POLING: To be or not to be
Dean Poling
A TALE
“No one. Empty seats. Again. ... So far.”
Peter sighed as he closed the gap in the stage curtain. Another night without an audience. He had heard of acting companies having slumps but this was no slump. Not to be too overly dramatic for a Shakespearean actor, this was cataclysmic. A catastrophe. A tragedy of note, with no one to take note.
Though he spoke the words in a hush, Peter’s voice could not help but project and echo into the empty rows of seats and be overheard by others backstage.
“Did you say empty, Peter? Again? Another empty house?”
The aging Malcolm had tread the boards from London to Broadway in his youth but a love for hitting the bars too heavily during intermissions took a toll on his looks and his abilities. He had trolled small companies and ever smaller theatres for years, banking on the past glories of his resume.
Malcolm was, however, not above grousing about the fates and especially about his current circumstances.
“Coming here was a horrific miscalculation,” Malcolm said. “This is the most abysmal situation. Under contract to this dingy, rat trap of a theatre.”
“No one’s under contract,” said Ruth, the stage manager. “Especially you.”
“Tell that to my agent,” Malcolm said.
“You are your agent,” Ruth said. “You’re the only one willing to represent you these days.”
“Dreadful,” Malcolm continued, raising his right arm, his fingers outstretched and curled, palm bowled and bouncing as if weighing a small unseen object.
“Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles / And by opposing end them. To die — to sleep ...”
“You’re not Hamlet,” Ruth said. “You’re Polonius. Peter’s Hamlet.”
Slings and arrows, indeed, Peter thought. He would rather deal with slings and arrows, siege engines and “the thousand natural shocks / That flesh is heir to” than spend another evening dealing with Malcolm already deep in his cups before the curtain rises, Ruth’s withering sarcasm, another empty house and ...
“I must have better lighting, James. Something subdued, something ethereal that highlights my complexion.”
Margaret, the grand dame of summer stock, Queen Gertrude, mother to Peter’s Hamlet, cornering the lighting director.
“The lighting has been so harsh the last few performances that I feel transparent ...”
“More likely feels exposed, wrinkles exposed, fish pale skin exposed ...”
“What was that, Ruth?” Margaret asked.
“Five minutes to curtain,” Ruth barked and scuttled away.
“Peter,” Margaret said, moving toward him in her queen’s gown, “a word. What do you intend to do about this?”
“The lighting?”
“No, the lack of an audience. Where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why don’t you know?”
Why, Peter wondered, did she always ask him? He wasn’t really Hamlet. He wasn’t really the prince of Denmark. If titles and roles were the reason the cast and crew sought answers, they should ask Robert. He played King Claudius after all, even though Claudius kills his brother, Hamlet’s father ...
Maragaret continued. Peter’s mind wandered. She said something that stopped his thoughts.
“What? What did you say?”
“I said, Where are we?”
“Where are we?” Peter echoed. “Why we’re in the theatre, of course.”
Margaret tsked. “Well, of course, we’re in the theatre. Where else would we be? But where is the theatre? Where are we? Where are the audiences?”
“I ... don’t know.”
“When is the last time you left the theatre?” Margaret continued. “I can’t recall the last time I left the theatre. Can you? I don’t recall anything since last night, at curtain call. I don’t recall anything each day until you say ...”
“No one. Empty seats. Again. ... So far,” Peter repeated.
“Yes, exactly.”
Peter mumbled. “And now, Malcolm comes tottering out ... ‘Well, if there’s no one here, why must we take the stage ...’”
Malcolm appeared, a little unsteady on his feet, stood forlorn and wailed, “Well, if there’s no one here, why must we take the stage?”
Ruth tapped Malcolm with the thick script. “Because the show must go on ...”
“You moron,” Peter whispered.
“You moron,” Ruth said under her breath.
“Just like last night,” Margaret said.
“Just like every night,” Peter added.
“So where are we?” Margaret asked. “Where is everyone?”
“Places,” Ruth yelled.
Peter shook his head. “We’ll talk more about it after curtain call.”
“Didn’t you say that last night, too?” Margaret asked.
“I promise,” Peter said.
“Promises, promises,” Ruth muttered. “Barnardo. Francisco. Horatio. Marcellus. Places.”
The curtain opened. The actors playing sentinels and soldiers entered the stage.
Barnardo: “Who’s there?”
Francisco: “Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.”
Barnardo: “Long live the king!”
Peter watched. The actors go through their paces and their lines. Peter noticed the dust on the boards, the spider webs on the sets, the mildew on the pulled curtain, the chaos of the empty seats.
Outside, the marquee lights burst, blackened, disconnected from any power source. The i missing and the o slipped from the theatre’s name of Rialto.
The theatre’s doors locked, chained. A yellowed notice on the door, the property is long abandoned; a fresh notice, a public hearing to consider demolition for the long closed Rialto.
Dean Poling is an editor with The Valdosta Daily Times and editor of The Tifton Gazette.
