Last Stop Sunnyside by Pat Capponi

Author:Pat Capponi [Pat Capponi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781554689118
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada

Jeremy and Charlene are sitting at a long table, facing the stage. In front of Charlene, fruit, bottled water, scripts and Mars bars clutter her space. Jeremy, the neat freak, has only one script and his pen.

The set is coming together, a little miracle in itself performed by retired carpenters and set designers in lengthy meetings with Charlene. A labour of love, like most of the work done here. I never tire of this, watching the rehearsals, the slow, careful progression to opening night. Though one might think watching the same scene done over and over again would be stultifying, for me, it only enhances the magic. I love the creativity and bustling industry, the ability to live, even for just a few weeks, other lives.

Becky is being put through her paces. I watch her counting steps on the stage, familiarizing herself with its boundaries. She pulls off her sensible shoes and tube socks, slipping on ankle-length hose and into the high fashion and probably torturous heels she will wear during the production. I see her surreptitiously check that the heels are firmly attached.

The scene is a powerful one, the last confrontation between her character and Lord Windermere. Her co-star, Barry, a tall, balding insurance salesman who’s a regular in the company, drifts in and takes his place on stage. Charlene calls a start, and I watch Becky transform herself right in front of my eyes. It’s the posture, the way she holds her head, the steel just under the flesh, the long-buried hurt; it’s all there, before she says a word.

“You seem rather out of temper this morning, Windermere. Why should you be? Margaret and I get on charmingly together.”

“I can’t bear to see you with her. Besides, you have not told me the truth, Mrs. Erlynne.”

“I have not told her the truth, you mean.”

Charlene stops them. “We really need to work on your accents, people. And we don’t have a lot of time. Jeremy, could you spend some time with them, and some of the others, help them out?”

“I didn’t know we were doing Pygmalion,” he quips. “But of course. What are your schedules like?” Everything stops while people pull out their books, and wrestle with times. I hear voices just outside; Jason’s talking to someone. When he comes in, he walks down the aisle and takes a seat just behind Charlene, reaching over and touching her shoulder proprietarily. She turns her head and smiles at him; it may be my imagination, but I think Jeremy stiffens as he feels Jason’s presence. The actors pick up the scene again, Barry doing Windermere.

“I sometimes wish you had. I should have been spared then the misery, the anxiety, the annoyance of the last six months. But rather than my wife should know- that the mother whom she has mourned as dead, is living—a divorced woman, going about under an assumed name, a bad woman preying upon life, as I know you now to be- rather than that, I was ready

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