The Method Actor

‘What’s the deal with this bloke you sent me, Ron? I’ve got his resumé in my hand, and frankly it’s thinner than my wife’s skin. A corpse in Casualty, a rioter in Silent Witness, several ‘passers-by,’ and — oh! fucking stellar! A speaking part in an arthouse silent movie, for which his only verbal contribution was to say, “The End.”'

‘I hear you,’ said Ron Lumet, agent to the stars. ‘But you have to admit, he is seriously handsome. The man’s a vision. Never seen anything like him. Not so much as an open pore.’

‘Can’t be denied’ said Vinnie. ‘I look at him and I wonder if I’m the same sex.’ 

‘And he can sing!’ Imagine Caruso and Tom Jones in one perfect torso. And listen, Vinny - breeches ….’

‘Eh?’

‘Breeches, Vinny! Put him in a pair of tight pants, throw in a bit of early 19th-century sexual tension, stately home, boating lake, linen shirt, and people will be saying ‘Colin Firth? Who the fuck’s he?’ 

‘I can’t fit all that into the Old Nell,’ Vinnie protested. 

That old fleapit? It’s haunted, you know.’

They all are, Ronnie. It’s just that in the Old Nell you can hear them.’ 

*****

Vinny Cockburn, impresario, pushed a rented key into the stage door of the theatre and was immediately assailed by the smell of dust and greasepaint, which made his nostrils thicken. I’ll have to get the cleaners in, he thought. The corridor was a long, unwelcoming preamble which had various stains on the walls and carpet, most of which had been eaten by silverfish. It was a dump, all this; the tiny dressing rooms, the poky barred windows, the broken lightbulbs around the mirrors, but it was Soho, not Broadway, and actors were used to slumming it. In fact, actors would do almost anything, suffer any humiliation, just to get their feet on the boards. 

But when Vinny walked upon the stage, and looked at the faded, glorious auditorium, he knew that he had been right to secure this three-month lease. He had a script, he had a steady stream of jobbing actors he could call upon, and he was even considering throwing in a couple of songs.

 And he needed to get moving because the opening night was due to coincide with Halloween. 

*****

‘Ron. I’ll take him. Lance Adler.’

‘The Adonis?’

‘Yep. I’ve got a couple of tunes in the bag —’

‘So it’s a musical?’

‘Kind of. Not really. Just at the beginning and end. I have to be careful. Copyright. But if Adler can sing like you say he can, it should bring in the crowds.’

‘His face will do that,’ Ron said. ‘Just get a few posters plastered up around Soho, and they’ll come. Young girls, old girls and every gay man in London. Even I fancy him.’ 

And Vinnie was thinking hard, excited by the prospect of being the person who gave a future Hollywood star his first real break —

‘Just one thing, though,’ Ron said, interrupting the reverie. ‘He’s a method actor.’

‘Correction,’ said Vinnie. ‘He’s an unemployed actor.’

‘Look, you know me,’ said Ron. ‘I know I’m his agent, but take my advice and don’t cast him in anything angsty. He’ll probably starve himself to death.’

‘Not what I’ve got in mind for him,’ said Vinnie. 

‘Good, good. It’s just there are a few rumours flying around tinseltown which might explain the lack of printed matter on his CV —’ (Ron left a pause which Vinny didn’t fill) — ‘that he was once shortlisted for a vampire, leading part, but he told them he’d have to sleep in the coffin every night to get into character. Bit of a no-no. Elf and safety.’ 

‘Understood,’ said Vinny, who hadn’t been listening. He just recognised the verbal full-stop. ‘I’m casting him as lead,’ he said. Ron whistled. ‘Six weeks’ rehearsals, one month on the boards. Gives me time to get rid of him if he’s total shite.’

‘On your own head,’ said Ron. 'What is it? What’s the show?’

‘Big secret, buddy boy. Big secret until the big night, even when handsome boy gets his face plastered all over West London. A theatrical lucky-dip. A voyage into the unknown.’

‘So long as you’re paying him, and I get my cut, break a bloody leg, mate.’

*****

First day of rehearsals, Lance Adler turns up and all the men wince and all the women swoon. Dimples, both sides, perfectly symmetrical. Modern British teeth, white without glowing in the dark. White, without screaming ‘I’m insecure.’

Hair, jet black with a little curl over the left eye. Built like an Olympic swimmer. Triangular. 

But when he spoke, Vinnie was again reminded of Joe Pesci. And the silent movie made more sense. And then he sang one of the two show songs, and Vinnie was thinking Pavarotti. Which really didn’t make sense. But then he noticed, as the days wore on, that Adler’s speaking voice was getting deeper. And Vinnie’s thinking, if this is method acting, bring it on. A couple of times, the gestures Adler was required to make onstage were replicated offstage. But then he’d snap out of it, and go back to being Lance Adler, who was, Vinnie had come to realise, as thick as a plank. On stage, barely competent. He wasn’t going to win an Olivier Award, but off it, it seemed that he didn’t know who to be. Everything to him was a role, however poorly played. The real Adler was physically solid, but essentially empty. 

*****

‘You know,’ Vinnie said to his wife, ‘I just can’t work out why Adler isn’t a singer. He’d be a multi-millionaire by now. If he was French he’d have his own monument.’ 

Eileen, who was better informed than Ron Lumet on both the production and the progress of it, dispensed one of her customary pearls of wisdom. ‘Because he’d have to play himself.’ Vinnie looked at her broad arse as she swayed at the stove, and thought fondly of the first time he’d shown her Adler’s publicity photo. Curiously, she’d given a shudder, and then tweaked her husband’s great, bulbous nose and said ‘I like ‘em ugly, Vincent. I always have.’ 

Nice. 

‘Who does he live with? she asked. 

‘His mother,’ said Vinnie. ‘Bit old for it, but London’s expensive.’

‘Is she still alive?’

‘What sort of question is that? Of course she’s bloody alive, woman.’

‘Not stuffed her then?’ she said, plating up. ‘Not in a rocking chair, looking out the window?’

‘He’s not Norman Bates, Eileen! Although, he does have a high-pitched voice when he’s not concentrating.’

‘Watch him,’ she said. ‘And eat your veg.’ 

*****

Rehearsals were going well, but Adler’s behaviour was causing incremental concern, like when a mother doesn't want to look in her son's bedroom anymore. The girl playing Johanna said to Vinnie: ‘He is getting seriously weird. I mean, he’s a god, but —'

‘You don’t fancy him anymore.’

‘Nooo’ she mouthed, her little pearly lips pursing. ‘He’s in his dressing room, staring into the mirror —’ 

'He’s an actor …’

'He’s in full make-up,’ she continued. ‘Grinning like a maniac and making motions with his hand …’ 

And Amy/Johanna demonstrated the motion. 

Vinnie wasn’t listening. Not entirely. He was going through the promotional material. Adler’s face, in its incomparable perfection, would soon be plastered all over London Town. In three days time, the lines would open and pre-bookings would be taken. He was brimming over with pecuniary anticipation. And still, the name of the production was not mentioned. He couldn’t present Adler as the draw he undeniably was, if he was wearing full makeup. The public were merely teased with the promise of a Halloween treat, and the cast were merely teased with the promise of unemployment if they blabbed. 

So he just said, ‘Uh huh.’ 

‘Check the props on opening night,’ she said, before leaving the room with a heavy, bubble-gum sigh. 

Half an hour later, Adler knocked on Vinnie’s door, sans makeup, and seemingly restored to his normal blank self. 

‘I’ve taken a part-time job,’ he announced. ‘We know all our lines, everything’s going well, so I thought I might get some real-time experience of the trade. I will be here for all rehearsals. Of course.’

‘Knock yourself out,’ said Vinnie. ‘But we’re opening in three weeks. I hope you’ve told them that.’ 

‘I’m not being paid. It’s a very casual arrangement.’  

When he left, Vinnie could have sworn he saw Adler make a jerky movement with his arm before closing the door. And a malevolent grin which would not have made it to the promotional material. Just a little flicker in time. Enough to make you doubt yourself. 

‘Weirdo,’ Vinnie muttered. 

*****

The posters created a wave of public interest. Some local papers even questioned whether Lance Adler was real or A.I. This was catnip for ticket sales, and Vinnie’s wife, who ran that side of things, exclaimed herself knackered by it all. 

‘I keep getting asked,’ she told Vinnie, ‘where this bloke’s been all his life. How could such a man walk amongst us without getting snapped up by Vogue. I’ve spent so long on the phone, my bloody ear’s hurting.’ She rubbed the gristle of her right ear to underline the point. 

‘What do you tell them?’ asked Vinnie, munching on his pie. 

‘I say he’s shy. What else can I say? He lives in his mother’s basement and he ain’t allowed out much?’

Vinnie laughed and nearly choked on a pea. ‘Ron Lumet’s rubbing his hands,’ he confided. ‘Thinks he’s Colonel Tom Parker.’ 

‘Adler’s hardly going to stay with him, is he! Not once he’s famous.’

‘That’s what they said about Elvis,’ said Vinnie. 

*****

The media frenzy made life difficult for Adler. As soon as his face hit the streets, he was a hunted man. He was forced to wear a mask when travelling to and from the theatre, where gangs of young women gathered to catch a sight of him. Heavies had to be hired. Expenses were mounting. Where Vinnie had once anticipated the benefits, he now calculated the risks. Adler wasn’t very good at acting. That was risk number one. Risk number two was more philosophical. For every gullible fool there were three wise guys, and there is nothing wise guys like better than to burst a big, over-promoted bubble. He knew this, because he was one of them. 

Two days before curtain-up, Adler’s behaviour got seriously strange. He had slipped so completely into character there seemed to be nothing left of the original host. It was disconcerting. The cast and crew were on edge. And that morning, he had arrived at the stage door with an old-fashioned wicker basket covered with a plaid cloth. After a full non-dress rehearsal, in which lighting was tweaked and mechanisms were oiled, Adler knocked on Vinnie’s office door and placed the basket on his untidy desk. With a theatrical flourish, he whipped off the cloth and there was a pie. A great big, crimped, glazed, cooked-to-perfection meat pie. 

‘For you and the missus,’ Adler says, in a snarling cockney accent. And Vinnie, whose mind is capable of creative fancy, called after the departing figure - ‘What was that part-time job you were doing, Lance?’

And Lance breaks into a wide, psychotic smile and says, ‘The barbers on Brewer Street,’ he said. ‘Next to the pie and mash shop.’ 

*****

Later, when Adler and the cast had left, he summoned a couple of guys from the crew to his office. ‘You’re going to think this is strange —,’ he began. 

‘Is that a pie?’ asked the lighting technician. 

‘Well it’s not my dick,’ grumbled Vinnie. ‘Adler gave it to me.’

‘Fuck,’ said the technician and the props manager, harmoniously. 

So they opened it up, and whilst it had all the consistency of a gala pie, if a little course, the dirty fingertips could not be properly explained as an ingredient Mrs Beeton would have approved of. 

****

A few facts. 

There was no Mrs Lovett-type figure in the pie and mash shop on Brewer Street. But the proprietors were generous enough to concede that sales had gone through the roof since Adler’s arrest. 

The barber shop next door admitted to employing Adler for several days, on a gratis basis, but they’d let him go when he nicked a customer’s throat with a razor and then asked if there was a trapdoor beneath the chair. They also generously conceded that business had gone through the roof since Adler’s arrest. 

Adler had made the pie himself, having killed and dismembered a poor vagrant. His mother was not at the house when the police made their arrest. In fact, his mother had not been at the house since Adler had understudied for the lead role in The Tragedy of Nero. Fortunately, he was never called to it, the number one emperor being in rude health, but who knows what could have happened? He might have taken up the fiddle whilst singing ‘London’s Burning.’ They were currently digging up the back garden looking for Agrippina, as Adler had been heard to call his mother in his cell. 

****

It’s all about The Method. 

*****

‘Sweeney Fucking Todd!’ was Ronnie’s response when Vinnie first told him. ‘Did I not tell you, Vincent? Did I not warn you?’

‘Yes, Ronnie. But it was a bit like telling a kid not to take his bike to a certain place without explaining the five hundred foot drop.’ 

The agent ignored this. Because it was true. ‘What are you going to do now?’ he asked.

‘I’m giving it up, mate. Me and the wife are thinking of opening a pie shop.’

‘Funny guy, Vinnie. Funny guy.’