2.
The day which Mr Pilkington had selected for his visit to the
provinces was a Tuesday. "The Rose of America" had opened at
Rochester on the previous night, after a week at Atlantic City in its
original form and a week at Baltimore in what might be called its
second incarnation. Business had been bad in Atlantic City and no
better in Baltimore, and a meager first-night house at Rochester had
given the piece a cold reception, which had put the finishing touches
to the depression of the company in spite of the fact that the
Rochester critics, like those of Baltimore, had written kindly of the
play. One of the maxims of the theatre is that "out-of-town notices
don't count," and the company had refused to be cheered by them.
It is to be doubted, however, if even crowded houses would have
aroused much response from the principals and chorus of "The Rose of
America." For two weeks without a break they had been working under
forced draught, and they were weary in body and spirit. The new
principals had had to learn parts in exactly half the time usually
given for that purpose, and the chorus, after spending five weeks
assimilating one set of steps and groupings, had been compelled to
forget them and rehearse an entirely new set. From the morning after
the first performance at Atlantic City, they had not left the theatre
except for sketchy half-hour meals.
Jill, standing listlessly in the wings while the scene-shifters
arranged the second act set, was aware of Wally approaching from the
direction of the pass-door.
"Miss Mariner, I believe?" said Wally. "I suppose you know you look
perfectly wonderful in that dress? All Rochester's talking about it,
and there is some idea of running excursion trains from Troy and
Utica. A great stir it has made!"
Jill smiled. Wally was like a tonic to her during these days of
overwork. He seemed to be entirely unaffected by the general
depression, a fact which he attributed himself to the happy accident
of being in a position to sit back and watch the others toil. But in
reality Jill knew that he was working as hard as any one. He was
working all the time, changing scenes, adding lines, tinkering with
lyrics, smoothing over principals whose nerves had become strained by
the incessant rehearsing, keeping within bounds Mr Goble's passion
for being the big noise about the theatre. His cheerfulness was due
to the spirit that was in him, and Jill appreciated it. She had come
to feel very close to Wally since the driving rush of making over
"The Rose of America" had begun.
"They seemed quite calm tonight," she said. "I believe half of them
were asleep."
"They're always like that in Rochester. They cloak their deeper
feelings. They wear the mask. But you can tell from the glassy look
in their eyes that they are really seething inwardly. But what I came
round about was--(a)--to give you this letter . . ."
Jill took the letter, and glanced at the writing. It was from Uncle
Chris. She placed it on the axe over the fire-buckets for perusal
later.
"The man at the box-office gave it to me," said Wally, "when I looked
in there to find out how much money there was in the house tonight.
The sum was so small that he had to whisper it."
"I'm afraid the piece isn't a success."
"Nonsense! Of course it is! We're doing fine. That brings me to
section (b) of my discourse. I met poor old Pilkington in the lobby,
and he said exactly what you have just said, only at greater length."
"Is Mr Pilkington here?"
"He appears to have run down on the afternoon train to have a look at
the show. He is catching the next train back to New York! Whenever I
meet him, he always seems to be dashing off to catch the next train
back to New York! Poor chap! Have you ever done a murder? If you
haven't, don't! I know exactly what it feels like, and it feels
rotten! After two minutes conversation with Pilkington, I could
sympathize with Macbeth when he chatted with Banquo. He said I had
killed his play. He nearly wept, and he drew such a moving picture of
a poor helpless musical fantasy being lured into a dark alley by
thugs and there slaughtered that he almost had me in tears too. I
felt like a beetle-browed brute with a dripping knife and hands
imbrued with innocent gore."
"Poor Mr Pilkington!"
"Once more you say exactly what he said, only more crisply. I
comforted him as well as I could, told him all for the best and so
on, and he flung the box-office receipts in my face and said that the
piece was as bad a failure commercially as it was artistically. I
couldn't say anything to that, seeing what a house we've got tonight,
except to bid him look out to the horizon where the sun will shortly
shine. In other words, I told him that business was about to buck up
and that later on he would be going about the place with a sprained
wrist from clipping coupons. But he refused to be cheered, cursed me
some more for ruining his piece, and ended by begging me to buy his
share of it cheap."
"You aren't going to?"
"No, I am not--but simply and solely for the reason that, after that
fiasco in London, I raised my right hand--thus--and swore an oath
that never, as long as I lived, would I again put up a cent for a
production, were it the most obvious cinch on earth. I'm gun-shy. But
if he does happen to get hold of any one with a sporting disposition
and a few thousands to invest, that person will make a fortune. This
piece is going to be a gold-mine."
Jill looked at him in surprise. With anybody else but Wally she would
have attributed this confidence to author's vanity. But with Wally,
she felt, the fact that the piece, as played now, was almost entirely
his own work did not count. He viewed it dispassionately, and she
could not understand why, in the face of half-empty houses, he should
have such faith in it.
"But what makes you think so? We've been doing awfully badly so far."
Wally nodded.
"And we shall do awfully badly in Syracuse the last half of this
week. And why? For one thing, because the show isn't a show at all at
present. That's what you can't get these fatheads like Goble to
understand. All they go by is the box-office. Why should people flock
to pay for seats for what are practically dress rehearsals of an
unknown play? Half the principals have had to get up in their parts
in two weeks, and they haven't had time to get anything out of them.
They are groping for their lines all the time. The girls can't let
themselves go in the numbers, because they are wondering if they are
going to remember the steps. The show hasn't had time to click
together yet. It's just ragged. Take a look at it in another two
weeks! I _know!_ I don't say musical comedy is a very lofty form of
art, but still there's a certain amount of science about it. If you
go in for it long enough, you learn the tricks, and take it from me
that if you have a good cast and some catchy numbers, it's almost
impossible not to have a success. We've got an excellent cast now,
and the numbers are fine. The thing can't help being a hit.
"There's another thing to think of. It so happens that we shall go
into New York with practically nothing against us. Usually you have
half a dozen musical successes to compete with, but just at the
moment there's nothing. But the chief reason for not being
discouraged by bad houses so far is that we've been playing bad
towns. Every town on the road has its special character. Some are
good show-towns, others are bad. Nobody knows why. Detroit will take
anything. So will Washington. Whereas Cincinnati wants something very
special. Where have we been? Atlantic City, Baltimore, and here.
Atlantic City is a great place to play in the summer and for a couple
of weeks round about Easter. Also at Christmas. But for the rest of
the year, no. Too many new shows are tried out there. It makes the
inhabitants wary. Baltimore is good for a piece with a New York
reputation, but they don't want new pieces. Rochester and Syracuse
are always bad. 'Follow the Girl' died a hideous death in Rochester,
and it went on and played two years in New York and one in London. I
tell you--as I tried to tell Pilkington, only he wouldn't
listen--that this show is all right. There's a fortune in it for
somebody. But I suppose Pilkington is now sitting in the smoking-car
of an east-bound train, trying to get the porter to accept his share
in the piece instead of a tip!"
If Otis Pilkington was not actually doing that, he was doing
something like it. Sunk in gloom, he bumped up and down on an
uncomfortable seat, wondering why he had ever taken the trouble to
make the trip to Rochester. He had found exactly what he had expected
to find, a mangled caricature of his brain-child playing to a house
half empty and wholly indifferent. The only redeeming feature, he
thought vindictively, as he remembered what Roland Trevis had said
about the cost of musical productions, was the fact that the new
numbers were undoubtedly better than those which his collaborator had
originally supplied.
And "The Rose of America," after a disheartening Wednesday matinee
and a not much better reception on the Wednesday night, packed its
baggage and moved to Syracuse, where it failed just as badly. Then
for another two weeks it wandered on from one small town to another,
up and down New York State and through the doldrums of Connecticut,
tacking to and fro like a storm-battered ship, till finally the
astute and discerning citizens of Hartford welcomed it with such a
reception that hardened principals stared at each other in a wild
surmise, wondering if these things could really be: and a weary
chorus forgot its weariness and gave encore after encore with a snap
and vim which even Mr Johnson Miller was obliged to own approximated
to something like it. Nothing to touch the work of his choruses of
the old days, of course, but nevertheless fair, quite fair.
The spirits of the company revived. Optimism reigned. Principals
smiled happily and said they had believed in the thing all along. The
ladies and gentlemen of the ensemble chattered contentedly of a
year's run in New York. And the citizens of Hartford fought for
seats, and, if they could not get seats, stood up at the back.
Of these things Otis Pilkington was not aware. He had sold his
interest in the piece two weeks ago for ten thousand dollars to a
lawyer acting for some client unknown, and was glad to feel that he
had saved something out of the wreck.
