Surviving the Applewhites Read online

  Her father was the only one who wasn’t worried about the weather. He claimed that the theater gods were on their side and that the clouds that kept darkening the sky and threatening storms would blow over before the audience was due to arrive. And always, everywhere, Marcia Manning and the television crew were in the way, aiming cameras and shoving microphones in people’s faces and tripping people with their electrical cables.

  Somehow, though, by the time cars started arriving and Jeremy was sent out to direct them to parking places, almost everything was ready. Even the problem of Destiny’s ears had been solved. Lucille had made him a hat, which he wore in every scene, even when he was dressed in pajamas. A line had been added about Hans loving hats.

  No one had remembered to give E.D. a count of the opening night tickets that had been given away, so more people were showing up than there were seats. Extra folding chairs had to be squeezed in, and family members of the cast were sent up to the loft with the sound and lighting technicians.

  As curtain time approached, E.D. looked out at the barn full of people from the stage manager’s station offstage left, and realized that through all the rehearsals and barn renovation, she had never quite believed it would happen, that there would really be a Wit’s End Playhouse that real live people would come to. Yet there they were, a hundred and seventy-seven of them, Jake’s grandfather next to Marcia Manning and the producer in the front row, and three cameramen stationed in the aisles.

  She took a deep breath and gave the signal for the houselights to go down. Jeremy Bernstein began to play the overture on his accordion, miked so that speakers carried the music to the farthest corners of the barn. During the overture, the nuns had to come past E.D. one at a time so that she could light their candles. Randolph had decided to begin the show with a candlelight procession, the candles the nuns carried as they chanted their way around the stage providing the only light. That way they didn’t need to build a separate set for the abbey chapel.

  E.D.’s hands shook as she held the lighter to the wick of one candle after another. This must be what stage fright feels like, she thought. Her stomach was tied in knots. She didn’t think stage managers were supposed to get stage fright. The overture ended, and the note was given for the chant to begin. “Dixit Dominus Domino meo,” the soloist sang as she stepped out onto the stage with her candle, and the show began.

  There were thirteen scenes in the first act. By the time the fifth scene, where Maria taught the von Trapp children to sing “Do-Re-Mi,” was over, E.D.’s stage fright had disappeared. None of the awful things she had imagined, none of the glitches from dress rehearsal, had happened so far. The actors had all remembered their lines and the words to their songs. Jeremy was playing the right songs at the right time. The lights were coming up and going down when she gave the cue. All the children were doing exactly what they were supposed to do. Even Destiny. And the audience was applauding when they were supposed to. Maybe her father was right. Maybe the theater gods were on their side!

  And so it seemed, right through the rest of the first act, through intermission (the audience talked and laughed and seemed to be enjoying themselves, and Govindaswami sold out all his cookies and punch), and on into the second act.

  Until the next to the last scene—at the Kaltzburg Festival Concert. The scene began with Captain von Trapp playing the guitar and singing the eidelweiss song, with Maria and the seven von Trapp children gathered around him. Distant thunder began to make itself heard beneath the music. Then, during the last two lines of the song, rain began to patter on the barn roof. As the song ended and the audience began to applaud, the sound of the rain on the roof grew in intensity. When the actor came on to announce that the Nazi escort had arrived to take Captain von Trapp to his command in the German navy, rain dripped off his nose as he began to speak.

  Throughout his speech the rain drummed harder and he spoke louder, until, by the end, he was shouting at the top of his lungs to be heard introducing the von Trapps’ encore song. Thunder drowned out the first notes of the accordion. Captain von Trapp, Maria, and the seven children lined up to sing, all of them looking intently toward where Jeremy was playing the introduction to the song. E.D. couldn’t hear the music over the pounding of the rain, and it was clear that none of the actors could, either.

  “Bring the musician’s sound up!” E.D. whispered into her microphone to the sound technician. “The actors can’t hear!”

  She had to strain to make out the reply through her headphones. “I did already. It’s up full!”

  The actors were standing onstage now in position, their hands clasped in front of them as they should be. But they didn’t begin to sing. Nine pairs of eyes focused desperately on Jeremy, who was clearly playing music that could not be heard. Thunder crashed again. Suddenly the actor who had announced the song appeared onstage again, holding a large microphone. He spoke directly into it, and the sound rose just slightly above the level of the rain on the roof.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the Kaltzburg Festival Concert will continue in a moment, when the storm passes over the mountains. In the meantime, let us all sing together the song the von Trapps sang earlier—‘Do-Re-Mi.’ I’m sure you all know it! Please join us!”

  He sang the first line loudly into the microphone, and the actors onstage joined him. Soon the whole audience was singing along, and E.D. realized the great advantage of doing a show that almost everyone already knew.

  After two rousing repetitions of “Do-Re-Mi” sung into and over the rain and thunder, the pounding on the roof began to slack off. As the song reached its conclusion the third time around, Captain von Trapp stepped forward and took the microphone from the other actor, who had stayed onstage, conducting the audience. He held up one hand for silence and began the last notes of the song, his voice going down and down to a deep bass. “Do ti la so fa me re…” He paused, looking out at the audience, and then signaled for the last “do.”

  The audience shouted “Do!” and then leaped to their feet, cheering and stamping and applauding. Captain von Trapp waited till they had settled down and taken their seats again and then waved to Jeremy to begin their encore song.

  E.D. breathed a sigh of relief as the song went perfectly, each pair of children singing their farewell and leaving the stage until only Destiny was left, standing between Maria and Captain von Trapp. When he sang that the sun had gone to bed, with the rain still pattering gently overhead, the audience laughed. “I’ll say!” someone called out. Destiny, undaunted, finished his line, sang his good-bye, and exited. The applause when the song ended was as loud and enthusiastic as before. The rest of the scene, as the Germans discover that the von Trapps have fled, went perfectly. E.D. was just about to call for the stage lights to go out when outside there was a blue-white flash so bright that it could be seen through every crack in the barn siding, followed instantly by what sounded like an explosion. The lights went out and E.D.’s earphones went dead.

  “Can anybody hear me?” E.D. whispered into her microphone. Nothing. Even the tiny light over her prompt book had gone out, and it was pitch-black backstage. “Electricity’s out!” she said in a stage whisper. “Set up for the final scene, and I’ll think of something. Somebody tell Jeremy to keep playing until somebody comes to tell him to stop.” She hoped he could play without being able to see the music.

  E.D. went over the end of the show in her mind. Even with lights, the final scene was fairly dark. It took place outdoors at night in the abbey’s garden, with the von Trapps hiding while the Nazis searched the abbey to find them. When Jake’s character, Rolf, came onstage, it was his flashlight that allowed him to see Captain von Trapp and Maria. The lights were supposed to come up enough that the audience could see them before Rolf did. Then, when Rolf had already called out to his lieutenant, he had to see Liesl, again in the light from his flashlight, and decide not to turn the family over to the Nazis.

  Without any stage lights the audience would be able to see whoever Jake, as
Rolf, lit with his flashlight, but they wouldn’t be able to see that it was Rolf holding the flashlight. They wouldn’t understand that it was Rolf’s love for Liesl that kept him from turning them all in, that led him to call out to his lieutenant that there was no one in the garden. Without some light on the stage, so that the audience could see the moment of suspense as Rolf decides what to do, the ending wouldn’t make sense. How could they get enough light onstage to make it work?

  Nuns! Nuns with candles. The scene was the abbey, and the nuns were supposed to come on at the very end for the final song anyway. There could be as many nuns onstage as they needed. The actors who played the nuns in the first act would already be back in their habits, ready for the end of the show. All E.D. needed to do was gather them up before the scene began and get their candles lit again. They could stand in a semicircle around the abbey garden, and their candles would almost certainly give enough light for the audience to know what was going on. The stage crew was busy setting up for the final scene, working in the light from Jake’s flashlight. “Jake!”

  “What? What are we going to do?”

  “We need all the nuns, right away. With their candles.” Quickly, she outlined her plan, and he grunted agreement. “And get another candle or two for Jeremy so he can play the last song.” She took the flashlight and kept it trained so that the crew could finish changing the scene, while Jake went to tell the other actors what they needed to do.

  This time as the nuns gathered and she lit their candles, her hand was perfectly steady. It would work. She knew it. Already she could see in her mind’s eye the scene as the Mother Abbess began singing the final reprise of “Climb Ev’ry Mountain,” the other nuns joining in and lighting the way for the von Trapps to begin their climb over the Austrian Alps into Switzerland and freedom. She felt almost as excited as if she were helping the real family escape from the Nazis.

  Chapter Thirty

  Raves, every last one of them!” Randolph said. It wasn’t news anymore, Jake thought. The family—including Hal—had gathered in the living room with pitchers of Govindaswami’s now-famous Playhouse Punch and platters of cookies to read the reviews together. Everyone had already read and reread them, probably memorizing, as he had, the parts about them.

  Randolph waved the local paper. “The Gazette says Traybridge has never seen such a level of professionalism and talent from a local cast.” He read from the page in his hand. “Worthy of Broadway, he calls it. Well—he’s probably never actually seen a Broadway production. Still, listen to this: ‘The board of the Traybridge Little Theatre needs to ask itself why it canceled such a stellar production. If the new Wit’s End Playhouse chooses to mount a whole season, our local theater isn’t likely to survive the competition.’ Take that, Mrs. Montrose!”

  “You are not, of course, considering a whole season,” Sybil said. “You wouldn’t—”

  “Couldn’t,” Zedediah said. “There’s no heat in the barn.”

  “What about summer?” Hal asked. “We could do shows in the summer!” The reviews had all mentioned the original, ingenious, beautifully painted sets, and Hal had apparently rethought his mission in life. The sign on his bedroom door now read HAL APPLEWHITE, SCULPTOR AND SET DESIGNER.

  Archie shook his head. “No air-conditioning either.”

  “We could do two productions a year,” Randolph said. “One in the fall and one in the spring. I’m considering the possibility.”

  Sybil groaned. “I’ll have to start turning out Petunia Grantham mysteries by the dozen to raise the money, then. Do you have any idea how much this production cost?”

  Randolph waved his hand dismissively. “You can’t count the cost of renovating the barn—a few productions as successful as this one and we’re bound to make that up. Besides, you had ground to a halt on the Great American Novel anyway and you know it. No point pretending. Petunia Grantham is in your blood.”

  “If we do another musical,” Cordelia said, “there needs to be a lot more dancing.”

  “No nuns!” This was Lucille. “I will never make another habit as long as I live.”

  “You wouldn’t need to,” Sybil said. “We own twenty of them now.”

  “Listen to this,” Bernstein said, holding up a printout from the Internet. “It’s from Charlotte. ‘The intriguing choice to use an accordion rather than an orchestra gave the production an air of Tyrolean folk authenticity that was entirely new. The accordion’s ability to mimic the sound of an organ was a bonus for the abbey scenes.’”

  “My favorite,” Lucille said, “is the one from Raleigh. ‘Rainbow Cast Antidote to Third Reich’s Racism’ is the headline. The reviewer says, ‘After the initial surprise of seeing an African American playing Maria, the audience lost all awareness of skin color—an important lesson for us all.’”

  “What did I tell you!” Randolph said.

  “That’s the one that talks about the candles, isn’t it?” E.D. asked.

  Lucille nodded and read on. “‘The use of candles to light the last scene set the final rendition of “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” apart and provided a powerful metaphor. The von Trapp Family Singers throughout their musical career lit candles rather than cursing the dark.’”

  “Good thing I had the foresight to do the candlelight procession at the top of the show,” Randolph said. “It isn’t in the script, you know.”

  E.D. bristled. “Don’t you dare take credit for my idea! Quick thinking under pressure, that’s what that was.”

  “All right, all right. But I had the good sense to decide to keep it in.”

  Jake was only half listening. His part was so small he hadn’t expected to find himself mentioned in the reviews. But to his astonishment he’d been in almost all of them. He’d made copies to send to his parents. “Mature performance from a promising teen in a small but pivotal role,” one of them said. “Convincing both as adolescent suitor and Nazi,” another reviewer wrote. “With commanding stage presence, Jake Semple turned in a performance equal to any in this impressive production. We expect to hear more from this young man with the mellifluous singing voice.” Jake had looked up “mellifluous.” Flowing with honey or sweetness. Never had anyone mentioned sweetness and Jake Semple in the same sentence before. He would send a copy to his social worker in Rhode Island.

  “Read the one about me,” Destiny said. He was lying on the floor next to Winston, drawing with fluorescent markers.

  “The youngest von Trapp, transformed from a girl named Gretl to a hat-obsessed little boy named Hans, was played with uncommon gusto by Destiny Applewhite.”

  “Uncommon gusto,” Sybil repeated. “That’s you, all right.”

  That, Jake thought, was the whole Applewhite clan. Govindaswami and Bernstein, too.

  A butterfly fluttered in and landed on Govindaswami’s shoulder. Govindaswami raised his glass of punch, and the butterfly stepped delicately onto the edge and unrolled its tongue to drink.

  Paulie, who had stayed on in the main house after the television crew left, raised his wings, gave a couple of small hops along his perch, and swore.

  “That’s a new one,” Zedediah said.

  “He learned it from Marcia Manning,” Cordelia said.

  It was the only lasting thing the television people had left behind, Jake thought. The lightning bolt that knocked out the power had struck their satellite dish, and they’d gathered up their roasted equipment and left the morning after the opening. The next day Bernstein had gotten an e-mail message from the network explaining that the producer had gone off to a spa to recuperate from nervous exhaustion and Ms. Manning had taken a job with a competing network. Consequently, the Applewhite spot, originally planned for twelve minutes of prime time, would be cut to two and a half. It might air, they said, on a slow news day as the human interest piece at the end of the evening news.

  Bernstein had taken the news pretty well. “Associate producer doesn’t mean much of anything anyway.” He had managed to sell an article on the way tele
vision’s mass-market focus cheapened art to the journal that had originally given him the Sybil Jameson assignment.

  Now that The Sound of Music was up and running and would be over within another week, Jake thought, the Applewhites would be getting back to normal. Whatever that was. Jeremy was planning to stay on to work on his book about the family. Govindaswami was going to an ashram in Idaho to lecture on cooking as meditation. Randolph had gotten a call from a theater in Pennsylvania to do a “rainbow” Sound of Music as their Christmas show. E.D. was already revising her curriculum plan. She was planning a project on goat husbandry to take the place of the completed butterfly project.

  As for Jake, the only thing he knew for certain was that somehow or another he was going to get himself on the stage again. He had an answer now to Zedediah’s question about what gave him joy. He wasn’t about to waste a mellifluous voice and commanding stage presence.

  An adventurous quest for the meaning of life, involving the ability to think things through. The banner was back up in the schoolroom where the barn renovation schedule had been. Jake didn’t know any more about the meaning of life than he had the first day he came to Wit’s End. But whatever else he could say about the way the Applewhites lived, it certainly was an adventurous quest. And he was beginning to get some idea of the value of thinking things through.

  Winston, pointedly ignoring Govindaswami’s butterfly, sighed and rolled over, his head coming to rest on Jake’s foot. Jake scratched behind his ears. Destiny was humming as he drew. He looked up at Jake. “What color are you going to make your hair when the show is over?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jake said. “What color do you think?”