No Great Magic | Page 5

praying for
some mischance, some prodigy, to wash from my mind away the
bloody question for some little space. It skills not what: a fire, a tree
a-failing, Davison or e'en Eyes Leicester tumbled with his horse, an
assassin's ball clipping the cold twigs by my ear, a maid crying rape, a
wild boar charging with dipping tusks, news of the Spaniard at Thames'

mouth or, more happily, a band of strolling actors setting forth some
new comedy to charm the fancy or some great unheard-of tragedy to
tear the heart--though that were somewhat much to hope for at this
season and place, even if Southwark be close by."
* * * * *
The lacing was done. I stood back from her, and really she looked so
much like Elizabeth painted by Gheeraerts or on the Great Seal of
Ireland or something--though the ash-colored plush dress trimmed in
silver and the little silver-edge ruff and the black-silver tinsel-cloth
cloak lined with white plush hanging behind her looked most like a
winter riding costume--and her face was such a pale frozen mask of
Elizabeth's inward tortures, that I told myself, Oh, I got to talk to Siddy
again, he's made some big mistake, the lardy old lackwit. Miss Nefer
just can't be figuring on playing in Macbeth tonight.
As a matter of fact I was nerving myself to ask her all about it direct,
though it was going to take some real nerve and maybe be risking
broken bones or at least a flayed cheek to break the ice of that
characterization, when who should come by calling the Fifteen Minutes
but Martin. He looked so downright goofy that it took my mind off
Nefer-in-character for all of eight seconds.
His levied bottom half still looked like The Lower Depths. Martin is
Village Stanislavsky rather than Ye Olde English Stage Traditions. But
above that ... well, all it really amounted to was that he was stripped to
the waist and had shaved off the small high tuft of chest hair and was
wearing a black wig that hung down in front of his shoulders in two big
braids heavy with silver hoops and pins. But just the same those simple
things, along with his tarpaper-solarium tan and habitual poker
expression, made him look so like an American Indian that I thought,
Hey Zeus!--he's all set to play Hiawatha, or if he'd just cover up that
straight-line chest, a frowny Pocahontas. And I quick ran through what
plays with Indian parts we do and could only come up with The
Fountain.
I mutely goggled my question at him, wiggling my hands like guppy

fins, but he brushed me off with a solemn mysterious smile and backed
through the curtain. I thought, nobody can explain this but Siddy, and I
followed Martin.

II
History does not move in one current, like the wind across bare seas,
but in a thousand streams and eddies, like the wind over a broken
landscape. --Cary
The boys' half of the dressing room (two-thirds really) was bustling.
There was the smell of spirit gum and Max Factor and just plain men.
Several guys were getting dressed or un-, and Bruce was cussing
Bloody-something because he'd just burnt his fingers unwinding from
the neck of a hot electric bulb some crepe hair he'd wound there to dry
after wetting and stretching it to turn it from crinkly to straight for his
Banquo beard. Bruce is always getting to the theater late and trying
shortcuts.
But I had eyes only for Sid. So help me, as soon as I saw him they
bugged again. Greta, I told myself, you're going to have to send Martin
out to the drugstore for some anti-bug powder. "For the roaches, boy?"
"No, for the eyes."
Sid was made up and had his long mustaches and elf-locked Macbeth
wig on--and his corset too. I could tell by the way his waist was sucked
in before he saw me. But instead of dark kilts and that bronze-studded
sweat-stained leather battle harness that lets him show off his beefy
shoulders and the top half of his heavily furred chest--and which really
does look great on Macbeth in the first act when he comes in straight
from battle--but instead of that he was wearing, so help me, red tights
cross-gartered with strips of gold-blue tinsel-cloth, a green doublet
gold-trimmed and to top it a ruff, and he was trying to fit onto his front
a bright silvered cuirass that would have looked just dandy maybe on
one of the Pope's Swiss Guards.

I thought, Siddy, Willy S. ought to reach out of his portrait there and
bop you one on the koko for contemplating such a crazy-quilt
desecration of just about his greatest and certainly his most
atmospheric play.