Authors: Joanne Clancy
The room smelled of ashtrays, damp coats, sweat, cheap perfume and tired feet. This was not what Hope was expecting from The Abbey, Ireland's leading theatre company. The old theatre was dark and gloomy, except for the one bare, white, working light that was hanging above the stage. The brass rails which separated the orchestral area from the stalls glinted dimly. It was cold and draughty and the musty smell of damp from the ancient carpets and seating that wafted towards her, combined with the pungent smell of the primer from the stage flats, made her sneeze uncontrollably.
Hope felt daunted as she waited to be called for her audition. The minutes ticked away and she became increasingly nervous as she realised that she was about to perform on the venerable stage where the famed actors of the Abbey Theatre Company strutted their stuff but also where generations of internationally acclaimed actors had performed; actors such as Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne and Sinead Cusack to name but a few. She hardly dared to imagine that she might very possibly, one day soon, be following in their hallowed footsteps.
Suddenly, from somewhere deep within the dark abyss of the stalls a harsh, breathy Northern Ireland accent instructed her to begin. She nodded at her acting partner and began her performance as Pegeen in John Millington Synge's play The Playboy of the Western World. Hope summoned every piece of acting advice she'd ever been given, particularly the old adage that good acting involves changing the expression in the other actor's eyes whilst remaining aware of her own dual presence as self and character and aiming to lose the ego of self. She willed herself to interact and respond truthfully, not only to Synge's intentions as written for her role but to the way in which her fellow actor was expressing himself. Hope took a deep breath and threw herself heart and soul into her performance.
Finally, it was over and Hope stopped, believing that she had done her best. When she finished, Eamonn Moriarty, the theatre's oligarch came to stand in front of the orchestra rail and, with his little round spectacles glinting in the gloom. He politely thanked her for coming, spoke a few words with her in Irish and abruptly left.
“You did great,” the other actor, whose name Hope didn't even know, smiled kindly at her before quickly leaving her alone again on the stage.
“Thanks,” Hope gave him a watery smile in return and made her way outside to the almost blinding light of the frosty January afternoon. She set off on the brief walk to Heuston Station where she would catch the last train back to Cork.
“Darling, will you please stop fidgeting? You're making me nervous,” Niall peered at Hope over his computer as she continued to pace up and down the living room for the umpteenth time.
“I'm sorry, but I can't help it. This could be the most important phone call of my career. Imagine if I get the job, I'll have a permanent, pensionable acting job with The Abbey Theatre! Do you know what that means?” Hope's voice, in her anxiety, was reaching a dangerously high octave.
“You'll get the job, darling. I can feel it in my bones.” Niall tried to soothe his wife's addled nerves.
He went back to his computer and Hope continued pacing the floor of the apartment. Niall was exhausted from his wife's histrionics of the past few days since the audition. She'd been a dithery, jittery mess and their entire conversations all weekend had consisted of her constantly asking him for his reassurance that she would get the job. He certainly hoped and prayed for her success as he dreaded to think how she would react otherwise.
The shrill ringing of the landline almost made them both jump out of their skin.
Hope rushed to the phone and nearly dropped it in her enthusiasm.
She took a deep, calming breath, cleared her throat and finally answered the call on its third ring.
“Hope Kennedy speaking,” she squeaked.
There was a series of “umms” and “yes” and a few “of course” in response to the caller.
Niall waited with bated breath for his wife to finish.
The interminable call finally ended and Hope turned to her husband with a serious expression on her face.
“Well?” he stared at her expectantly. “Would you like to put me out of my misery?”
“I got the job! I am officially the newest member of The Abbey Theatre Repertory Company!” Hope squealed, jumping into her husband's arms.
“I knew you'd do it,” Niall laughed at his wife's delight and covered her face in kisses.
“The only problem is that they want me to join immediately. I thought I'd have a few days, at least, to get used to the idea but one of the actresses on staff has been offered a film role and she can't be released to take up the offer unless a substitute actress is found, so they've decided that I should be her substitute.”
Niall blinked in an effort to digest what she was saying.
“Will that mean you'll be spending most of the week away from home, working in Dublin?” he asked.
“Not necessarily, I can commute. It's only a two hour train trip from Cork to Dublin and besides, you're hardly ever here anyway.” Hope didn't appreciate Niall trying to dampen her exuberance.
“I'm working. You make it seem as if I'm partying when I'm actually on business,” Niall replied defensively.
“Well, I'll be working too,” Hope stared defiantly at him.
“It seems as if you've made your mind up.”
“I'm not going to let this golden opportunity pass me by just so I can be here keeping house for you whenever you decide to drop by. I hardly saw you over Christmas and you thought it was too much of an effort to even telephone me. New Year's Eve was a total washout too. I'm getting bored of being home alone counting down the days until you return. It's a new year and time for some New Year's resolutions, so yes, I will be taking that job in Dublin and you'll simply have to deal with my absences just as I have had to deal with yours.” She flounced out of the room leaving a flabbergasted Niall staring after her.
Niall rubbed his aching temples and groaned. “This is all getting to be too much,” he said aloud. “What am I doing?”
He thought back to the easygoing, undemanding Hope with whom he'd first fallen so madly in love. She'd been carefree and understanding of the pressures of his lifestyle, but her attitude was slowly but surely changing. She was becoming more demanding and questioning of him just like everyone else in his life. It was time for a change.
Meanwhile Hope was seething. “How dare he rain on my parade?” she cried to her mother, where she'd fled after her heated discussion with her husband. “I can't and I won't turn down this opportunity.”
“I'm sure Niall is very pleased for you, cherie,” her mother tried to console her. “It's a sudden change in your lives together, that's all and he probably just needs some time to get used to the idea of you spending time in Dublin.”
“You didn't see the look on his face, mama. He was only thinking of himself. Maybe he'll start to realise how lonely it is to be left waiting all the time.”
It was a dull, drizzly grey morning in February and difficult to believe that it was the first official day of Spring. Hope and Niall had kissed and made up, as usual, and they'd reached a heatedly debated compromise on their working arrangements. He'd agreed to spend more time working from his office in Cork and less time travelling. It would mean more time spent on conference and Skype calls and delegating some meetings to his colleagues. He'd insisted that he would still need to be there in person at the important meetings but he would make an effort to spend more time at home with Hope. Hope, for her part, had agreed to commute as much as possible to Dublin and to stay overnight only when it was absolutely necessary.
Hope was gorgeously comfy and toasty warm snuggled under her duvet where the pattern of yellow and green flowers on the bedroom wallpaper made her feel as if she was lying in a summer meadow. Dreamily, she remembered that there was something special about this day, February the first, but her brain was too fuzzy to quite recall. Then, sharp as a slap across the face, reality whooshed to the surface. Today was her first rehearsal, called especially for her in her new job as a permanent member of The Abbey Theatre's acting company! She was a fully-fledged professional actress and with that realisation came serious apprehension.
The rehearsal was to “read her in” to a show that was already in repertory. This was Hope's first rehearsal for “The Shadow of a Gunman” by the esteemed playwright John Millington Synge. Hope was to be inserted into the experienced cast to replace the actress, Tara O' Sullivan, who had played the part for so many years that she was now considered to be too old to continue playing younger roles. Luckily for Hope, although she was thirty four years old, she was still fresh-faced enough to play the part of someone in their early twenties.
Understandably, Tara O' Sullivan was not greatly amused at the handover. Tara's husband and many of her close friends were in the acting company; these were the people who Hope had to face that morning. They'd all done the play so often that they would probably already be resentful that instead of relaxing at home on that miserable February morning, they'd had been called in to run through the show solely for Hope, who they would surely deem an upstart neophyte who had parachuted straight into their midst from amateursville.
Hope had been so nervous about these twin perils the previous evening that, knowing she wouldn't sleep a wink, and never having taken one before, she gratefully accepted the offer of a sleeping pill from her mother. She hadn't wanted to be sleepy-eyed and jaded on such a significant day and, thanks to her amazing little helper, she had enjoyed a blissful night of solid, dreamless, worry-free sleep.
The apartment was quiet. Niall must have already left for work. Hope's alarm hadn't yet sounded but it did seem to be unseasonably bright outside.
“I may as well get up to face the music,” she thought. A bath, a bit of titivating and she would be ready to make a good impression on this most important of days.
“What time is it?”
Lazily, Hope extracted an arm from under the duvet to check her watch and apprehension immediately gave way to abject horror; he alarm had gone off but she hadn't heard it! Her rehearsal was due to start promptly at ten o' clock and already it was ten to eleven!
“Holy God!” Hope cried, leaping out of her cosy cocoon.
A torrent of vitriolic abuse was unleashed on Hope when she eventually made it to the theatre. She timidly opened the door, a speech of profuse apologies at the ready, but she was vociferously greeted by a small man, who she later found out was the play's director, Thomas O' Keeffe. He erupted like a volcano, spitting and yelling at Hope in front of the undoubtedly inconvenienced cast, who probably believed that she deserved his torrent of abuse.
Her fellow actors pretended to be elsewhere during the little man's ebullient tirade. They gazed out the window at the traffic below, closely studied The Irish Times, some were even knitting and crocheting. All this Hope observed while she tried to defend herself against O' Keeffe's vitriolic outburst.
Thomas O' Keeffe relentlessly persecuted poor Hope from that day. Almost every time she exited at whatever side of the stage, Thomas, who was a small man, smaller even than Hope, was there, waiting to accost her. If she was seated on stage during a hiatus in her own script, she would see him hovering in the wings, watching her, always within her eyeline. She would see his tongue flicking venomously like a snake's, in and out of his mostly toothless mouth and she would see the gleam of his bald head in the overspill from the stage lighting.
Hope tried to gather her shattered wits about her in order to make an attempt at getting through her character's tenderly evocative first scene. Unfortunately, she couldn't get through two consecutive lines, even in some cases a full sentence, without furious interruption and excoriation from O' Keeffe. Afterwards, Tara, the actress who Hope was replacing, took pity on her and kindly gave her some advice on how to play the scene. Hope really appreciated the older woman's tips but she was too scared and demoralised to take any of it on board.
Somehow, Hope struggled through her first morning. However, later that afternoon, during the dress rehearsal, when, as her character, Minnie, she was in the middle of delivering lines, she almost went into orbit with fright at O' Keeffe's reaction midway during her performance. He suddenly took off from his watchful position at the back of the stall from where he had been closely studying the play. He started
roaring like a demented bull. Then he raced to the front of the stage and attempted to leap over the railings in front of the orchestra pit. Hope truly believed that he about to attack her. She was slowly backing away from the stage when she realised that for once, his rage wasn't the result of anything that she had or had not done. His spittle-bubbling ire was directed this time at the wardrobe department who had dressed her in a voluminous white nightgown.
He was so incoherent that it took Hope and everyone else a while to decipher what he was yelling. “The dress is transparent under the lights!” he roared. “We're actors, not strippers!”
Niall and Chantale dissolved into uncontrollable giggles when Hope finally got to the end of the sorry story of her disastrous first day as an “official” paid and pensionable actress.