here at Pingry wouldn’t kill you.”
“It’s either the play or diplomacy.”
Ezra nearly clapped. “So we’re set? Auditions are next week.”
“How can that be? We haven’t chosen a play yet! Or should we stick with Leroy’s terrific suggestion? In an instant it all will vanish and we’ll be alone once more in the midst of nothingness. What, that’s not inspiring enough for spring?” Larissa smiled. This diversion for her … it was ideal. The offer came along at just the right time. This would take her mind off things, let her get back on track.
“Lar,” Ezra said, helping her up from the chair, “let’s go and announce the good news and choose a play. Try to think of something appropriate.”
“How much time do I have?”
Ezra looked at his watch. “Can you think while we walk down the hall?” He pulled her up by her elbow. “Hurry. Meeting started fifteen minutes ago.”
“How can the meeting have started? We’re not there!”
“Come on,” he said prodding her out. “Fret as you walk.”
“Ezra, you’ve gotten very demanding since you’ve become department head.” Picking up her purse, she took out a lipstick. “I liked you better absent-minded and lackadaisical.” Without a mirror, she applied a shade of pink beige to her lips.
“We don’t have an hour fifty-five, Larissa,” Ezra said, watching her.
She didn’t want him to know she was grateful. She wanted him to think she was grudging. Otherwise, how to explain her sudden exhilaration?
But no matter how welcome the distraction, the everyday stress of theater, the demand of it made her anxious even as she rushed down the sunlit hallway. “What if I can’t do it, Ez? What if it’s just too much for me?”
“You’ll be fabulous. We don’t want someone who never reaches. You always reach, Larissa. For places other people can’t go. That’s why we need you.”
“Plus you’re desperate.”
“That, too.”
They stopped at the double doors of the conference room. He looked her over before they came in. “So how come today of all days you’re dressed to go ride the go-karts?”
“Because I thought I was coming in as the set decorator,” Larissa rejoined, opening the doors. “This is what painters wear.”
Inside the conference room, buoyed with black coffee and a sense of his own importance, Leroy, though having relinquished the coveted position of director, clearly did so resentfully. His first action after they all sat down and got some water was to distribute to each of the eight seated people copies of Godot, and embark on a long sermon punctuated by no periods on why it was the greatest play of this or any century.
Larissa could tell that there were some people at the table who did not think a set decorator was qualified to be a director, despite Ezra’s excited recital of Larissa’s credentials: theater and English double major at NYU, summer stock theater (the Great Swamp Revue and Jersey Footlight Players) director of the acclaimed theater department at the Hudson School. Larissa could tell neither Leroy nor Fred, Ezra’s assistant, was impressed.
“Leroy,” Larissa said in her no-nonsense voice, palms down on the table, her manner sober, “I appreciate your recommendation, and we can all agree to the quality of Godot, but we need a different direction. Something more lighthearted. I was thinking of a Shakespearean comedy.”
Leroy had no intention of giving up. “Godot is a comedy.”
“Well, yes. A tragicomedy. But Godot is wrong for spring, with all due respect. The air of bleak existentialism as read mostly by a cast of two, with a set of one scraggly tree is not the joyful experience most children and parents associate with a spring production. I’m thinking of something more inclusive and multi-parted. A little funnier, a little less angst-ridden.” She smiled amiably at him. He did not return the smile. Ezra, though, smiled exquisitely at Larissa.
For the next ninety minutes, Larissa, Ezra, Fred, Leroy, Sheila Meade, Vanessa (Sheila’s assistant), Vincent (Leroy’s), and David, the line reader, pounded out the possibilities. Leroy shot everything down. As You Like It was not funny enough (“certainly not as funny as Godot”), Midsummer had too much confusing dialogue, and Much Ado was too long. (“Godot, on the other hand, is brilliant, funny, deceptively short, and will be simple to stage and direct.”)
Larissa kept quiet. Ezra had to prod her. “Well, Larissa, you’re the director,” he said. “What do you think?”
“Choosing a play is a collaboration,” Leroy announced haughtily.
“Yes, but the director has final say,” Ezra pointed out. “Lar, what say you?”
“Well all have to agree so we can throw our support behind it,” Leroy announced, with Vincent nodding next to him.
Larissa suddenly realized it was nearing one! She had to go. Knowing that time was running short tensed her into silence. She had to get into her car right now and drive away.
Wait. Wasn’t she going to forget about Stop&Shop? Wasn’t that the purpose of all this? Wasn’t she freed from the constraints of the supermarket parking lot? Accept the position of director, straighten out, back on the rails.
If she left now, she would barely make it there for one.
She felt fourteen pairs of eyes on her as if they expected her to decide; at the very least to speak. “Okay, here’s what I think,” Larissa said. She was out of time. “As You like It is meant to be performed outside,” she stated. “We can do it inside, but it won’t be as good, and outside is impossible.” She tried not to sound impatient or hurried. “I suggest Comedy of Errors. It takes place in one day, serious subjects such as death by hanging and slavery are pushed aside for the sake of the joke, and all action is physical rather than internal, which makes it easier to rehearse and execute successfully.” She fell silent, waiting for them to agree. From Leroy’s barely suppressed sneers, Larissa guessed he was not a fan of The Comedy of Errors. Sheila said she preferred to do As You Like It. Twenty-six-year-old Vanessa, who was trying on theater for size before she fled into the world of fashion design, agreed with her boss. Vincent agreed with his. Young Vincent painted sets with her, so Larissa was miffed at his backstabbing, while Fred, who worked with Ezra, fancied himself smarter than anyone (including his boss) and therefore had to have an opposite opinion on everything just to prove his intellectual superiority. David, the line reader, thought because he read lines with the kids, he was qualified to make staging decisions. Ezra was, as always, bemused. Noncommittal, but bemused.
Well, whatever. At one time, back in college, in Hoboken, theater consumed Larissa. Being on the stage herself, what power! But that was over ten years ago. Dionysus was not her god anymore. Oh, sure, if you gave in to him, surrendered yourself to his charms, he would make you good, he would make you great. But it was a Faustian deal you made with him. And while Larissa accepted Ezra’s offer, she accepted it for her own reasons and was not about to dance with Dionysus again. She just didn’t care that much anymore.
“Why not Tempest?” Leroy suggested sourly.
“Maybe Taming of the Shrew?” Fred piped up. Oh, so he was unhappily married, Larissa thought, him and his bow ties and French berets. He certainly looked unhappily something.
“Tempest is too long,” Larissa said.
“So?”
“Leroy, but you were just lauding the brevity of Godot. Now you don’t care how long the proposed play is. Plus,” she continued evenly, “Tempest is complicated, it’s hard to memorize