Chapter 16, Part II
Ruby
Getting the Part
Joe lived nearby, on 8th Street, a block over from St. Mark’s Place. I was early, so I strolled the cheesy gift shops, sorting through mod sunglasses and dominatrix dog collars (I got the latter for Eddy, betting that he would get some use out of it). I walked into a forest of Indian restaurants, the air laced with curry and tabla music. A dozen locals had set up an impromptu sidewalk sale, arranging appliances and clothing on straw mats and old quilts.
Finding Joe’s address, I opened a wrought-iron gate and descended to his basement apartment. But what a basement! Joe greeted me with a kiss on the cheek (which I took as a promising sign) then led me through a modest hallway of bedrooms to a cavernous living room. You could have a basketball game in there! The furniture was shoved to the walls on all sides, leaving the center to a semi-circle of folding chairs.
“Have a stiff, hard seat,” said Joe. “You want a stiff, hard drink with that?”
A thin, attractive man waltzed in (and I mean the waltzing part literally), his blond hair cut so tight to his head that it could have passed for a shower cap.
“Stiff? Hard? Who’s using all my favorite adjectives?”
“Oh!” said Joe. “Marlin, come over and meet Ruby. She’s the non-acting New Yorker I told you about.”
Marlin samba’d over and dropped a hand into mine. His eyes were swimming-pool blue, parasolled by neat platinum brows.
“Frankly, I don’t believe you exist,” he said. “Cause girlfriend, every New Yorker is an actor. It’s just that some parts are Equity, and some are not.”
“Marlin’s my partner,” said Joe. My brain was running down the list - business partner, writing partner, tennis partner – when Marlin kissed Joe on the lips. Joe replied with a half-serious chiding.
“Marlin! Ix-nay on the issing-kay at the office-ay.”
Marlin grinned in my direction. “I never know when it’s a play-space. Or a play-space. You look like a tough chick, Ruby Red. I’m guessin’ a Manhattan, straight up?”
“You’re guessin’ right, Marlin.” I tightened the bolts on my stiff, hard smile.
Seven actors showed up to read. I was one of three commoners, along with Joe’s banker uncle and Sigrid, a German friend of Marlin’s who turned out to be a high-priced call girl. (And that’s not acting?) When it came time for critiques, I drew on the trinity I learned in college: tough, clear, kind.
“It’s a frickin’ hilarious play, Joe. I really like the dark place that so many of the laughs come from – that is a sweet trick if you can pull it off. You’ve also got some amazingly good visual stuff. The thing about the artificial fangs – I’m gonna be giggling about that for months.
“However, I also think you’re missing a major opportunity. This yo-yo thing between Mimi and Kizer is far and away the most compelling relationship in the play – but you’re pulling your punches, and leaving all the conflict backstage. Imagine the juicy battles those two could have; imagine all the juicy sexual tension it would create. And imagine all the meat this would give to your play – which is a comedy, yes, but a comedy with substance. Have at it, man! Take off the gloves.”
I was right, of course. Joe revisited the whole Mim-Kizer thing and came up with three new scenes (including one in which Mimi illustrates Kizer’s screwed-up behavior using stick figures on a coffeehouse chalkboard). I worried, in fact, that I might have gone too far – that my director skills were bleeding through my carefully painted façade.
I got my answer a month later, two weeks before Christmas, when Joe asked us all back to try out his rewrite. One of his readers – Jackie, biggest flake, smallest talent (a popular combination) – called at the last minute with some fib about a sick roommate.
“Ruby?” said Joe. “Could you read Grady? It’s not a big part – you don’t have to be good at all. I just really need to get a full picture of this rewrite before I get obliterated by the holidays.”
“Sure,” I said. And felt completely unsure.
Grady was the manager of a coffeehouse – twice my size, with a shitkicker pickup and a seven-year-old son. I tried to read her as stiffly as possible. I was afraid that my little flubs might prove too transparent. Regardless, I couldn’t help enjoying the play, which had achieved a perfect blend of tension, release and laughter. I felt a certain stepmotherly pride.
Afterward, Marlin rolled out a buffet table of honeybaked ham, sweet potatoes, bread pudding and egg nog. After quite a few drinks and the departure of most of our readers, I met up with Joe at the punch bowl. I had just at that moment decided to begin greeting him with international variations of his name.
“Jose Verde! Jean-Paul Chartreuse! Yusef Spearmintsky!”
He responded by refilling our glasses and raising a toast.
“To you, Ruby,” he said. “You lying little bitch.”
He said it with a smile, so I guessed I wasn’t in too much trouble.
“Hmmm. Zee jig eez up?”
“The second you opened your mouth tonight. You’re not such a good actor that you can hide the fact that you’re a good actor. It was a noble attempt at mediocrity, but you kept getting carried away by the action and turning into Grady – a pretty neat trick, considering. So why all the espionage?”
I gave him my special squint – the one that’s meant to project extreme distaste. “I didn’t want to be another in the buffalo herd of desperate wannabes. I saw enough of that in LA.”
That last part slipped out. Joe’s eyes grew wider. “LA? ‘Daughter of Movie Mogul Goes Undercover to Conquer Broadway’?”
I cringed. “Casting director.”
Joe held the back of his hand to his forehead, very Scarlet O’Hara.
“You are a certifiable grab bag, Ruby. If that’s your real name.”
“Yes it is,” I said, laughing. “I’m sorry. But your play, Joe. It’s fucking beautiful. It’s exactly the kind of thing I came here for.”
“Well good,” said Joe.
There was a secret context to those two words, but before I could ask, Joe fled the room. He returned with two metallic skewers and a candle.
“Good why?” I asked.
“Good because… I wouldn’t want you to get bored if we have an extended run.”
“I… what?”
“We open on Valentine’s Day. And I want you to play Melissa. Do you know why?”
“No?” I think I was starting to cry.
“Because Melissa is also a lying, deceptive little bitch. But wait! Don’t say yes. We have a certain way of doing this. It’s kind of gay, but so am I. Take this.”
He handed me one of the skewers, which was covered with a substance that looked like tile grout. Joe lit the candle, then directed the tips of the skewers into the flame until they began to shoot out sparks. Then he raised his right hand.
“Do you, Ruby Cohen, vow to play the part of Melissa, in sickness and in health, through good reviews and hatchet-jobs, till closing night do you part?”
I raised my right hand and gazed into Joe’s Apollonian features through a film of tears and a shower of golden meteorites.
“I do.”
Next: The Very Nervous Steve
Image by MJV.
Purchase the book at: http://www.amazon.com/Outro-Michael-J-Vaughn/dp/1440111405/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231020486&sr=8-1
Ruby
Getting the Part
Joe lived nearby, on 8th Street, a block over from St. Mark’s Place. I was early, so I strolled the cheesy gift shops, sorting through mod sunglasses and dominatrix dog collars (I got the latter for Eddy, betting that he would get some use out of it). I walked into a forest of Indian restaurants, the air laced with curry and tabla music. A dozen locals had set up an impromptu sidewalk sale, arranging appliances and clothing on straw mats and old quilts.
Finding Joe’s address, I opened a wrought-iron gate and descended to his basement apartment. But what a basement! Joe greeted me with a kiss on the cheek (which I took as a promising sign) then led me through a modest hallway of bedrooms to a cavernous living room. You could have a basketball game in there! The furniture was shoved to the walls on all sides, leaving the center to a semi-circle of folding chairs.
“Have a stiff, hard seat,” said Joe. “You want a stiff, hard drink with that?”
A thin, attractive man waltzed in (and I mean the waltzing part literally), his blond hair cut so tight to his head that it could have passed for a shower cap.
“Stiff? Hard? Who’s using all my favorite adjectives?”
“Oh!” said Joe. “Marlin, come over and meet Ruby. She’s the non-acting New Yorker I told you about.”
Marlin samba’d over and dropped a hand into mine. His eyes were swimming-pool blue, parasolled by neat platinum brows.
“Frankly, I don’t believe you exist,” he said. “Cause girlfriend, every New Yorker is an actor. It’s just that some parts are Equity, and some are not.”
“Marlin’s my partner,” said Joe. My brain was running down the list - business partner, writing partner, tennis partner – when Marlin kissed Joe on the lips. Joe replied with a half-serious chiding.
“Marlin! Ix-nay on the issing-kay at the office-ay.”
Marlin grinned in my direction. “I never know when it’s a play-space. Or a play-space. You look like a tough chick, Ruby Red. I’m guessin’ a Manhattan, straight up?”
“You’re guessin’ right, Marlin.” I tightened the bolts on my stiff, hard smile.
Seven actors showed up to read. I was one of three commoners, along with Joe’s banker uncle and Sigrid, a German friend of Marlin’s who turned out to be a high-priced call girl. (And that’s not acting?) When it came time for critiques, I drew on the trinity I learned in college: tough, clear, kind.
“It’s a frickin’ hilarious play, Joe. I really like the dark place that so many of the laughs come from – that is a sweet trick if you can pull it off. You’ve also got some amazingly good visual stuff. The thing about the artificial fangs – I’m gonna be giggling about that for months.
“However, I also think you’re missing a major opportunity. This yo-yo thing between Mimi and Kizer is far and away the most compelling relationship in the play – but you’re pulling your punches, and leaving all the conflict backstage. Imagine the juicy battles those two could have; imagine all the juicy sexual tension it would create. And imagine all the meat this would give to your play – which is a comedy, yes, but a comedy with substance. Have at it, man! Take off the gloves.”
I was right, of course. Joe revisited the whole Mim-Kizer thing and came up with three new scenes (including one in which Mimi illustrates Kizer’s screwed-up behavior using stick figures on a coffeehouse chalkboard). I worried, in fact, that I might have gone too far – that my director skills were bleeding through my carefully painted façade.
I got my answer a month later, two weeks before Christmas, when Joe asked us all back to try out his rewrite. One of his readers – Jackie, biggest flake, smallest talent (a popular combination) – called at the last minute with some fib about a sick roommate.
“Ruby?” said Joe. “Could you read Grady? It’s not a big part – you don’t have to be good at all. I just really need to get a full picture of this rewrite before I get obliterated by the holidays.”
“Sure,” I said. And felt completely unsure.
Grady was the manager of a coffeehouse – twice my size, with a shitkicker pickup and a seven-year-old son. I tried to read her as stiffly as possible. I was afraid that my little flubs might prove too transparent. Regardless, I couldn’t help enjoying the play, which had achieved a perfect blend of tension, release and laughter. I felt a certain stepmotherly pride.
Afterward, Marlin rolled out a buffet table of honeybaked ham, sweet potatoes, bread pudding and egg nog. After quite a few drinks and the departure of most of our readers, I met up with Joe at the punch bowl. I had just at that moment decided to begin greeting him with international variations of his name.
“Jose Verde! Jean-Paul Chartreuse! Yusef Spearmintsky!”
He responded by refilling our glasses and raising a toast.
“To you, Ruby,” he said. “You lying little bitch.”
He said it with a smile, so I guessed I wasn’t in too much trouble.
“Hmmm. Zee jig eez up?”
“The second you opened your mouth tonight. You’re not such a good actor that you can hide the fact that you’re a good actor. It was a noble attempt at mediocrity, but you kept getting carried away by the action and turning into Grady – a pretty neat trick, considering. So why all the espionage?”
I gave him my special squint – the one that’s meant to project extreme distaste. “I didn’t want to be another in the buffalo herd of desperate wannabes. I saw enough of that in LA.”
That last part slipped out. Joe’s eyes grew wider. “LA? ‘Daughter of Movie Mogul Goes Undercover to Conquer Broadway’?”
I cringed. “Casting director.”
Joe held the back of his hand to his forehead, very Scarlet O’Hara.
“You are a certifiable grab bag, Ruby. If that’s your real name.”
“Yes it is,” I said, laughing. “I’m sorry. But your play, Joe. It’s fucking beautiful. It’s exactly the kind of thing I came here for.”
“Well good,” said Joe.
There was a secret context to those two words, but before I could ask, Joe fled the room. He returned with two metallic skewers and a candle.
“Good why?” I asked.
“Good because… I wouldn’t want you to get bored if we have an extended run.”
“I… what?”
“We open on Valentine’s Day. And I want you to play Melissa. Do you know why?”
“No?” I think I was starting to cry.
“Because Melissa is also a lying, deceptive little bitch. But wait! Don’t say yes. We have a certain way of doing this. It’s kind of gay, but so am I. Take this.”
He handed me one of the skewers, which was covered with a substance that looked like tile grout. Joe lit the candle, then directed the tips of the skewers into the flame until they began to shoot out sparks. Then he raised his right hand.
“Do you, Ruby Cohen, vow to play the part of Melissa, in sickness and in health, through good reviews and hatchet-jobs, till closing night do you part?”
I raised my right hand and gazed into Joe’s Apollonian features through a film of tears and a shower of golden meteorites.
“I do.”
Next: The Very Nervous Steve
Image by MJV.
Purchase the book at: http://www.amazon.com/Outro-Michael-J-Vaughn/dp/1440111405/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231020486&sr=8-1
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