8
EVERYONE IN SHOW BUSINESS KNEW THAT NON-paying preview crowds were among the toughest to please. Free admission didn’t guarantee their appreciation or even their amicability. The person who paid a fair price for something was likely to place far more value on it than the one who got the same item for nothing. That old saw applied in spades to stage shows and to on-the-cuff audiences.
But not tonight. This crowd wasn’t able to sit on its hands and keep its cool.
The final curtain came down at eight minutes till ten o’clock, and the ovation continued until after Tina’s wrist-watch had marked the hour. The cast of Magyck! took several bows, then the crew, then the orchestra, all of them flushed with the excitement of being part of an unqualified hit. At the insistence of the happy, boisterous, VIP audience, both Joel Bandiri and Tina were spotlighted in their booths and were rewarded with their own thunderous round of applause.
Tina was on an adrenaline high, grinning, breathless, barely able to absorb the overwhelming response to her work. Helen Mainway chattered excitedly about the spec- tacular special effects, and Elliot Stryker had an endless supply of compliments as well as some astute observations about the technical aspects of the production, and Charlie Mainway poured a third bottle of Dom Perignon, and the house lights came up, and the audience reluctantly began to leave, and Tina hardly had a chance to sip her champagne because of all the people who stopped by the table to congratulate her.
By ten-thirty most of the audience had left, and those who hadn’t gone yet were in line, moving up the steps toward the rear doors of the showroom. Although no second show was scheduled this evening, as would be the case every night henceforth, busboys and waitresses were busily clearing tables, resetting them with fresh linen and silverware for the following night’s eight o’clock performance.
When the aisle in front of her booth was finally empty of well-wishers, Tina got up and met Joel as he started to come to her. She threw her arms around him and, much to her surprise, began to cry with happiness. She hugged him hard, and Joel proclaimed the show to be a “gargantua if I ever saw one.”
By the time they got backstage, the opening-night party was in full swing. The sets and props had been moved from the main floor of the stage, and eight folding tables had been set up. The tables were draped with white cloths and burdened with food: five hot hors d’oeuvres, lobster salad, crab salad, pasta salad, filet mignon, chicken breasts in tarragon sauce, roasted potatoes, cakes, pies, tarts, fresh fruits, berries, and cheeses. Hotel management personnel, showgirls, dancers, magicians, crewmen, and musicians crowded around the tables, sampling the offerings while Phillippe Chevalier, the hotel’s executive chef, personally watched over the affair. Knowing this feast had been laid on for the party, few of those present had eaten dinner, and most of the dancers had eaten nothing since a light lunch. They exclaimed over the food and clustered around the portable bar. With the memory of the applause still fresh in everyone’s mind, the party was soon jumping.
Tina mingled, moving back and forth, upstage and downstage, through the crowd, thanking everyone for his contribution to the show’s success, complimenting each member of the cast and crew on his dedication and professionalism. Several times she encountered Elliot Stryker, and he seemed genuinely interested in learning how the
splashy stage effects had been achieved. Each Time that Tina moved on to talk to someone else, she regretted leaving Elliot, and each time that she found him again, she stayed with him longer than she had before. After their fourth encounter, she lost track of how long they were together. Finally she forgot all about circulating.
Standing near the left proscenium pillar, out of the main flow of the party, they nibbled at pieces of cake, talking about Magyck! and then about the law, Charlie and Helen Mainway, Las Vegas real estate—and, by some circuitous route, superhero movies.
He said, “How can Batman wear an armored rubber suit all the time and not have a chronic rash?”
“Yeah, but there are advantages to a rubber suit.” “Such as?”
“You can go straight from office work to scuba diving without changing clothes.”
“Eat takeout food at two hundred miles an hour in the Batmobile, and no matter how messy it gets—just hose off later.”
“Exactly. After a hard day of crime-fighting, you can get stinking drunk and throw up on yourself, and it doesn’t matter. No dry-cleaning bills.”
“In basic black he’s dressed for any occasion—”
“—from an audience with the Pope to a Marquis de Sade memorial sock hop.”
Elliot smiled. He finished his cake. “I guess you’ll have to be here most nights for a long time to come.”
“No. There’s really no need for me to be.” “I thought a director—”
“Most of the director’s job is finished. I just have to check on the show once every couple of weeks to make sure the tone of it isn’t drifting away from my original intention.”
“But you’re also the co-producer.”
“Well, now that the show’s opened successfully, most of my share of the producer’s chores are public relations and promotional stuff. And a little logistics to keep the production rolling along smoothly. But nearly all of that can be handled out of my office. I won’t have to hang around the stage. In fact, Joel says it isn’t healthy for a producer to be backstage every night . . . or even most nights. He says I’d just make the performers nervous and cause the technicians to look over their shoulders for the boss when they should have their eyes on their work.”
“But will you be able to resist?”
“It won’t be easy staying away. But there’s a lot of sense in what Joel says, so I’m going to try to play it cool.”
“Still, I guess you’ll be here every night for the first week or so.”
“No,” she said. “If Joel’s right—and I’m sure he is—then it’s best to get in the habit of staying away right from the start.”
“Tomorrow night?”
“Oh, I’ll probably pop in and out a few times.”
“I guess you’ll be going to a New Year’s Eve party.”
“I hate New Year’s Eve parties. Everyone’s drunk and boring.”
“Well, then . . . in between all that popping in and out of Magyck!, do you think you’d have time for dinner?”
“Are you asking me for a date?” “I’ll try not to slurp my soup.”
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