administer the coup de grâce.
I do not know where I found the courage. I think it was spawned only by Beth’s sudden weakness, the way her chin was still turned into her shoulder. “We want to replace you,” I said, and felt suddenly sick to my stomach.
“Then why the hell didn’t you say so?” Danny snapped at once.
“It’s just not working,” I said.
“Sure, sure.”
“We’ve still got a week,” Edward said, “we may be able to save it.”
“Sure.”
“Danny, please understand,” Beth said.
“Don’t ever say that again!” Danny shouted, and the table fell silent. He looked down into his drink. He seemed suddenly embarrassed, as though his inability to have understood graciously and immediately was somehow shameful, as though his having failed to make it easier for us was something that now brought him very close to tears. I found it painful to watch him, and yet I could not take my eyes from his crumbling face. “You didn’t have to give me a song and dance, you know,” he said, “I’m not a beginner. If you want another director, then get one, that’s all. I’m not a beginner.”
“Danny,” Beth started, and she reached across the table for his hand.
“Yes, we want another director,” I said sharply, terrified that she would blow it all in the final moment, touch his hand and lose all her resolve, allow sympathy and loyalty to stand in the way of what had to be done, what had almost already been done.
“Do we want another director,” Danny asked, “or is it just you, Gene?”
His eyes clashed with mine, and then he turned slowly to Beth. Her hand had stopped midway across the table, still reaching. Something passed between them, something I could not define, as delicate as air, caught in their locked glances. It hovered silently, painfully, endlessly. And then Beth pulled back her hand, clenched it in her lap and said, “I want it, too, Danny. We all want it.”