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There
was very little by way of outward
appearance to even suggest I had arrived
at the Newington Butts theater. Its
facade, a windowless two story wood and
whitewashed limestone, was virtually
indistinguishable from the other waterside
warehouse buildings. I double checked the
neatly inscribed address on the letter I
held in my hand - the letter signed and
sealed with the red waxy stamp of Lord
Strange that had been hand delivered a
week earlier along with an invitation to
audition for a new play penned by that
greatest of playwrites, Will Shakesplay.
The address appeared to be correct and,
counting back the buildings from the
Chandler's Inn on the corner, it matched
the location in the diagram supplied. I
approached a large, solid oak door and
pressed my ear to it, hoping to hear some
movement or activity inside. There was
none that I could hear above the din of
drunken revelers resounding up the narrow
cobbled street from the nearby Inn.
I start
to pace alongside the front of the
building, looking for any signs of entry.
There's none to be seen and I would have
given up looking except on rounding a
corner into a narrow lane beside the
building I see a dim yellow glow of light
seeping out of an open doorway at the end
of the lane. Wanting to get through the
darkness as quickly as I can, I hitch up
my skirt and skip down the lane, carefully
sidestepping the multitude of shallow dark
puddles of water and the occasional empty
bottle.
"Yes?" a
tall, stooped man in shaggy clothes
startles me when he steps out of the
shadows just I arrived at the open
door.
"Hello,"
I say, my heart having leapt to my mouth
and blocked any sensible explanation of my
arrival from being uttered. I glance past
him and see the sign "Stage Door" attached
to the flaking paint of the open door.
"I'm hear for the audition with Will
Shakesplay!" I eventually manage to
mutter.
"Are you
just?" he says, clasping his whiskered
chin between his thumb and forefinger and
eying me in a strange sort of way.
"This is
the Newington Butts theater, isn't it?" I
ask, suddenly unsure again if I was in the
right place.
"Yes,"
he replies. His craggy face breaks into a
lopsided grin.
"I have
this letter," I tell him, waving the paper
at him.
He takes
my invitation but continues to look me up
and down for a long moment before turning
his attention to it. When he does finally
look at it it's only to give it a cursory
glance and he crumples it before pushing
it into the inside pocket of his vest
jacket.
"An
audition, eh?" he gives me a strange look
again like he's expecting some kind of
coded reply.
"Yes!" I
say. My enthusiasm is difficult to contain
and I start blathering on with my
rehearsed speech about my experience in
the repertory theater and how I had
studied all of Mr Shakesplay's works. He
cuts me off mid-sentence and ushers me in
through the Stage Door entrance.
I'm
pointed in the direction of a passageway
I'm told will take me up onto the stage
where I'll find the great Will Shakesplay.
Thanking the peculiar old door man, I
stumble along the darkened passageway,
past tables of burned down candles in wax
encrusted bottles and mannequins draped in
heavy velvet costumes. There's a small
number of steps to negotiate in the
darkness before I finally catch my first
glimpse of the stage and tiered rows of
wooden bench seating out past the
threadbare curtains that separate the
stage from the auditorium. A lone figure
of a man stands center stage, arms folded
and head bowed as if deep in
thought.
"That
must be Will Shakesplay!" I say to myself,
reluctant to break the reverential
atmosphere I feel starting to radiate from
the man.
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