The Donut Problem

Ricardo did not fit in the harness. Like, he really didn’t fit in the harness. 

“I thought I told you to cut the donuts out of your morning routine,” Julian said, fighting to keep the anxiety and frustration from poking their ugly heads out. 

“I did Mr. Julian.”

“Like hell you did. This whole ending doesn’t work if my Willy Loman can’t fit into the harness.”

Julian could hear his voice echo on the large stage housed in Allen Theater, the main performance space located in Playhouse Square in Cleveland. Julian turned his back to Ricardo and the other actors and walked to the front of the stage. There was no one there but it felt like the eyes of the world were on him.

“Okay, fuck it. Lets go over the final scene as if you could fit into the fucking harness.”

The cast lines up and Ricardo stands in the middle. He was dressed in an all white suit that looked like something a bougie salesman would wear. 

“Okay so the chorus begins to sing.”

Ava Maria begins to play in the back.

“Right and everyone is crying. Linda Loman recites her lines.”

“Why did you do it?” Sophia, the actress playing Linda recited. “I search and search and I search, and I can’t understand it, Willy. I made the last payment on the house today. Today, dear. And there’ll be nobody home. We’re free and clear. We’re free.” 

Ricardo strikes a pose, as if he’s right above Linda. 

“Okay hold on. Hold on,” Julian said, growing visibly frustrated.

“What?” Sophia asked.

“Sophia, you were great honey. Ricardo what the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m posing like I would if the play was live?”

“No you’re not. What you’re doing is phoning it in. What does the script say? What does it say?”

“Give me a break, man.”

“It says Willy floats as if he’s transcended the boundaries of earth and heaven. His aura emanates throughout the theater as if his existence on earth finally had purpose,” Julian said looking at the script. “Do you understand?”

A silence fills the theater.

“I guess I don’t,” Ricardo replied after waiting too long for Julian to break the stalemate.

“No you don’t,” Julian sighed. “Okay, everyone, lets call it here. I have some work to do. I want everyone back here bright and early so we can go over the second act again.”

He stops and turns to Ricardo.

“And we have two weeks before the premier of this play. Cut the fucking donuts out of your system and go running every morning or so help me god I will strangle you in your sleep. You understand?” 

“Yes Mr. Julian.”

Playhouse square felt more like a hostile environment in the three months he’s occupied it with his theater troupe. He was not the director of the recent revival of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” he was an invader in a foreign land. Which is something he never felt during his day jobs as the resident theater critic for the Yankee Review, a national paper covering the arts, culture and national policy. 

The thing is, Julian delighted in the uneasy feeling he felt whenever he walked into a theater to review a production. A syndicated columnist, he had developed a reputation for being brutal in his reviews of big name productions and he took pride in it. The theater world fear him. One time, he wrote a review so scathing that the play closed three days after his article was published. 

His only regret is that it didn’t close sooner.

However, in recent years, he noticed a change in the aura of the theater. His reviews had started to get less and less space in the Sunday Review. His editors told him it was because of a waning interest in the arts. Theater had gone through a series of deaths and revivals over the years and the pandemic made things worse. When doors finally reopened, he found himself writing more and more viciously. The meaner he wrote, the more blood he drew, the more carnage he created, the more traffic and headlines he made. 

All of this came to a head after a review he wrote about a new play written and directed by one of his favorite subjects to write about Max Klinsky. Julian thought Klinsky was drab, though his plays put butts in seats in theaters from New York all the way to Los Angeles. He mainly wrote dramas about delusion and entitlement. His most recent play, The House of Sticks and Stones, a drama about a family forced to work off a debt earned rave reviews from the New York Times, The New Yorker and Time Magazine. Not the Yankee Review.

“The House of Sticks and Stones was so boring, I often contemplated blowing my brains out on stage during the performance just to provide an ounce of color to the bland performance.”

It was the most viewed article on the review for two months straight. It was so controversial, it inspired think pieces published in the New York Times, the New Yorker and was prominently featured in an episode Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. He loved every minute of it - it felt like he skyrocketed past whatever he was before the review into some sort of super stardom.

Right when he felt like it couldn’t get any better, one of the op-ed written about his review was from the subject of said review, Klinsky. Julian felt the article was pathetic and boring, much like Klinsky’s overall work. However, at the end, Klinsky did something Julian was not expecting to see. He bet the rights to everyone of his works, if the so called “God of Carnage” could successfully revive any play of his choice. 

To him, doing the play was an easy decision.

Now, he was not so certain. 

He felt a silent relief as he reached his office, though that feeling wouldn’t last long. As he opened the door to his private room, he heard the click of a revolver, the hammer pulling back and a chamber realigning itself behind the guns barrel. Julian stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes followed the muzzle of the barrel up to the holder. Klinsky looked like he was ready to draw blood, his eyes wide with pure ecstasy.

“Hello, old friend,” he said with a snicker.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to watch the master at work of course.”

“Cute.”

“No, I’m serious,” Klinsky said, gesturing with the gun. “How often is it that you get to see a MASTER of the art in his element?”

“Is that a loaded gun?”

“Of course it is Julian, I figured I could give your revival some color if it tanked.”

“Can you give it a break, Max,” Julian said, walking over to his desk. “I’m not in the mood to listen to your painstakingly corny monologues. And put that silly gun away, we both know you don’t have the balls to pull the trigger.”

He could hear Klinsky chuckle.

“Aww, troubles in the temple? Having troubles with your star actor? Perhaps a big reveal at the end of the play isn’t going your way?”

Julian tensed, catching himself before it was visible. He turned around and locked eyes with Klinsky, who was no longer pointing the gun at him.

“Why are you here, Klinsky?”

“I am here simply as an observer.”

“Well...I’m here to please the masses, no?”

“No… in fact you’re not Julian. No one cares about this production, Julian."

“I command an audience of...”

“No one gives a fuck about you or what you have to say.”

Julian felt the fire creep into his throat but he fought to keep it down.

"You're wrong. Everybody likes my opinion of theater."

"Everyone has an opinion of theater," Klinsky replied, as if bored with the conversation already. "Hell that's all life is right now. Opinions on food, opinions on politics, even the news is mostly made up of talking heads with opinions. What makes you any different? Because you write for a paper?"

“I closed a play with my review.”

“The play closed because someone died during rehearsal. I thought you knew about that?”

“I…” Julian tried to talk but Klinsky interrupted before he could finish the sentence.

“Of course you didn’t. You were stuck in your own world. You probably didn’t even realize how alone it was until now.”

Julian turned to his desk, flustered. Klinsky leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his chest and inhaled. Taking a deep breath, he stretched his legs out in front of him and exhaled until there was no longer air in his lungs.

“I am also here on an assignment.”

“Assignment?”

“For a paper.”

“You’re reviewing my play,” Julian asked. “After all of that, you're doing a review. Who would want to pay for anything you write?”

“Well, it’s funny you should ask,” Klinsky said, putting his hands on his head. “It just so happens the Yankee Review is down a critic at the moment. I’ve been hired to fill that role.”

“What?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself. It’s beneath you.”

“They would never…”

“I always wondered what it would be like to watch something and then shred it to pieces. After your review of my play, I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to hide behind a computer and type words about someone else’s creation. To utterly destroy it.”

The light flickered in Julian’s room.

“I have to say, I thought you were bold when you wrote that line about killing yourself in the review. But now… seeing this production… your revival? You must really have a death wish.”

“Is this an attempt at threatening me?”

“Oh god no. But come on, you made revisions to Miller’s play? You have Willy Loman hovering over his own grave while a church choir recites Ava Maria in the background. I mean Jesus Christ, Julian."

“It was an artistic decision.”

“Art? You might as well have hit them over the head with metaphor like that one film…. What was it called… ‘Mother!’ by Darren Aronofsky. It astonishes me that anyone would think you have taste in theater. Honestly I would be surprised if this production goes two nights, let alone one.”

“Get the fuck out of my office.”

Silence fills the room until Klinsky has had his fill.

“So I suppose this is goodbye for now. Good luck on opening night Julian.” 

Klinsky gets up and walks toward the door. 

“This isn’t over Klinsky. When I get through with you…”

“You can’t hurt me. All you really do is put ink to paper and even that is questionable… Oh and by the way, I wasn’t lying about the gun. It is loaded,” Klinsky said, his hand now resting on Julian’s shoulder. “Don’t use it just yet. Wait for opening night. When the lights come up and the theater is empty. Then you have my permission to use it.”

Julian didn’t even realize Klinsky had left, he was stuck. Before he knew it, it was time to grab dinner and get some rest before rehearsal tomorrow. He also needed some time to think about what he was going to do to the final portion of the play. He could make it work, he knew it.

Walking down the hall, he heard laughter coming from Ricardo’s room. It sounded like the whole cast had gathered. He followed the sound to his room and quietly stuck his head in. He saw the whole cast, laughing while Ricardo was mocking their interaction earlier in the day. Ricardo noticed him but didn’t say anything, he was the only one facing the door. 

He continued to mock Julian as he reached for something on the table. Locking eyes with Julian, he reached up and opened his jaw as the group laughed hysterically and put something in his mouth. He clamped down and began chewing. It took Julian a minute before he realized what it was.

A donut.