AT THE THEATRE
AT THE THEATRE (by Sydney Peck)
“Me mam says can you let her have a pound on this,” he said shoving a brand new pair of men’s shoes across the counter, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.
Fred eyed the footwear. It was for an old man, never worn and probably would never be redeemed. The storeroom was half-filled with such unworn shoes, going out of fashion and unredeemed.
He replied at length “l’ll let you have seventeen and six, it’s the best I can do.”
The boy nodded and Fred wrote out a pledge ticket, fingered out a ten shilling note and three half crowns from the till and, pushing aside a pile of similar shoes, he arranged the new pair on the counter space and added the ticket stub.
“Next,” he called. A round-shouldered young woman stepped up self-consciously with a ring.
“How much can you give me on this? It’s real sapphires. . .”
Fred poked his fingers into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a jeweller’s eyepiece. Widening his eyes as if in surprise, he screwed the plastic shape into his eyelid and frowned to catch it in a skinfold. He looked carefully at the six small blue stones.
“I can only manage two quid, love…they’re not real sapphires, I’m afraid. . . ”
“But me boyfriend said they were - he paid ever so much for it. . . “
“Well, he was cheated, love. Two quid is all I have for you.”
“Well, all right I’ll take it.”
The ticket signed, she left with the money, and he shoved the article in a small soft bag with its ticket.
He turned to Veronica and observed, “She’ll be back next week when he is due in with the boats.”
“Oh yes, Evelyn often does that ring stunt, shell get caught one of these times”
His wife offered him a cup of tea and they sat to chat behind the counter of the pawn shop. Trying to sound casual, she said,
“I see the there’s a show on at the Bijou next week Fred, will we go? I’d love to see it”
He puffed out his cheeks and made a blowing sound as he sighed heavily,“You and your theatre …well, I suppose so…what show is it?”
“Pinafore”
“Oh my God, not one of those ridiculous, wordy Gilbert and Sullivan shows?”
“Oh well, why not, Fred?”
Fred sank his upper lip deep into his tea and drew a large mouthful, stifling his urge to make critical comments about operetta. He’d been dragged to the Mikado and Princess Ida, and had dozed through both last year.
Veronica had had had a few drama lessons several few years ago before she was married. She’d tried theatre work in pantomimes and repertory and occasional new comedies/farces and some musicals but it had never gelled for her. She liked G&S in particular. The lyrics and melodies of their operettas were hummed and strummed into her consciousness at an early age. Her father sang them, mother played them, her aunt Emma breathed them through her teeth....all her aunts and uncles... sang them, solo and in unison, at the slightest provocation. She could also liked to dance and do some gymnastic tricks of balance, but she wasn’t really gifted. Vera gradually joined the ranks of small time professional thespians who never succeeded. Fred tried many things to discourage her theatrical notions because it clearly wasn’t working out for her.
“Forget your silly tricks,” he would say, “and let’s get married and have a family. We’ll just live off the shop.”
At last she turned in her grease paint and dancing pumps, and married Fred. But two children later she still retained a pie-in-the-sky love for the stage. Fred owned a very down to earth pawn shop in Blyth just off Waterloo Road. Theirs was a reasonable life with enough money, but not too much. And very little excitement.
They had two kinds of customer, the poor and the not so poor. The poor put their grandfather’s good topcoat or new shoes away for years. Sometimes the elderly owner of the item might die, or the ticket would get lost and the item would never be redeemed. The item itself might become unrecognisable to the surviving family members. If the ticket were later found, it was redeemed at the cost of the loan plus interest, and the unfashionable item was restored to the family, and was frequently a surprise the recipients. Young men of thirty might find themselves in possession of a splendid pair of leather gaiters, or a black silk top hat.
But Fred and Vera’s better-off customers didn’t offer topcoats or shoes on long-term pledges. They usually just pledged for a month or so to raise occasional cash for more expensive or fancy events such as weddings, holidays, or weddings or anniversary nights out. They pawned valuables like uncle Joe’s retirement gold watch or aunt Doris’s fur stole or earrings, not that these was of high Cartier-quality, for the jobs of Blyth in the boats or the mines didn’t pay that much. But their monetary value in pawn was significant enough to meet the cost of the fancy event.
Fred took the shoes in the loosely wrapped parcel and the ring in the small jewellery bag to a large room with lots of shelves and locked drawers in the back of the pawn shop and shoved them inside. On the way back to his tea he checked the small door into the window space. Here, some better class, long-term items, never redeemed, were offered for sale in their small display window looking onto Waterloo Road. But there were few customers for these things. Out of fashion, they were cheap but unwanted.
“Vera, I think we should change those displays in the window. They’ve been there for months. Those things don’t sell very fast at all.”
“I’ve been meaning to do it these last few weeks. . . we can do it tomorrow. There’s that new dress in the green silk, never been redeemed, and a pair of earrings to match. I’ll do it myself tomorrow, Fred.”
She retained a thread of the interest in fashion and the stage, and over the years the pawn shop owner’s wife habitually “borrowed” selected items put in for pawn. She would dress up just for fun in the evenings, or even going out shopping while wearing the stuff. Fred always kinda got annoyed at her dressing up for a joke.
“C’mon, will I get two tickets for Pinafore?”
Well, I suppose so, Vera, but I really don’t like them shows too much. But we’ll go - just for you pet.”
She got up and gave him a hug and a kiss. So the tickets were bought and the show was watched. It was somewhat mediocre. It was after all a small town show with local actors whom everyone knew. Nevertheless, Vera hummed the tunes all the way home. They normally went to about two shows a year in the Bijou: and Fred put up with it while she adored it.
One day in February the local paper carried an ad for local actors for a rehearsal for the Bijou’s production of Mary Poppins to be staged in May.
“Oh Fred, I just gotta try out for it, it’s the sort of thing I’d love to do!”
“Well, I think it’s pie in sky, but ok, go along there anyway and at least get it out of your system !”
Vera tried out, but she wasn’t selected.
The producer was about fifty and had a small nervous cough. “Ahem, it’s Veronica isn’t it? Good afternoon, Vera. Can you tell me a little bit about what experience have you had on the stage?”
“Well, I did rep for two years in Pudsey and some newer musicals in Acton. And I done quite a few pantomimes.”
“Ahem, yes, very interesting. . . anything in the last two or three years?”
“Nothing, ‘cos of family and kids.”
“Ok, I see. Thank you, Vera. Now let’s see you in action if you don’t mind? Can you read from the script over there?”
She had already practised a lot simply because she loved the music and loved to sing. So Vera held the script in one hand and never looked at it, while she sang the Mary Poppins songs well for the producer and did the small slapstick stunts the producer asked for. It was a good try-out. The two other hopefuls also did their reading, and the producer listened semi-attentively. But the other actors trying out for the Mary Poppins role included a certain Joanna Freeman.
Joanna was a bit overweight, but had a pleasant face. Mediocre at singing and downright clumsy at dancing and slapstick, she was chosen because she was the of producer’s girlfriend. Everyone knew it and it suddenly became very obvious to Vera, who, after singing her heart out with Let’s Go Fly A Kite, heard the producer say,
“Ahem, thank you very much - you read it very well. But I’m sorry, Veronica, it’s not quite what I was really looking for…maybe in our next show in October?”
They went home and her husband commiserated …..”Yeah. . .anybody could see what he was really looking for all right. Bastards! . . . with their own friends taking all the parts…” He became defensive and on her side. “…..you’re a hundred times better than her at singing - sure I’ve heard you loads of times in the bathroom with that Gilbert and Sullivan stuff !”
Vera was pleased to hear husband support her and say these things instead of grumbling. He was completely different, and she went to sleep that night a pleased woman.
A couple of months later they checked the dates of the staging of Mary Poppins in the advertisements. It was for a Friday, Saturday and Sunday in May. They went along to the Bijou the next day and booked two tickets for the Friday evening. The Bijou theatre had 150 seats and 50 had gone, even two months before the show, the ticket office informed them. However, they still got to pick their favourite location in the stalls on an end of row location.
“Oh Fred, we always have to sit off-centre on the end of a row and I can never really hear properly there.”
“But you know it’s me leg, and I can’t bend it. . . I always need the space in the aisle to stretch it out.”
“Oh, I know all right - but it still irritates me not to hear the music clearly.”
So the big Friday arrived and they got dressed up. Fred wore his only suit. Vera wanted to look her best of course, and “borrowed” heavily from the store room in the pawn shop. She selected stuff that was in-period for the Mary Poppins story, enjoying getting into the whole atmosphere. It was raining heavily so they took a taxi. Arriving in a dash through the rain, they moved through the crowd saying hello to friends and neighbours, and they sat in the stalls on the end of a row and brushed drops of rain from their hair and coats while they waited.
In the small town theatre everyone knew everyone else. Women assessed all the other women’s clothes, and men sat in unwilling silence, and children asked for drinks and chocolate. The chatter subsided when the lights were partially dimmed.
The show started five minutes late - some slight problem with Joanna’s shoes. That was only the beginning of the trouble. The whole performance was marred by errors and for that reason the audience at least had a good laugh. The Banks children were cute and sometimes forgot their lines, forgivably. Joanna herself was a flop. Towards the end of first act, just as overweight Mary Poppins was bending down to place the note that she was leaving the Banks home (with a hint that she might be back), Joanna slipped and fell, twisting her ankle, and the other cast members dashed to help her up. Two beefy bank-manager characters managed to raise her to the vertical again. She had to be helped off the stage.
Several muted voices in the front row seats were heard to echo “Yes, leave - but don’t bother coming back”
The audience was dismayed and alarmed at her fall but it was just a twisted ankle and she was half-carried off and the curtains closed the scene, which had ended anyway. It was a blessing in disguise, though no one would say it. She was too fat and ungainly anyway - a ridiculous figure. It was the subject of each whispered conversation as the aisles filled with people going to the bar.
The doctor was called from the audience and pronounced her unable to continue. The Producer needed a stand-in for her in a hurry. He knew Vera was in the audience - he had seen her in the next-to-end seat of the eighth row, so he hurriedly struggled through the crowded aisle to ask her if she might be able to help them out. He was shamefaced, but in a tight spot so he forced a smile and asked,
“Ahem, hello again Vera. I’m glad to see you here.
“Hello Teddy.”
“You know, I’m sorry we, ahem, couldn’t give you the part you tried out for, but you were very good all the same.”
“Thank you again.”
“Ahem, Vera, I’m in a bad spot right now. Ahem, we need someone in a hurry. Joanna has hurt her foot and can’t continue. I wonder could you possibly help us out please?”
“You mean right now, this minute?”
“Well, I know it is impossibly short notice, but you do know all the lines and songs. . . I know it’s an awful imposition. ..”
Fred added in a stern voice, “Imposition is right! After turning Vera down like that at the try-outs - it was disgraceful,”
Vera put her hand on Fred’s knee and calmed him, ”Never mind that now, Fred.”
Vera knew the part and the songs very well. She’d learned them very well for the rehearsal/ interview. She felt this was a chance she would never get again, regardless of impositions and hurt ego.
“But what about my costume change?”
The producer said, “Well, Joanna’s costumes wouldn’t fit probably. What you are wearing right now is perfectly suitable in style for the period, and it’s not too different from the Poppins costume….Would you consider going on like this ? Ahem, Mary Poppins would have changed costumes since the first act anyhow ok?”
Vera smiled broadly and stuck out her chin, looking quickly at Fred’s eyes for agreement.
“All right I will.”
“Oh that’s wonderful, Vera, I won’t forget this. . thank you, thank you very much”
The small town audience was very tolerant of the delay due to Joanna’s accident and understood the change in actors. Practically all of the people in the audience knew Vera anyhow. At the end of the interval the producer announced that Joanna Freeman had had to leave and Veronica Stubbins would continue. There was great applause and murmurs of relief from the audience. As Vera entered stage right it caused a wave of smiling and light hearted laughter across the audience. The story of Mary Poppins matched exactly the mood imported by Vera. After their interval drinks, downed in haste to maximise the use of twenty minutes, half the audience probably thought it was all part of the play’s plot in any case, it melded so easily. Vera sang Let’s Go Fly A Kite in the park, and Bert met his chimney sweep friends and everybody danced. It was blatantly obvious to the audience that Vera was better and they liked her natural style. Vera did good comic stuff and her singing came naturally .
So there was Vera on stage, dressed up in pawn shop finery. It was certainly in-period for the Mary Poppins story, but at the same time was old-fashioned stuff, and some audience members began to recognize certain items of her costume. This caused ripples of laughter, and added greatly to the fun.
People started calling out, “Hey, that’s my grandma’s green dress!! Oh I remember now, I forgot to redeem that pair of earrings, Vera!”
Vera laughed out loud at these comments and bantered with the audience in Christmas panto fashion as an additional part of the Poppins role. She was a natural actress, as all could see, including Fred. The final curtain eventually came down and the theatre was filled with enthusiastic applause and calls for “More!”
She was brought back on for several extra bows. The producer was of course very pleased and immediately asked her,
“Vera, you were really great in the part tonight. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Ahem, would you be willing to do the part tomorrow evening and Sunday too? As a matter of fact, I would like to invite you to take a role in all our upcoming shows, would you be interested?”
She glanced at Fred and he was beaming and nodding. Fred could immediately see this was the best thing for her.
“Oh, I’d love to. . . I feel it’s been in my blood for years, you know.”
“And it’s been in our bathroom for as long,” he added chirpily and laughed heartily.
Their pawnshop business benefited too….The new “fashion” trend set by the pawnshop brought more buyers to their small retail window, soon enlarged.
“Is this the scarf you wore in Mary Poppins? Oh, do you have those nice pearl earrings you wore in HMS Pinafore?”
And pledging customers would say, “How much can you lend me on this dress? Maybe you could wear it in the next show?”
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