By Kinkabella
Archived Here With Her Kind Permission

Sunday, August 07, 2005

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 playwrights, 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 besides 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 as I arrive 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 doorman, I stumble along the darkened passageway, past tables of burned down candles in wax encrusted bottles and mannequins draped in heavy velvet costumes. There are 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.

-=0=-

I looked back over my shoulder at the man I thought was Will Shakesplay, the man who in fact was none other than Sir Brandon - the Vulture! His mocking laughter still rang loudly in my ears as I was dragged by his four henchmen back out along the darkened corridor through which I had entered only minutes earlier. Their firm grips on my arms held me almost suspended between them; my feet peddling in the air trying to make solid contact with the floor. Every now and then I'd kick out at the legs of the men, but my attempts to trip them were futile and went completely unnoticed.

"Zenoria's Whore House?" the wizened old man guarding the stage door entrance asked. He grinned a twisted smile as one of the burly men carrying me confirmed the destination they had been told by Sir Brandon to take me to. I stared helplessly at the old man, my eyes imploring him to intervene and set me free, but he just stood aside and watched as I was rushed out into the darkened lane way beside the Newington Butts Theater.

Once out in the street I desperately tried breaking free from the grips the men had on me, but it was useless. "Help me!" I cried, frantically trying to explain my plight to an ale-sodden sailor who had stumbled out of the Chandler's Inn right in front of us. He squinted through his bleary, jaundiced eyes and then peeled his lips back in a broad, toothless grin. He started to dance a little jig, tripping and stumbling as he raised an arm in a pantomimed performance of valor - a Knight about to rescue a maiden in distress. But one of Sir Brandon's henchmen pushed him aside by his forehead and he fell as easily as if a feather had knocked him down. He was still laughing loudly as he dropped in a crumpled, urine and ale stained heap of arms and legs on the ground.

We rounded the corner beside the Inn and stepped up into the foyer of a smoky den. A woman dressed in nothing more than a white satin whalebone corset and bloomers stood casually in the doorway, smoking a cigar and adding to the red illuminated haze of the smoke already inside. She nodded at the Sir Brandon's men and let them past without questioning anything. By now I was in such a state of panic I could do nothing but stare back mutely at the woman. The licentious wink she gave me with one of her mascara encrusted eyes made my skin crawl.

I was half-carried inside to a small room just off to one side of the entrance hallway. Under different circumstances I might have been enthralled by its oriental decor; the plush red and gold Persian carpets on the floor; the exotically printed wallpapers; soft flickering candlelight through red tinted, paneled glass lanterns. It was in this room I was finally allowed to stand although the hulking presence of the Sir Brandon's four henchmen remained semi-circled around me to prevent my escape from the room.

"We have another one for you, Madam Zenoria," one of the men said on the arrival of a buxom, apple-shaped woman. Forthright in front and outright behind...