Whispers in the Dark

          A girlfriend in Australia is in the middle of rehearsals for a play about King Edward VIII and his American love Wallis Simpson.  A very talented actress in her own right, she is also a great director…which is the hat she is wearing for this production of ‘Crown Matrimonial’.

          We two were very active in community theatre many moons ago.  Both as actors, directors and in various other roles…from stage manager, to property master to prompter.  There are no big heads in community theatre where it really is a case of being a rooster one day and a feather duster the next.

          So there we were discussing her production and, of course, the reminiscing about our repertory days snuck into the conversation.  In particular, the time I was left on stage with scrambled egg running down my face.

          The play was a plot twisting murder mystery with me playing ‘the other woman’ to a young man whose experience on stage prior to our production was nil.  But since males were always in short supply, lack of acting experience was not a big issue.  As long as they could learn lines they would be fine.

          My friend had taken on the job of prompt.  The only requisite for a prompter is a soft, clear voice and good sightlines of all the actors on stage.  In this case she opted to sit on the floor behind a fireplace façade.  The grate of the fireplace was filled with beautiful Boston ferns and looked quite lovely on the set. 

          Our community theatre was very small…intimate would be a more precise description.  It seated 200 patrons and the beginning of the audience seating was only a foot or two from the edge of the stage.  Very cosy indeed!

          The play was well underway when, after delivering a line I looked at my leading man and was struck by the frozen stare on his face.  I took a step towards him which somehow brought him out of his trance and, in quick succession he delivered his next two lines.  The problem with that was that I was supposed to insert my line between his two.  And it was crucial.  After all, we were plotting how to murder his wife!

          My line was ‘you mean suicide?’  But since he’d more or less already circumvented the need for me to say that, I was left trying to figure out what to say that would make sense and move the play along.  But our prompter thinking I had forgotten my line started doing her job.

          ‘Suicide,’ she whispered.

          I ignored her, still trying to work out what dialogue to use.

          ‘Suicide,’ she said in a stronger voice.

          I flicked my wrist sideways trying to get her to stop but succeeded only in looking like I was swatting away flies.  I looked towards the fireplace thinking I’d communicate my problem with a bug-eyed stare.

          All I could see was my friend’s face planted between two bins of Boston ferns mouthing, ‘suicide, suicide, suicide.’

          To this day, I still don’t know if he was trying to be helpful or was just frustrated by my seeming deafness, but a member of the audience suddenly yelled in a very loud voice.  ‘She said suicide.’

          The theatre erupted into laughter and I buried my face into my leading man’s chest.  As much to hide the redness creeping up from my neck as to stop my shoulders from shaking with a fit of the giggles.

          But, like true troupers, after a moment, we got on with it and finished one of the most successful plays our little theatre had ever produced.  Still, every time I see a Boston fern, I remember that evening and the heat pops up on my face again.  If I forget everything I’ve ever learned in my life, I shall never again forget the line, ‘you mean suicide?’