Mask of Thespis
by
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Ben Stewart looked haggard as he came through the stage door. He checked the callboard sheet and was surprised to find Maggie was already there, she usually arrived on the stroke of half hour. He walked out on stage and glanced out at the darkened theatre remembering the rehearsals with Nicky Gordon. He could almost hear him saying, "Darlings, you must pull yourselves together." Ben tried to shake off the ghost of Nicky – Nicky’s voice vibrant, positive. He moved to his cue desk and checked the light switches automatically while his mind heard another Nicky, lost and sick, calling him last night when he was drunk, slobbering his apologies. Ben flicked a switch viciously. Just when I thought I was getting over him and then out of the blue to hear his voice, especially when he sounded so vulnerable. If he were nearby, hell, if he were in the States anywhere, I would have gone to him, Ben thought. But he waits until he has an ocean between us and then calls from England! Just to see if I’m still dangling, no doubt, and he slammed his cue book closed and snapped off the small light above it. He walked to the opposite side of the stage and made his way to Maggie’s dressing room and knocked. Silence. Probably sleeping on the small couch or more likely screwing the new Claudius. Women! What cows! *
Barbara had been troubled all day by some unknown foreboding. She tried to occupy herself but finally decided to take a walk in Central Park before reporting to the theatre early to run over her scene with the new shoes she was given after the strap had given way on the old pair. She kicked some leaves that had fallen on the path and watched some young boys playing touch football, their faces flushed with an excitement that seemed alien to Barbara. There wasn’t any reason to feel so depressed, she had taken her vitamins, the niacin should have helped any minor depression and the sun was shining, giving a warm promise of an early spring. Wandering into Doubleday, she browsed for a while but there was nothing that appealed to her. Barbara had a fleeting thought of stopping for a drink but then decided against it, she never approved of drinking before a performance anyway. Along Shubert Alley she stopped at several posters and shuddered when she saw the pasted corrections on the Hamlet poster. One covering Russell Thornton’s name was prominent as he had second billing. Walter’s was just a small strip among the featured players above Barbara’s name in the alphabetical listing. A large red banner cut through the top half saying: HELD OVER–BY AUDIENCE DEMAND!!
Again she shivered remembering the flood of interest the deaths had caused and Silverstein had removed the two-week closing notice. Despite the sun, the spring-like air, Barbara tightened her coat and quickly scurried into the stage door. She experimented with raising her eyebrows with make-up but didn’t like the effect. Good for comedy but not Hamlet, she thought and wiped her face clean with abolene and started over. Looking at her watch she realized she had one hour before curtain so she decided to work out her movements on stage. The new soles slid until she scraped them a little. Satisfied that they would cause no problem during performance, she headed back to her room but stopped at Maggie’s dressing room. I could use a cup of Maggie’s spiced tea she always has brewing, she thought as she knocked on her door. A moment of silence. Barbara opened the door a crack. "Maggie?" The glaring light made her squint and then Barbara saw her. The stage make-up made Maggie look grotesque with eyes frozen in a wide-eyed look of terror, her mouth was a charcoal and red hole; her body was slumped in a chair, head fallen to one side like a marionette with slack strings. No able to believe what she saw, Barbara stumbled into the small room and that’s when she screamed and kept screaming until she fainted, for the back of Maggie’s head was blown off.
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About the Book
A New York production of Hamlet runs into more than its share of problems–from the producer to the understudies. A puzzling death during rehearsals is compounded by additional deaths throwing the troupe into suspicion and fear. Everyone has their own theory but the truth is not revealed until someone is in jeopardy and a member of the cast unravels the mystery. But will it be in time?
About the Author
Norma Davison spent a number of years in community theatre, children’s theatre, Off-Broadway, Off-off Broadway and minor roles in television. Her New York City debut was with the New York Shakespeare Festival as ‘Portia’ in Julius Caesar. She counts as a special experience when she performed the lead in an English translation of a Sanskrit play, The Vision of Vassavatta, at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC and then New York City. She has also worked in national touring companies: National Repertory Theatre working in two classics with Eva LeGallienne and Margaret Webster and her last performance was taking over the role of ‘Regina’ for Margaret Leighton in Mike Nichols' production of The Little Foxes. Then she went into the business world working up to the mid-management level where she found there was more acting in the boardrooms than ‘on the boards.’ Ace Books published Norma’s first book Rievaulx Abbey. Poetry, short stories and food articles were published by small presses and had a staged reading of her play, Quite Contrary at the Bristol Riverside Theatre. Traveling extensively in Europe a number of times, she refers to London as her favorite city. Also, a trip to Tahiti and New Zealand is one of her cherished experiences. She has a hobby of water coloring, using photographs of her travels as her subjects. Norma has resided in Bucks County, Pennsylvania for the last fifteen years with her very vain crescent ring-necked dove, Heshe. Mask of Thespis is her second mystery.