All That She Can See(84)
Slowly the lights fade up to reveal her body, centre stage. Her limbs are grotesquely twisted underneath her from where she has fallen and blood is starting to pool and trickle down the stage. The audience erupts into screams and people start to push their way out of the aisles, desperation and fear driving them forward. The crew and actors flood the stage but no one goes to her.
‘Get out of here, boy.’
He feels the hot, wet breath of the company manager on the nape of his neck and can smell the cigarette smoke but when he turns his head all he sees is the darkness of the wing.
‘Run.’
He looks back to the stage and he knows exactly why no one had rushed to her aid that night. He knows why there was a perfect circle of people around her and not one of them dared to close the distance. It wasn’t fear or the amount of blood pouring from her. It was the shock and horror of it all and the simple awful truth that there was no helping her. It was too late. He crouches in the wing, his tears falling onto the dusty floor and he can see that the light and delicious vulnerability that used to live in her eyes, the light that she so happily shared when someone happened to glance her way, was gone.
His muscles relax and she and all of the other ghosts shimmer and fade and the stage is empty and cold once more. His eyes sting and he wills himself to stop crying. He trudges back through the wing, his step heavy, and sighs at the thought of putting all the mirrors away. He has time though, so he walks past the mirrors, leaving them against the walls, useless to him now, and goes to his desk in his small room just inside stage door. Newspaper cuttings cover every wall. Each one contains news and reviews of various productions of When The Curtain Falls, collected over the years, and clippings of the headshots of its ever-changing cast. He opens the laptop sitting on his desk and it springs into life and by the time he has managed to sink into the armchair, several emails have already pinged into his inbox. He scrolls through but one in particular catches his eye. It’s from the production company that owns the Southern Cross Theatre and the subject line reads ‘Next In – CURTAIN FALLS’. His old heart drums against his ribs with more force than he thought it still had and his veins fill with fire. He opens the email with shaking fingers.
I am very pleased to announce that once Gone With The Wind closes, April brings with it a brand new revival of When The Curtain Falls. An obscure choice, perhaps, but we’ve discovered this play has a cult following, largely due to an accident that occurred during its last production which also happened to be at the Southern Cross Theatre. We think the combination of this connection and our new star-studded cast will pull in the punters!
We hope you will welcome our new family with open arms, as you always do. Attached is a cast list to help you get acquainted with them all. They start rehearsals in East London at the end of January and will be rehearsing in the theatre from February 12th, ready to open on April 1st.
Sad to say goodbye to such a successful run of Gone With The Wind but we’re all very excited here about this new production and hope you are too.
Kind Regards,