How to write “Laughton” ten times
and write the
beautiful word Plangent the
very first time
It occurs tom me,
and sadly, that there is
an entire generation who
know little about
Charles Laughton, one of
the greatest of stage and screen,
In London, that year, Charles Laughton, having taken up the cause of a new,
young, and not very good playwright, put his great influence and fame behind a
production of this young man's new play. Laughton would even star in
it. What an opportunity that was for us to see this great actor in person,
live, on stage! We could hardly contain our excitement when we found ourselves
at a matinee of the production in a West End theatre, the name of which I
cannot now remember.
Anyhow, the play began and we were at once drawn into the
magnetism of Laughton's personality, his peculiar body, and mesmerizing voice.
The play itself was of little interest: it was all Laughton, bumbling around up
there, snorting and huffing about in a depressing bachelor flat, the likes of
which London is replete.
Well,
quite soon, at Laughton’s every turn, there was a bit of applause and
silly, nasal male laughter. These
tenders of adoration became more and more frequent, louder, and disturbing, They turned into big
clapping, roaring laughter, and remarks on how he loved the play and Laughton.
The audience was terribly on edge and getting angry.
Suddenly, Laughton stepped out of character and called for the curtain
to be brought down. We in the audience sat in stunned silence-- until Laughton
came out from behind the curtain to the apron of the stage to tell us that he
really could not go on with this mischief in the audience and that the house
management would have to see “this fellow” out of the theatre before he could
go on-- and that he would be back when the offender was removed. So the curtain
closed on him, the house lights came up, the ushers found the seriously drunken
"fellow" and threw him out.
When calm was restored in the theatre, Laughton again came front to
tell us how sorry he was for this embarrassment to the production
and the theatre and that now he proposed to continue with the play if
that suited us in the house. He became so very charming and humorous, He asked
us what it is he ought to do. Should he go back and start again at the top of
the act? Or should he recommence right where he had brought the curtain down before?
He bantered with us, encouraging us to decide our pleasure. The finest
sort of happiness swept through the crowd: we were all simply and
over-whelmingly charmed. All that funny bantering with the great man. We
decided that he should start again, back where he left off. That was fine with
him; so he had the curtain taken out and proceeded to lecture us quite "sternly" like a funny
old uncle. He was, by God, going back into that set and climb up on that
bed and pretend to go to sleep and if he heard one peep out of any of us, he
would again stop the play and have us all thrown out into the street.
He then made a "big production " of getting
his fat, lumpy body up on the bed, smiled, and waved a cute little wave
to us out in the house and fell instantly to snoring.
And so, we had shared this once in a lifetime, intimate moment with this
great artist, a brief moment when we felt swamped in happiness. We went back to
watching him at his work in this altogether forgettable play, but suffused with
this gift that he had given us. Charles Laughton had recognized us, his
audience, with warmth and
generosity. He had shown us himself -- and recognized in us his life's
greatest treasure: an audience.
A moral to this story? I believe that we all attend
live performance with the shyly hidden desire to see something go wrong. One of
the joys of the theatre is to see how actors can get out of trouble, perhaps as
a model of the way we can, with an active imagination, get out of our own all
too real troubles in life.
~~~~
By
the Way: My boss at the British Drama League took Betty aside and
asked her how Americans made the good coffee of which she had heard. It was
revealed that Miss MacKenzie just kept on adding a bit more ground coffee on
top of that already used until the basket would hold no more. Miss MacKenzie
was a survivor of the not so remote
bombing of London.
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