In Living Picture
A short story.
***
It was opening night for Something We Lost at the Athenaeum. An original play, set to star Donna Rhodes - ‘kitchen-sink’ veteran of some of the company’s previously acclaimed adaptations, from A Taste of Honey to The Price.
The Director was an established figure in the theatre world, and the keeper of a stereotype in the profession; a quiet man who kept a family life in the country, re-emerging when he had something of potential for his producers in the city, with whom he was kept in good trust. For this new project, preparations and rehearsals had yet again validated the wish to bring something fresh to the stage, and strongly hinted at another success.
And even if predictions were false, and its run was instead destined for poor reception, Donna’s performance – her very involvement - was a stern foundation immunised against potential scoff from the goers. That the actress would risk playing against type, and inhabiting a world she had known neither onstage, nor in her upbringing, suggested a play of uniqueness; a story worth telling. The weight of her reputation would be sufficient in piquing the interest of many viewers and justifying the costs of production.
In many ways, surface observation revealed the stage narrative to be a re-tread of certain 19th century chamber dramas: love lost and regained in the upper-class, the psychological games of competing lovers, and so on. But it was the Director’s expressed intention to ‘restore’ the vitality of live performance with this new play - a contrast to his previous adaptations, which were ‘ideas-driven’ and populated by ciphers for the philosophical concepts which had obsessed him. He had overlooked the potential of the body’s power in performance before an audience wrapped in the spectacle, and now he would modify his method in order to fashion a theatre that reclaimed its place as an art of immediacy, an art channelling emotional intensity for the most visceral induction of viewer-immersion.
All factors had been considered. All risks were assessed. All preparations made. Forecasts were favourable.
The first night, Donna exceeded all expectations. Consensus from the preview revealed that she had crafted a character with virtuosic flair. The high social status of her protagonist informed the manufacturing of an altogether new intonation, diction, and movement which stood in opposition to all the working-class, alcoholic housewives she had previously played. Her exactitude was matchless, yet still refined by a restraint which connected with the audience, serving to never overwhelm them with cold technique.
The second night, the same.
But on the third, out of an impulse, she improvised a line in the final scene, risking a moment’s imperfection. On the contrary, and much to the pleasure of everyone behind the scenes, the line was a welcome entry - something which embellished the work’s emotional core. Moreover, it couldn’t have been a better statement of her control, and her devotion to expressive depth. She would try it again.
On the fourth night, she retained the new line but added another in the preceding scene, and likewise held an unwritten pause in a scene of confrontation. Another triumph with the spectators.
The fifth night, the same.
But the Director became unsure. It wasn’t necessarily that Donna was now actively taking liberties with a play that they had discussed and perfected for the last three months (though his diminishing control was certainly a factor of his anxiety). More than anything, he feared that the night would come where new additions (which had begun to grow in length, as much as in frequency) would eventually be met with disapproval. And in doing so, that the play would lose the thread of its original effectiveness.
Indeed, something wholly different to the opening night of Something We Lost was being created. From Donna’s newfound confidence, each night became filled with successive improvisations; with a new vision in mind, the actress would no longer settle for an incremental change in dialogue. Now she wished to alter entire scenes, and consequently the entire narrative structure. Her “antics” persisted, as the Director failed to assume control.
But what could he have done? Part of him truly wished to see how far all of this could go, whilst no signs indicated that the degrees of audience pleasure had diminished. For a while, these factors kept his heart at ease.
Nevertheless, it would now murmur at each of Donna’s wild impressions upon his work. Any initial reticence she might have held at the prospect of these additions was long gone. To him, it now looked like contempt, and the playfulness of those early nights lost their charm in hindsight. Night after night, the play coursed further and further from the original vision. It started to become a compilation of previous improvisations, with large sections of the original script now serving as gradually diminishing punctuations. It was becoming a play of ‘natural’ moments - narrative determinism slowly stripping itself away, gradually being replaced by some growing, spontaneous imitation of life itself.
After three weeks of tremendous acclaim from critics and public alike, the company assumed a few days’ interval. They scattered about: some returned home, others who had come down from other parts of the country went sight-seeing, whilst the Director’s family came to visit a city strange to eyes accustomed only to their quiet pastoral home.
But for Donna, it couldn’t have come at a worse time. Her mind was dogged by fresh ideas for her new character. And the stage where they would find expression, and response, was temporarily off-limits. She couldn’t take it.
At first, her restlessness could be construed as simple impatience; the desire to get the show back on the road as soon as possible. Gradually, her thoughts began to express themselves through her re-assumption of the lead character in waking life. The ‘Donna Rhodes’ who would grab a snack from the corner shop, now frequented upscale food stores with ungodly mark-ups for a solitary apple. She discarded her established café haunts and grabbed her doses from plush hotel restaurants, striding elegantly through sterile rooms of immense space, encompassed by her furs, supported by heels which could pierce marble, and speaking with whoever would indulge her:
‘The service here is questionable, no?’ she could be heard with another guest, in another’s voice. ‘Quite right, quite right… Ghaaastly, ghaaastly… Oh yes, daaarling.’
***
Three days passed since the company’s disbanding, two to go. Though restlessness had marked her time, somewhat alleviated by her new persona, Donna became comforted by the thought of performing on the stage again. She finally succeeded on a full night’s rest.
And so, she dreamt:
She found herself on a massive cruise liner, sailing over a vast white ocean of gentle waves, and a mist seeping upwards in several thin columns in vast separation. Walking around, she noticed no one aboard. The entire day, not a soul on the ship. Not at the bar, nor the ballrooms, nor the individual cabins.
And then, she found the captain in one of the lounge rooms, alone, sitting on a red, low-arched sofa spanning in a semi-circle. He seemed dressed up for a party which never occurred. The ship’s helm also lay on the couch, close to him, looking more like a carefully preserved heirloom, than an object of prior use.
As she approached, he turned to look at her, idle yet expectant, as if the dream would suddenly inform him of the time to speak. Her first instinct was to ask where everybody else was, and why the captain had sequestered himself in the lounge with a disconnected helm (something which would surely be put to better use in controlling a ship which had found itself on these strange waters). But she subdued herself, and got straight to the point:
‘Why am I here?’ she said. ‘Where are we going, Captain?’
At this, the captain reached for the helm, and handed it to her, fulfilling his purpose. Then he said:
‘This is all for you, Donna. You are the only passenger here, and you always will be. This ship is yours and will sail to wherever you wish. And only you can set its course.’ As she thanked him in the moments of her leaving, he finally added: ‘But remember: the ocean is never still. Whichever desires you wish to fulfil… whichever destination you wish to reach… task to complete - the ocean will forever shift to work against you. And guide you astray.’
In the last moments of the dream, in a sudden state of lucidity, she strained to interpret the monologue. If the ship was structurally sound, and yet always set for a course outside of her determination, to what degree had she control on her journey? Rather, was the uncertainty of the course a factor to be met only with acceptance? Come what may?
Awaking, images of the dream briefly ran through her head, but she had forgotten her reflections upon the vision; the questioning spirit departed. The following night, Donna Rhodes resumed the performance of her life.
***
With the germ of the dream inside her, Donna began to build a world for herself on the stage every night. And the rest of the cast, and the crew, and even the audience now acquiesced to, and supported the edifice of, her new power. And like her dream, the Director and all practical considerations, dissipated. They ceased to apply in a realm which Donna was shaping, her new theatrical revolution; in every sense of the word, the ultimate one.
From the shadows below the crossover, people, props, and places would all appear as her will would have it. If her character became thirsty, a glass or cup of the substance of her choice would appear from the dark, and she would take and drink from it.
If dissatisfied by her clothes, she would conjure untold jewels and dresses, never before held in the backstage departments, to adorn her figure.
If more characters were needed, they would appear; the stage would flood with unbilled supporting actors. Everything around her equated itself to the level of a prop for her invention.
Scenes, their sequence and everything in them would always be new, but the process was indeed recursive. But wasn’t life precisely like that, she thought. Process after process, activity and stillness, back again. Do, Eat, Sleep, Repeat. Here, she could channel life’s recursion into a grand, growing work of art which would improve each night under a different and unforeseen model. And more importantly, she could at least ‘claim’ the control of a vehicle coursing through exponential terrain. ‘There is no greater power than the one on stage,’ she declared.
And every night, each new story-world as it developed in her real-time, was swept away by the fall of the curtain, and drowned out by the thunder choir ovations of her audience. And in twenty-four hours’ time, a new iteration would render in the animating force of the spotlight, where she could inhabit another world.
Eventually, Donna’s stage play reached its singularity. Multiple generations of life now played out under the proscenium; timelines reifying and retracting into the infinite; time and space now defined by an uncanny malleability. And all of it with a precise tactility of expression and performance within a standard theatrical runtime, no intermission.
This would occur again and again, every night until the viewers would finally tire of watching her build. Soon, the curtain would not lift, and the lamp of the spotlight extinguish.
The Evening News
August 5th, 2018.