Marietta

     "So, now we begin!", continued Leonard, our producer. "After the required Actors Equity business meeting, rehearsals will get underway with a full company read-through, Sam playing his music, and Carl, in his own special way, singing the words." The company laughed warmly, knowing what notoriously bad singers lyricists always were. " But first, let me introduce you to the person who will captain our ship across Oceans - more laughter from the company at his clever use of the show's name - a woman whose work on special movies like Around the Corner and Avenue A , proved her to be , in our view,  the perfect and necessary director for our show. A woman of vision and sensitivity, our directress, Marietta Braceley!" And in she strode, from the hallway, where she had obviously been awaiting her entrance.
      Why she had not been in the room with the company, as part of the show's earliest "family building" moments? Was the grand entrance her idea or Lionel's? What purpose did it serve?  To "up her ante" with us? To make her seem more powerful, more important?
      As the company broke into applause, I looked over at Stanley, our stage manager, who was also looking at me with a slight grimace, as he lifted his eyebrows and subtly pointed his thumb in Marietta's direction, raising his eyes upward as if to say "get a load of her". I silently agreed and knew at once where Stanley stood. No one gets on Stanley's bad side until proven absolutely guilty, and clearly, the jury was already in on Marietta Braceley. Her entrance certainly made me feel uncomfortable. I thought "What a dumb thing for her to do."
       But , there she was, our leader, hopefully fearless, and our primary collaborator, the person whose concept of the show and ability to inspire would mold us all, willingly, into one sensitive communicating performance unit. Her place in the scheme of things was more important than anyone else's now that the show was in rehearsal, and I could sense the roomful of performers leaning forward, as flowers lean toward the sun. We were in her hands now.
     Marietta Braceley, tall and slender in a bony way, but somewhat thick around the hips, at least in the gray polyester slacks she wore, seemed a woman who would never wear a dress or skirt. She'd feel her ankles would be too exposed, too vulnerable.  At least that is the odd thought that crossed my mind as I got my first look at her.  Her hair was a black-gray frizzy halo of '60's vintage, and her face was long, strong-jawed and pale. Her photochromic aviator glasses grew darker in the brightly sunlit rehearsal room, and I made a silent bet with myself that she would never be without them, and that we would never see her eyes. Turns out I was right. Meanwhile, her blouse was in no way stylish or up to date, with its rounded little collar and small short puffy sleeves, and her too-short pants legs were met at the ankle by frilly-topped white anklets, which seemed to be inching down into her spanking brand new white Reboks. Her pierced ears had what looked like little bears dangling from them, and we were soon to learn that her earrings always kept fashion pace with her socks . I remember thinking she must have had a young daughter who shopped for all her clothes.
      This tall, angular woman seemed uncomfortable in front of us, uncomfortable in those pants, that blouse, those earrings, but who could blame her? With a five million dollar Broadway musical on my hands, no matter what I was wearing, I would have felt uncomfortable too. She took a very deep breath, and opened her mouth to speak.

Miranda

      She was short, fat, with rolls of flesh that jiggled when she laughed and a jowly face that was broad and greasy with summer sweat. Her light brown face was made even shinier by the huge splashes of garish red make-up she'd unskillfully applied. I couldn't tell where her real eyebrows were because she had plucked them to total bareness and had drawn a thin ,dark pencil line hight above the eye sockets. The sweat had smeared one of the pencil lines into an upward expression of smudged surprise.

      Her neck was bulging with two rolls of fat and dark creases of dirt separated them, even when she threw her head back in a gale of laughter, spreading her large magenta lips into a wide smile. Her teeth were not good. Yellow, bits of whatever she had been eating stuck between them.

      This grotesque, uncomfortable looking Puerto Rican woman, who was maybe forty-five years old, might once have been an actress on one of those Spanish-language stations that abound on cable networks in New York City. Every gesture, as she spoke to her companion on the humid subway platform, was too large, every laugh too pointed and loud. It was that laugh, and her companion's loud "Oh, Miranda!!" in response,  that had attracted my attention , and then I couldn't tear my eyes away from her grandiose and dramatic movements. Miranda was utterly fascinating in her ugliness and seeming discomfort, with her too-tight flowered dress, its stained underarms and the sandals she wore that cut into her chubby feet. Even her toenails seemed painfully painted, with a screamingly bright orange polish that looked like it had been on those toenails too long.

      I marveled that she could have even reached her toes to paint them, her stomach was so big, but the polish looked so old, it occurred to me she may have applied it before she got fat. And then she looked in my direction, and her small , sparkling eyes fixed directly onto mine, and I knew she knew I was staring at her. I managed a weak smile, which she greeted with a small smirk of disdain, and I knew she also knew how harshly I was judging her. Grateful that the subway arrived at that moment, I stepped onto it and felt the relief of its coolness, reminding myself of where I was going: downtown to an important rehearsal studio where I knew I'd be meeting and working with "my kind" of people. When an actor begins a new show, I believe he also begins a new family and, at the very least, a new place for his soul to live begins to be built and furnished. If all goes well, a new home is created for both actor and audience,and I felt confident that this would occur on this new project.  

     The doors opened at my 14th Street stop, and gathering my things, I made my way to the opening doors, dreading the heat that would slap me the moment i left the car, but excited to get to rehearsal. Rushing toward the stairs, the Puerto Rican woman was all but gone from my mind, until I heard, behind me, her loud laugh , and her friend's "Oh, Miranda!" And I was thinking about her toenails, as I pushed open the rehearsal hall doors.