The Golden Globe

Like quite a few dancers I've known, as soon as Roy left the chorus line he blimped up like a satyriastic's condom, twenty, thirty kilos above his boogeying weight. He claimed it was all by design, part of his scheme to be a more physically commanding presence, the other parts being his high forehead, white hair, and wrinkled face. A director ought to have dignity. I had done a little experimenting myself, the few times I had lowered myself into the director's chair. I'd helmed productions looking like King Lear, and like Shirley Temple, and got about the same amount of respect and attention either way—which is to say, very little.

And there's this about ex-dancers: I think a lot of them are just plain tired of being human greyhounds. The girls cultivate exuberant boobs of the sort never seen jiggling beneath a tutu. A lady with a butt like two BBs suddenly lets her hips spread out, finds she has something comfortable to sit on for a change. The guys turn into the spitting image of a nineteenth-century banker: prosperous, corpulent, paunchy, chipmunk-cheeked. The reason for such a delightful word as portly. And all of them like to lounge around like neutered house cats in the sunshine, thinking about supper.

"...and five, and six and seven and EIGHT!" Uncle Roy was bellowing over the roar of the orchestra. "And lights out! Aaaaaand... curtain, curtain, applause, applause, applause... okay, stop the curtain. Houselights, please!"

From far overhead a few harsh, unshielded work lights descended on cords, cruel things no performer would ever let into his house because of the ghastly effect they had on tired, sweating people in pancake makeup. It makes us all look like the charpeople those lights were designed to aid when they descended on the spilled drinks, crumpled programs, and wilted flowers, long after the magic had retired to wherever it is magic goes between performances.

These lights revealed a stage full of people in outrageous costumes, breathing hard, some sitting down, others leaning on friends. The shadowless, sourceless light had no mercy. Gold turned to tinsel, silver to tinfoil, diamonds became rhinestones. Every chipped nail and scuffed shoe was exposed. Pearly white teeth turned out to be flaked with lipstick.

When the magic is over, it's over.

"One hour for tiffin, boys and girls," Roy said, leaping onto the plank that spa

"So. What did you think?" he asked.

"All I saw was the Flying Dutchman number," I said. "How's your budget? Do you have elephants?"

"I've got elephants."

"Then I don't see how you can go wrong."

"Elephants? Hell, I got ten elephants. I got peacocks and horse-drawn carts, and I got horses guaranteed not to crap on anybody's tap shoes. I have a trained seal. I have thirty-seven set changes. I have three ultracopters to bring people in from the lofts, go

He paused to draw a breath, then leaned slightly forward and spoke in a more confidential tone.

"You know what I don't have? Ask me what I don't have, Sparky."

"Leapin' lizards, Uncle Roy!" I squeaked, in my old "Sparky" voice. "What don't you have?"

He leaned over even farther.

"What I don't have is an A

I tsked a few sympathetic-sounding tsks.

My sympathies for directors who miscast and then complain about it are severely limited. After all, it's usually me out there trying my best to make some pathetic hambone look good, and cursing the moment the little shit got into the mighty director's pants.

"Who is this up-and-comer?" I asked. "Was that Haynes?"

"Little Miss Drury Haynes," he confirmed. "Sparky, you know that montage in Citizen Kane, the one where the no-talent broad tries to sing grand opera and stinks up the place? That no-talent broad looks good compared to Drury Haynes. Or how about the traveling troupe in The Court of Babylon? Take the worst of those mugs and stand her up against Drury...." He finally ran out of steam. He glared down at his desk, then looked up at me again.

"I want you to ask me one more question, Sparky," he said.

"Roy..."

"Just one more. Ask me the name of the Grand Exalted Super-Flack of this particular Studio."

"Uh-oh."

"Aloysius J. Haynes is the good worthy's name, and he just couldn't be prouder of fathering little Drury, who thinks the musical theater is simply ripping, and who has wanted to be a singer and an actress just ever so long. And who has been taking singing lessons since she was three from a series of increasingly desperate voice teachers, at least three of whom can be seen this very moment sitting on filthy beds in the charity ward of Pandemonium General, gibbering to themselves, in restraints to prevent them from driving sharp objects into their ears.

"So when little Drury showed up at the auditions and the word came down that she was to be treated 'just like any other singer,' that's exactly what I did. I treated her just like any other producer's favorite daughter, and gave her the part. 'I can fix it,' I said to myself at the time. 'She'll get better.' We can mike her and cover it up. Or I can pull a Singin' in the Rain, have a real singer behind a curtain. Something. Only when I tried, she went ru

"And if you were still asking questions, Sparky, I'd ask you to ask me if I give a free-falling fuck anymore about the Word coming down, and you know what I'd answer? I'd say no. Because yesterday I found myself cleaning out my left ear with a very sharp pencil, and wondering what it'd feel like, and thinking it might not be half-bad. And in my dreams I see them making up the empty fourth bed in that padded ward in the giggle academy, and I see them putting me in it and murmuring 'There, there, Roy. There, there.' "

I admit my attention had drifted. Roy likes to hear himself expound, and this all had the sound of a set piece, one he'd honed on many an unsympathetic ear over the last few weeks. But now he stood up and leaned over the desk, putting his weight on his clenched fists, and he got my attention in about the only way he could have done.

"So how about it, old friend? The part's yours. Say the word."

I opened my mouth to say yes. Folks, unless you have the acting fever yourself you can't possibly know the idiotic things one will do to get a shot at a part he has never played. Or one he's already played, and knows he could do again, and better.