limelight puppets

Theatre was my life. I was a Kean for God’s sake. My ancestors acted for Shakespeare. I mean, I debuted Hamlet at Covent Garden for the Prince. But, I must sorely admit my limelight fading; all but extinguished some would say. I assure you, it had absolutely nothing to do with waning talent-those stories you hear of old actors hanging on beyond their worth, becoming clichéd caricatures of themselves-that is not the tale told here. A minor in-house scandal, then a spreading gossip plagued through the community, an unfounded defamation of my integrity was the sole perpetrator of my professional demise in the London theatre scene. I was forced to leave, and abruptly absconded for America’s fresh new stages beaconing experienced classic actors such as myself.

Well, as it were, upon my arrival and establishment “stateside”, the cruel hand of fate dealt a swift and immediate blow to my new potential successes.  The ole-one-two, as these pugnacious Yanks here say, came in the brutish, moronic form of an uncouth young ruffian recently emerged onto my new city’s entertainment scene. He was a local and therefore by default a favorite amongst the patronage. His name was Roderick Hyde, and he was a vile, loathsome human being. He quickly became both my vexation and rival, personally as well as professionally.

You see, some months ago, I had followed my precious, beautiful beloved here; if not by her expressed consent, then by what I knew her heart’s precise and truest feelings toward me to be, despite the…the incident. Really, I feel I mustn’t need explain the shameful details.  

Prior to her departure to these United States, we had come to terms and, to my surmise, we’d mended our relationship. She was compelled by an offer she could not reasonably refuse, to the betterment of her career. It was in fact, an associate of mine from the old days in Belfast who had “made it big” in Baltimore, and wanted references for female leads. Monique was beautifully young, most alluring, and elegantly French. The American stage would adore her.  

I was instrumental in refining her youthful exuberance into a growing talent, but I could influence her no longer. She turned away from me and her departure for the “new world” was the next beginning; an opportunity for her to cross the pond and be a star, a big fish in a little pond as her new manager had presented it. A line indeed if ever I heard one. Well, she was hooked and rather well I should say. She left immediately. 

But, I digress. We were speaking, I believe, of that rotter Roderick. He casually insisted on colloquial, falsely gregarious, urging “Call me Rod”. I think not! With Monique it was “Roddy”. On set, he so carried on about her lyrical Parisian patois. His obtusely obvious pursuit of her affections was maddening and I could say nothing for fear of upsetting my sweet Monique. I saw her taken by his guile. I can only assume women found him handsome by the stolen looks and winking titters from Emily and the other troupe females. He was admittedly much younger than I, closer to Monique’s age. Neither here nor there, just as his perceived attractiveness and masculinity. The crux of it was his underhanded deviousness and untrue charm, hoodwinking everyone but me. Thusly and much to my chagrin, this talentless hack won the lead in Holliday Street Theatre’s grand opening, and I, the renowned Edmund Thomas Neill Kean,  had become his understudy.  

Of course, I seethed. Watching this buffoon bugger up Shakespeare as he did, night after night, raping my mother tongue, then to see both Monique and the director fawn and flatter and fuss for this uninspired drivel factory; my soul wept. With opening night quickly approaching, through six dismal hours of dress rehearsals shambled by this rank amateur’s complete incompetence, I could stay silent no longer.  After an ineffectual confrontation with the assistant director Thom, a usually reasonable chap, I bruskly left the stage unsated and bitterly frustrated.

Leaving, I spied Roderick beyond the theatre skirts making his way out the backstage door. I approached him and easily convinced him of my utmost respect for his mastery of our craft, achieved at such a young age. Why you must be alongside those few of us born with true talent. I sycophantically offered myself and my purse for a few after-hours celebratory libations. I knew of a tavern, I said, just blocks around the square, I had “stumbled upon” (haw-haw) during my nightly forays around my new flat’s neighborhood. He accepted.

On the short jaunt we spoke lightly about the show, our distinctly differing backgrounds and interests, our cast acquaintances. Here he pointedly mentioned our common bond, not the theatre, but Monique. And it was here at this very moment that I decided and devised my campaign to eliminate this disquieting annoyance from my life.

I led him down a cut-through, and in that disgusting, fetid, rubbish-strewn alleyway I confronted my new mate Rod, with my distaste for his futile pursuit of Monique. He denied none of my accusations, with the added gall to inform me, from his twisted perceptions, of Monique’s deepest wishes; she wanted nothing more to do with me. She both pitied and reviled me and grew disgusted by my foppish preening and self-aggrandizing ego. Then he spoke an added insult, her private confession of what had for her, regrettably, transpired between us back in England. He called me a lecherous Svengali, while besmirching Monique’s ladyship in crude terms and callous smugness.

I could do nothing, but defend my woman’s honor and glove slap his lying face. While the truest meaning of the gesture was surely lost on this cretin, the intent was not. He picked up the gauntlet with eyeful fury and, well, the short of it, our encounter became quickly physical. He was larger, faster, and a much better brawler than I, but after a tight scrape and a twist of fate, the pinch of the game found my silver opera cane handle firmly lodged in the lout’s left temple. I stood over his body marveling at his unconscious wide-eyed gaze. Alas, he was not merely unconscious, he was very dead. The blow was swift, precise, and mercifully fatal; and luckily not too damned bloody. Considering my environs, undetectable disposal of the body was adroitly achieved. I do admit, it was a proper messy business, but I did find my unexpectedly brightening situation lifting my spirits.

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             Opening night! Oh, to know the soul of a performer. The excitement of course, you devotees to the theatre do feel gathering outside. Casting glances through the congregation of graceful elegance and splendor, you see familiar faces; famous celebrities, nobles of state, men and women of renown, they are all simply a mere touch from you. You stand in queue merrily; jostling conversation sparked with tension, tinged with electric expectancy, the collective questions buzzing…Will this show be good as good as they say? Will it live up to my expectations? Will I be moved? All this you feel as spectator and audience.

But the depths, Oh great ghosts you cannot presume to harvest the performer’s depths of emotion held prisoner, subjugated and controlled for release at precise moments.  Apprehension and dread held in equal check. The fear of failure, the anguish and elation of knowing years of dedication and perseverance may climax in the most successful event of your life; every opening night is thus for me, quivering raw with nerves, the calm façade of a supreme talent, trained and experienced in this most noble of arts. This is my mask. This composure has been forever my fame and forte, until tonight when it betrays me and becomes my ruination.

I stood silently off stage behind the second curtain, as I have been wont to many a performance, purveying the throngs filing in, milling, searching for their seats. Their latent energy is euphoric. I close my eyes and breathe in their ardour like an opium denizen inhaling intoxicating vapors.  Monique was then behind me, my senses acutely filled with her familiar Eau de Cologne Impe’riale. I turned to her, full of what I can describe only as ecstatic, ephemeral bliss, intending to envelop her in our shared aura, like on so many performances before. Our bond was eternal, unbreakable.

Woefully, I faced consternation, sensed anxiety and a tinge of anger, stronger feelings beyond typical opening night nervousness.

           “My dear Mona, whatever is wrong? You look so utterly disconcerted.”

           Sadly and particularly jarring in the moment, was her immediate concern for Roderick’s well-being. Where could he be? What could have happened to him? Her incredulity at this man’s ability to skip out, leave others in the lurch, and be the ne’er do well that he had proven himself to be, was touching for a heart sweet as hers, but was clearly misplaced. I explained to her, as I had many times before, like a schoolmaster to his young charge, that the man was simply no good. I knew from the onset that he was, beside the fact a bad actor, an uncultured, ill-tempered swaggard, interested more in attracting gullible females than plying his craft. For good measure, I also included my opinions on his lack of honor and courage, and encouraged her against bemoaning his sudden disappearance. I told her forthright, we all were much better off without him.   

To my horror and bewilderment, this information was received not with gratitude, relief, and composure, but with a shockingly terrifying barrage of vehement acrimony, vitriol and accusations the likes of which I have never been akin to.

One hand to her throat, the other to her mouth, she gasped, “It was you.”  Her eyes were haunted, her next words filled with hate and regret.

“This, it was your doing,” she said. “You did a thing to make Roddy go a way. I do not know ‘ow, but you did convince him to…to a-ban-don us. You will not say, but you did, I know in my ’eart.  Mon couer sait, amant. ” The last word she spat with contempt. Lover.

           I blandly denied any such thing. She stared for a long moment, stared so long I knew in my heart she touched my soul and saw the sins I had bore her, the vices at her expense, the vanities my days had become.  I felt a deep pained past well up through her and pierce my core. And then the words, those hurtful words; She hated me. She knew it now. She was sorry, for she acknowledged her stardom began with my tutelage, but I had always wanted and expected more that she would ever be fully willing to give. Our night together was a mistake. It would never happen again. My following her to America frightened her, but again, accepted my ever present professional advantage. She wished not to be ungrateful but our time was finished.  I could no longer grasp desperately onto something that was not there, despite the sacrifices I had made. She told me that after this show, she never wanted to see me again. She asked with pity in her eyes and disgust in her voice: Could I be the gentleman that I had always at least portrayed, and, out of whatever deviant form of love I could feel, leave her be. She asked of me, was it possible that never we meet again? I say there were tears in both our eyes when I answered yes, I would immediately after this run, leave her side forever. She would never see me again. I would “shuffle off this mortal coil” if only she would wish it. The show must go on I told her as I left her silently sobbing in the wings.

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It was…

SCENE 2. A bedchamber in the castle: DESDEMONA in bed asleep

…unbearable. The grave oppressive realization of my now broken fate had insidiously damaged my concentration throughout the entirety of the night’s performance.

 A light burning

Enter OTHELLO

My soul is rent asunder. I am wrecked. The tearing anguish Othello feels at his wife’s betrayal, seeing her prostrate there on the bed, my Monique. For the very first time in my life, from the moment I set foot on the stage some thirty-five years ago, I have never felt a character such as this, while at the same time, losing all composure.

OTHELLO I know not where is that Promethean heat that can thy light relume. When I have plucked thy rose, it needs must wither. I’ll smell it on the tree. O balmy breath, that doth almost persuade justice to break her sword!

I have spoken the lines a hundred times over, committed to ethereal memory. Involuntary control envelops my mind. Still, my thoughts drift as they have ever since, to our last parting words so present in the darkest corners, pushed to the forefront with this scene played out.  This scene is final, the play nears end, my last time with her, banished from her life.

He kisses her.

And there, brilliance again, her once coquettish eyes searching, clouded with confusion and, I would say, not quite yet startled. Oh such a sublime performance to equal mine; for she knows what is to come, but still holds her emotions in reserve. 

DESDEMONA Talk you of killing?

OTHELLO Ay, I do. He hath confessed. That he hath used thee.

DESDEMONA How? Unlawfully?

OTHELLO Ay

DESDEMONA He will not say so.

OTHELLO No, his mouth is stopped. Honest Iago hath ta’en order for ‘t.

DESDEMONA Oh, my fear interprets. What, is he dead?

She weeps. Yes, she weeps stinging tears. A lament for this cad she has been unfaithful with…wait no, no. I know this like it is my soul. That is not correct. She…she weeps not for Cassio, but for her husband gone mad, jealously murderous, full of malplaced justice and judgment. NO. NO. That is not it. Her eyes tell the truth.

“Out, strumpet! WEEPEST THOU FOR HIM TO MY FACE?”

And straight off, I am undone. It is not the time for shouting, there is a subtlety required here; my composure wanes beyond control. I must collect my sensibilities. I tell myself, “Get a hold of yourself man, you’ve a job to do.”

I breathe deeply as I press the pillow to her face.

Clap.

Clap.

Clap.

The applause is singular, muffled. I turn my head toward the audience. They are paralyzed with rapt attention. As one body whole, they hold their breath like at collective gasp’s finish, but no movement they make. Only Monique fidgets under my grasp.

Clap.

Clap.

Clap.

Slow. Methodic. Meaningful. Beaconing.

I look up, beyond stage right, and see him, Roderick. He would seem quite dashing in his tuxedo tails, had they not been covered in dark gobs of congealed blood, dripping trails of pink and grey oozing brain matter. His face, while partially caved in, was still quite striking, albeit more pale than I remember.

Clap.

Clap.

Clap.

           There is a struggle, in my mind, yes, as I have been telling you, surreal these past few hours, yet so real that I now sense it, feel it corporally, strain in my chest and in my arms and in my hands; physically, a struggle for me to control my hands.

Clap.

Clap.

Clap.

My opera gloves; he wears my white opera gloves. They do shine brilliantly in the darkened wings. I watch him smirk and stand stock still, while staring, and applauding of course. So smug.  How did he get them? Did I leave them behind? Surely not, I was most thorough that night, retracing every step. I thought for a moment that quite possibly they may have already found his stinking body, but that is undoubtedly not the case. For here he stands, tormenting me once again. And he has incontestably come for my Monique, forever the rakish pursuer. It matters not.

Clap.

Clap.

Clap.

I must still have them, the gloves. It is unconscionable; the gloves he wears are mine.  No, I would be wearing them tonight. It is elementary. It is opening night. Othello would be wearing gloves as he strangled his beloved.

Clap.

Clap.

I will myself look down at my hands to assure myself of this very fact. My hands are bare, pressed deeply and forcefully into the pillow. Hmm, no gloves.

Clap.

“What noise is this?-Not dead? Not yet quite dead? I that am cruel am yet merciful. I would not have thee linger in pain.”

And the clapping ceases. I glance at Roderick. He gestures a sweeping bow, and mouths Bravo…Bravissimo!”

EMILIA enters stage left…And screams. The theatre erupts in chaos.

I look down at my lifeless Monique. I have pulled the pillow from her head, and see her porcelain face frozen in a smile…or is it a grimace, a scream perhaps. No matter.  I look to the scream, to Emily, bug-eyed and haunted, to the audience, my audience.

Around me, pandemonium, for what end I cannot imagine.

“I had forgot thee: Oh, come in, Emilia. Soft, by and by. Let me the curtains draw.”