WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY
YUSAKU SHIGEMORI
It was a copy of the bound galley of the script.
Toyama reached for it in spite of himself. He opened it. It smelled like twenty-four years ago.
"Where did you get this?" He asked without thinking.
"I borrowed it from the troupe's office, after swear-ing I'd return it. In March of 1966, Sadako Yamamura snagged a part as an understudy in this. Her disappearance was more or less simultaneous with the end of the run. What happened? It has to have had something to do with the play..."
"Have you read it?"
"Of course I have. But it's just the script: it doesn't tell me much."
Toyama began flipping through the pages. Twenty-four years ago he'd owned a copy of this. It was probably in one of his bookshelves now, but then again he'd no doubt lost it in one of the many moves that had accompanied his first marriage and divorce. No. No matter how he searched, this was something he'd never find at home.
The staff's names were written on the first page.
Sound: Hiroshi Toyama.
Finding his own name there gave him a weird, tick-lish sort of feeling, as if he'd come face to face with his twenty-three-year-old self.
Next came the names of the cast.
The Girl in Black: Aiko Hazuki.
But Aiko Hazuki's name had been crossed out, and next to it somebody had written in ballpoint pen the name "Sadako Yamamura."
The girl who held the key to the story hadn't been given a name. Despite her importance, she didn't appear on stage all that much, although her few appearances had been designed for maximum impact. The part had originally belonged to Aiko Hazuki, one of the troupe's mid-ranked actresses. However, mere days before the first performance, Hazuki had collapsed, ill; Sadako, who had been attending every rehearsal as Hazuki's prompter, was asked to step in for her. It was to be her stage debut.
Thinking about it now, it seemed almost as if Shigemori had written the script especially for Sadako, as if under her inducement, even though she was nothing but an intern. At the time, of course, such a thought would never have crossed Toyama's mind. But when he considered her character and her image, unfaded in his mind after all these years, it almost seemed more plausible to think that Shigemori had written the part intending to cast her in it. The Girl in Black was that perfect for Sadako.
He turned the page. This seemed to be Shigemori's own copy of the script: the spaces between the lines of dialogue and stage directions were crammed with performance notes and critiques of the actors' performances, all in cramped handwriting. There were even details regarding the timing of the sound effects.
Ml—Theme song.
The curtain rises. A living room set occupies stage center. The lights come up gradually, and the set begins to brighten.
M5—Distant church bells. Mixed in, the sound of
many footsteps, the noise of a crowd.
This was the Girl in Black's first scene. Following a sound effect cue, she was to appear onstage for just an instant.
Unconsciously, Toyama was tapping the tabletop with his right index finger.
Play button—on.
The tape spun, the sound effect began. The Girl in Black was supposed to step onto the stage in synch with the sound.
The Girl in Black: an ill omen. She wasn't to be visible from every seat in the house: from some points you wouldn't be able to see her because of where she was standing. She'd be onstage, but only some people would know it. But that was okay: it was part of the effect of the play.
Toyama could see her again vividly. She was eighteen. The only woman he'd ever loved, the woman he couldn't forget even now...
Without meaning to, Toyama spoke her name.
4
March 1966
It was full-dress rehearsal day for Theater Group Soaring's eleventh production. Toyama had shut himself up in the sound booth to make his final adjustments. Tomorrow was opening day, and he was checking his tapes and equalizers to make sure everything was as it should be; even now, all alone in front of the control board, he was enjoying his job. He caught himself whistling. After two months of rehearsals, they'd been able to formally move into the theater—excitement was winning out even over the nervousness of opening. All throughout rehearsals he'd had Shigemori sitting next to him giving him detailed orders concerning the sound, and when he failed to follow instructions absolutely to the letter, Shigemori had bawled him out mercilessly. The director couldn't tolerate a second's delay in a sound effect or a slight discrepancy in volume. Day after day of pressure had begun to take a toll on his stomach... But now the sound booth was his castle, his independent kingdom.
The director rarely looked in, and as long as Toyama got the timing right with the tapes, he got no complaints.
Once a play got underway the director's attention was always riveted to the stage—he paid so little attention to the sound that Toyama would actually begin to wonder what all the fuss had been about. Knowing this idio-syncrasy of Shigemori's, Toyama had eagerly anticipated his move into the theater's sound booth.
It wasn't as if he were utterly free from anxiety—he had nightmares about an unplanned sound getting through—but he knew that couldn't happen, so as a worry it was nothing compared to the pressure the director's presence had brought to bear on him. It was only a dream...kind of amusing, really.
Toyama's sound booth was at the top of a spiral staircase leading up from the lobby, right next to the lighting booth. There was no way to get directly to it from the stage area, so anyone coming from the green room or backstage had to first go out to the lobby and then up the stairs. There was an intercom connection with the backstage area, so communication was easy enough, but once the doors had been opened actually going back and forth became quite troublesome. Maybe that was why Shigemori seemed to lose interest in the sound once the play started. In their rehearsal space, the director's chair was right next to the soundman's—an unfortunate circumstance that forced Toyama to bear a burden he otherwise would have been spared.
They finished unloading in the morning, spent the afternoon getting everything into place, and in the evening they were scheduled to have their final full-dress rehearsal. This, too, was easy on the soundman. All he had to carry in was his tape reels; he was spared the heavy labor of lugging in the props.
Once in a while Toyama would raise his head and look down at the busily transforming stage. On the other side of the soundproof glass, the set was almost complete. From this vantage he could see everybody working together to create a single finished product. It was something he enjoyed watching: it felt like a reward for the long, difficult rehearsals. He fancied that at that very moment the actors, with no particular job to do, were in the green room savoring the exact same feeling.
Toyama ate his dinner—they'd had it brought in—
and then he set up his music reel and his sound effects reel and checked the sequence of cues. No problems at all. All that was left now was to wait for the dress rehearsal to begin. After it was finished, they'd get together for a final round of feedback, and then break for the night. The theater had a strict closing time, so there would be no midnight rehearsals tonight. For him, moving into the theater also meant freedom from having to stick around for late rehearsals, worrying about missing his last train home.