The Laurel Players were an amateur company, but a costly and very serious one, carefully recruited from among the younger adults of all three towns, and this was to be their maiden production. The year was 1955 and the place was a part of western Connecticut where three swollen villages had lately been merged by a wide and clamorous highway called Route Twelve. It was the first time many of the Laurel Players had allowed themselves to acknowledge the coming of spring. "See you tomorrow!" they called, as happy as children, and riding home under the moon they found they could roll down the windows of their cars and let the air in, with its health-giving smells of loam and young flowers. Instead, trembling, they cheered and laughed and shook hands and kissed one another, and somebody went out for a case of beer and they all sang songs around the auditorium piano until the time came to agree, unanimously, that they'd better knock it off and get a good night's sleep. "Do that again tomorrow night," he said, "and we'll have one hell of a show." They could have wept with relief. In a long dramatic pause, closing one eye and allowing his moist lower lip to curl out in a grimace of triumph and pride. Sitting out there tonight I suddenly knew, deep down, that you were all putting your hearts into your work for the first time." He let the fingers of one hand splay out across the pocket of his shirt to show what a simple, physical thing the heart was then he made the same hand into a fist, which he shook slowly and wordlessly 3 Maybe this sounds corny, but something happened up here tonight. "We've had a lot of problems here, and quite frankly I'd more or less resigned myself not to expect too much. "It hasn't been an easy job," he said, his glasses glinting soberly around the stage. They hardly dared to breathe as the short, solemn figure of their director emerged from the naked seats to join them on stage, as he pulled a stepladder raspingly from the wings and climbed halfway up its rungs to turn and tell them, with several clearings of his throat, that they were a damned talented group of people and a wonderful group of people to work with. ONE THE FINAL DYING SOUNDS of their dress rehearsal left the Laurel Players with nothing to do but stand there, silent and helpless, blinking out over the footlights of an empty auditorium. ZuckerĪlas! when passion is both meek and wild! -john keats Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Yates, Richard, 1926–1992. Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks and Vintage Contemporaries is a trademark of Random House, Inc. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Little, Brown & Co., Boston, Massachusetts, in 1961. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. New York THIRD VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES EDITION, MAY 2008Ĭopyright © 1961, copyright renewed 1989 by Richard YatesĪll rights reserved.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |