Fault in the Structure

CHAPTER 14

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There are enough pickers and stealers in this town.

Among few sets of people do envy and jealousy flourish more lushly and with more rapid growth than among the members of an amateur dramatic and operatic society. This generalisation does not apply to those who are given the leading rôles, of course. So far as the Chardle group was concerned, the three leading women players were well satisfied with the parts which Denbigh had allotted them. Laura was delighted to have been given Mrs Peachum, Sybil Gartner had expected to play Polly and had not been disappointed and, although she had her detractors, Melanie Cardew, that raddled tragedy queen, was pleased at first and (although nothing would have induced her to say so) surprised at having been asked to play Lucy Lockit, a part which, except for her defection, would have been offered to Marigold Tench, who had a better voice.

That Polly Peachum had been given to Sybil nobody queried. It was known (for she frequently referred to the fact) that she took singing lessons and (like Cora Bellinger, whose voice could bring down plaster from the ceiling) was ‘studying for opera’. Besides this, she knew that she had a good stage presence. She was, in fact, a personable enough young woman although she had hard eyes and an obstinate chin. However, she also had an attractive figure, including what Damon Runyan would describe as ‘bumps here and there where a doll is entitled to have bumps’, and there was no doubt that, as Laura put it, she could out-voice the rest of the company even when she was singing pianissimo, for hers was a high, clear soprano, piercing rather than sweet, and of undoubted power.

Over Laura’s own part in the production there had also been no envious murmurings. For one thing, there was no other obvious choice for Mrs Peachum and, for another, the character, dominant in the first Act, does not appear at all during the rest of the performance, a fact to deter the exhibitionists, the self-assertive and the merely vain. What was more, in Denbigh’s production it was decreed that whoever played Mrs Peachum should take over the dull and thankless office of prompter for the last two Acts. The Lucy Lockit, who did not come on stage until Act Two, was to occupy the prompter’s stool for Act One before handing over to Mrs Peachum at the first interval while the stage was being re-set for the scene at the Newgate tavern, but that ended her responsibility.

Unlike Sir Nigel Playfair’s classic revival of The Beggar’s Opera in the 1920s, which was produced against only one background, the Chardle production was to enjoy various changes of scene, for with amateurs, as Denbigh knew, every dog must have his day and this applied as much to the stage carpenters and the scene-painters as to the actors themselves, so that the scene was to be changed not only between the Acts, but even between the two scenes in Act Two and the three scenes in Act Three. This took time, a fact which became of considerable importance later.

Apart from those allotted to Laura, Sybil and Melanie, there were only minor rôles for the women and, once the three principal male rôles were settled, the men were in like case. There was no obvious candidate, moreover, for the principal male part, that of the highwayman Macheath, so, after some misgivings, Denbigh had chosen young Cyril Wincott, but more for his tall figure and handsome countenance than because of his dramatic and musical gifts. The choice was put down by his detractors to favouritism on the score that Cyril was a schoolmaster and therefore in Denbigh’s camp, but this was untrue.

Cyril’s position, therefore, was a less happy one than Sybil’s or Laura’s, for whereas they had no detractors, Cyril had more than one. The president of the society, Hamilton Haynings, the possessor of a foghorn bass-baritone whose resonance, his critics agreed among themselves, would have been better employed on a tug on the Thames rather than in the confined space of the Chardle town hall, had expected to be able to pull his rank and obtain the leading man’s part. He had been fobbed off (in his own opinion) with Lockit, Lucy’s jailor father, and his lines had been cut to restrict him to very short appearances with his daughter, with Macheath and with Peachum, Polly’s father. He was given no solo at all and his only contribution to the musical side of the affair was a bawling duet in which, Denbigh privately considered, his voice could do little harm.

Peachum, a meaty part which, in lieu of playing Macheath, Hamilton would have accepted with good grace, had been given to James Hunty, the possessor of a baritone voice of good although untrained quality which he himself considered would have suited the part of Macheath far better than did Cyril’s light and pleasant tenor.

‘Macheath was never meant for a tenor,’ he said plaintively to Marigold Tench who, bitterly regretful of her walk-out from a meeting earlier on, persisted in haunting the rehearsals in a sick mood of masochistic self-punishment.

‘You couldn’t play Macheath, not with your waistline,’ said Marigold, displaying the reverse of the medal and turning sadistic. There were also others, as Laura soon found out, who were restless and dissatisfied. She had been mistaken, for one thing, in assuming, on too little evidence, that young Stella Walker was pleased with the two tiny parts of Jenny Diver and Diana Trapes. She was soon in the same camp as the blonde woman who had opted for a pantomime. The blonde, like Marigold, also insisted upon turning up at rehearsals, ostensibly to work out the costumes which would be required. She also decided to assist Farrow by turning over the pages of the score for him. It was in manuscript and not easy for the pianist to follow. Moreover, it was on separate sheets of paper which were madly inclined to flutter to the floor when anybody handled them with insufficient care. After the first two rehearsals, in fact, Ernest, living up to his name, learnt the tunes by heart and thus rendered the blonde’s officious assistance unnecessary. Apart from this, Haynings tackled her with so much belligerence that she thought it well to apologise and to behave herself at all subsequent rehearsals, which she still insisted upon attending.

It had been arranged that, until the cast was word-perfect and had learnt the songs, Denbigh would not take over the rehearsals. The ‘words’ rehearsals for the society’s productions had usually taken place in Clarice Blaine’s house with coffee and biscuits to follow, but she had issued no invitation to the cast of The Beggar’s Opera to invade her drawing-room. This attitude was to mark her resentment at being turned down as stage manager and her dire disapproval of the piece, but her excuse (for even this autocratic lady felt bound to explain so blatant a departure from custom) was that she had no piano, an excuse which, at a words-only rehearsal, hardly made sense.

All the rehearsals, until Denbigh took them over, were held, therefore, in the small, draughty hall of a local primary school, the hiring of which was cheap because its amenities were so few. Ernest, who had not dared to complain about Mabelle van Pieter’s behaviour at the piano, did complain bitterly (and with reason) about the instrument itself. It was out of tune, two of the notes made no sound at all and it was on castors so that, if anybody leaned against it, and this usually meant a soloist who had come over to expostulate with the pianist, it made a disconcerting right-angled turn and left the embarrassed and fuming Ernest playing on air instead of on the keyboard.

‘It’s good for the poor chap to have something inanimate to curse about,’ Laura informed Dame Beatrice, ‘because he’s too much of a rabbit to tackle anything human, either male or female. Anyway, come to that, most of us are at the stage of thinking before we speak and then not saying it. I even listen patiently to our blonde bomb-shell, the slightly overpowering (where she buys her perfume I can’t think, unless it’s privately imported from Port Said or somewhere), the very ripe Mabelle van Pieter.’

‘You listen patiently to her? Why, what has she to say which requires patience in the listener?’

‘Well, she claims to be a pro., you see, and I think it’s true. She tells me I “should ought to broaden out the part, dear”. Personally I think I’ve broadened it as far as it will stretch. She has forearms like a navvy, a spirited vocabulary and, apart from a lively hatred of Haynings since he, by no means mincing his own words, fought her to a standstill in a verbal battle last week, she gets on reasonably well with everybody, apart from giving them her unasked-for professional advice and leaping out from the wings in the middle of a scene to measure busts and hips.’

‘All very well-intentioned, no doubt.’

‘She may be well-intentioned, but there are those among us who are not. Even young Stella Walker, who seemed so pleased with her two little bits of parts, has begun to step high, wide and plentiful.’

This was true, for Stella had become a very disgruntled young lady.

‘If only we’d settled on a straight play,’ she said at the beginning of the fifth rehearsal, ‘which, after all, was what nearly all of us wanted, I might have been given a decent part. I mean, I may not be able to sing, but I can act Sybil Gartner’s head off. Do you know how many speeches I’ve got as Jenny Diver? Three! And only one solo – and even that I only mime, while Melanie Cardew sings it from the wings. And it ought to be six speeches and two songs! I do think it’s wrong of him to mess up the script like this. And even the three speeches he has left me have all been shortened.’

‘My part has been cut, too,’ said Melanie, who overheard her. ‘The parts of Polly and Lucy ought to be of equal importance, but they’re not. And who wants to sing other people’s songs off-stage? Besides, the thing doesn’t suit my voice and who on earth can sing a line like “The gamesters and lawyers are jugglers alike,” I should wish to know?’ She walked over to the piano and began to berate poor Ernest whom the blonde had long since abandoned. Her place had been taken by Marigold Tench.

‘Then there’s the Diana Trapes part,’ went on Stella to anybody who was listening. ‘That’s been cut, too. He’s taken out all her main speeches and just left me with four little bits to say, and two of those have been cut to a single line. And again there’s only one solo instead of two. If it wasn’t for letting the rest of the cast down, I’d opt out and make him find somebody else to take my place. Anyway, if Melanie is to sing my songs, why can’t I be Lucy? I’m sure I’d look the part better than she does. She’s much too old for it.’

Stella might not have been able to sing, but she had a vibrant, carrying speaking-voice and Melanie, who had strolled away after criticising Ernest’s rendering of her accompaniments, came over to her.

‘Thank you very much,’ she said venomously. ‘If, after that, you conceited little beast, you think I’m going to sing your solos from the wings while you mime the words like a monkey catching fleas, you may as well think again. Get somebody else to do it.’

‘I think I’d better, if that’s how you feel about it,’ said Stella, coming up and tossing her abundant red-gold hair almost in Melanie’s face. ‘In any case, nobody is going to believe that your strident trumpetings are coming from my larynx.’

‘No. You say your words like a child with tonsillitis.’

‘Perhaps Laura Gavin would sing for me,’ said Stella, not relishing this description of her vocal chords. ‘She’ll be off-stage in the second and third Acts, anyway, because she’s going to prompt when Act One is over, and I hope you fluff and have to be prompted good and loud.’

‘She’s a contralto, and Jenny Diver and Diana Trapes are written for mezzos in Denbigh’s version,’ said Marigold who, from sheer pique at having walked herself out of a part, had familiarised herself with the words and music of the opera. ‘I’ll stand in the wings and sing for you if you like.’

However, the opera got under way in some sort of fashion and Laura, who, without ostentation or what she described as ‘throwing her weight about’ had been accepted as leader and arbiter during this trying time, was able to telephone the College and inform Philip Denbigh that she thought the company was ready for him to take over the rehearsals and that Hamilton Haynings agreed with her on the matter.

There was one member of the society who, not expecting to be given a part at all, had joyously snapped up the very minor rôle of Filch the pickpocket, although, to his mother’s relief, his best lines (as he thought them) had not only been cut, but had been removed altogether from the script, and this was the young lad Tom Blaine. In spite, however, of Denbigh’s concession to local good taste with regard to her son’s dialogue, Tom’s mother continued to do her best to sabotage the success of the production.

For all the previous shows which the society had put on she had bludgeoned her Ladies’ Guild not only into buying tickets for themselves, their families and their friends, but in helping to fabricate the costumes for the various plays and in providing tea and cakes for sale during the intervals.

On this occasion, however, she declined to ask the Ladies’ Guild to provide any of this valuable help. She could not, in conscience, she said, persuade people to assist at a project of which she so violently disapproved. Apart from that, the Guild had its hands completely full. The pageant also needed dressing. She added that her Young People’s Helpful Band would not be doing their usual rounds of house-to-house touting for the sale of tickets, either, another useful service she had organised in previous years.

‘I would not soil their young minds,’ she said, ‘by letting them know that such a piece was under contemplation.’

‘Oh, well, if the Ladies’ Guild won’t help out, I suppose it means more hiring of costumes than we usually need to do,’ said poor Ernest Farrow. ‘Still, I suppose, for this production, if it’s going to look like anything at all, we’d have to hire most of the stuff anyway. That’s the worst of a period piece. I’ll have to ask the principals to pay for the hire of their own outfits, as usual, but I’m worried about the sale of tickets. The Ladies’ Guild are usually good for fifty or sixty of the best seats, although they do expect them for the Saturday night performance when we could probably sell them anyway. Then, of course, those Young People have been no end useful in getting rid of those tickets which always hang fire, especially for the second night. We shall sadly miss them.’

‘Oh, well, it can’t be helped,’ said Hamilton Haynings, ‘not but what I felt, from the beginning, that it was a mistake to leave choice of piece and all the casting to Denbigh. We must all do our best to make the thing a success, that’s all.’

‘Success depends on the size of the audience,’ said Ernest. ‘Everybody plays better when the hall is full. Nothing is more daunting than playing to rows of empty seats, so do pressurise people into buying tickets, all of you. Don’t stand any nonsense from people who say they’ll “think about it”. Oh, and do have plenty of change about you, then there is no excuse for people who tell you they have “nothing smaller than a five-pound note”. I’m giving everybody twenty top-price tickets to get rid of, and please,’ he added pathetically, ‘if you can’t get anybody else to buy them, I do beg of you to sub up for them yourselves and give them away. We’ve got to have the money and we’ve got to have an audience. I’m sure you all appreciate that.’

‘It’s all very well for the principals,’ said Stella, ‘but what about the rest of us? I can’t afford to buy twenty seats, and nobody I know is going to pay fifty p. to see me in a more or less walking-on part.’

‘Well, do what you can,’ urged Ernest. ‘Time for all good men to come to the aid of the party, eh?’

‘And what about the College yobbos? Will they each sell twenty tickets?’ demanded Geoffrey Channing, who had been given the part, as had his friend Robert Eames, of a member of Macheath’s gang of footpads. As the rest of the gang was to consist entirely of Denbigh’s students, there was a point to his question and he was supported shrilly by Stella, since most of the ladies of the town were also from the college choir.

‘You bet they won’t,’ she said.

‘Oh, Denbigh will see to all that. No doubt their parents will come,’ said Ernest, making an optimistic statement which he himself did not believe.

‘Well, I think it’s all very unfair,’ said Stella mutinously, ‘and, anyway, I think a committee should have decided who ought to have the parts. That’s what we’ve always done and it’s much the best way.’

‘It also wastes a great deal of time,’ said Sybil. ‘It was far better to leave it to just one person, especially as he’s being so useful to us.’

‘Helpful to you, perhaps,’ said Marigold Tench. ‘Personally, I think there should have been proper auditions. As it was, the whole cast was settled in a matter of minutes, without any proper preliminaries at all. Of course, if you’re all content to let the latest-joined member ride rough-shod over you, I’ve nothing more to say.’

‘Thank goodness for that,’ said Melanie, turning her tragic eyes upwards.

‘In any case, Marigold,’ said Cyril, ‘you’ve nothing to beef about if you haven’t been given a part. You chose to walk yourself off and wash your hands of the production, didn’t you?’

‘Oh, if she wants a part she can have mine,’ said Melanie. ‘I’m sure I’m sick to death of these sob-stuff rôles. I wish I could swop with Laura. I’d love to do a bit of low comedy for a change.’

‘Just as you like,’ said Laura, ‘if the producer doesn’t object.’

‘I object!’ said James Hunty. ‘Either I play Act One opposite Laura, or I don’t play it at all.’

‘There’s been enough kissing goes by favour in this production already,’ said the bearded Rodney Crashaw. He looked accusingly and spitefully at Cyril Wincott, who grinned infuriatingly at him and whistled Denbigh’s setting of Over the hills and far away.

‘In any case,’ said Hamilton Haynings, ‘we can’t start chopping and changing now, and there’s no sense in picking out the parts we’d like to play. I confess I’m not exactly in love with the part of Lockit, but we have to be reasonable and back up Denbigh’s mistakes (if he’s made any) as best we can. We gave him carte blanche and we can’t go back on it.’

‘By the way,’ said Laura to James Hunty, ‘what’s all this about Melanie wanting to play a comic part? I was under the impression that she saw herself as the Duse of this day and age.’

‘She’s become that creep Crashaw’s leading lady. Didn’t you know? I think she’s a prize fool, but it isn’t my business to tell her so.’

‘Our platinum blonde isn’t going to be pleased.’

‘Too true. A ménage à trois is hardly likely to be her cup of tea!’

‘Is it serious? – Crashaw and Melanie, I mean.’

‘She’s crazy about him. She told my wife so.’

‘Oh, well, she’ll live and learn, I suppose.’

‘She must be full of the joys of spring if she wants to play comedy. Anyway, don’t you dare give way to her, Mistress Peachum.’