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The Eye’s in-house online archive contained brief summaries of three articles about that legendary production of The Masque of the Red Death. Long before current publisher Claudia Darnell bought the paper, it had begun as a slightly disreputable arts and entertainment weekly, and nothing had been too sensational for it to cover. A lurid death at a local theatre? The Eye had been all over it. But no one had scanned these old paper weeklies into the digital database.
Lacey headed up to the paper’s library, where the hard copies resided in embossed leather binders and might have additional information that hadn’t made it into the online archive. And it would get her out of the newsroom and the tension of the Pickles-Wiedemeyer pickle.
The library was on the fourth floor overlooking Farragut Square. Some decorator had been turned loose and ditched the newsroom’s soothing green color scheme for stark gray and black. Through the glass doors the padded armchairs looked inviting, and most were occupied. But the space would have been nicer without the carpet’s dizzying pattern of swirls in black on gray.
The serenity was punctuated by the occasional snore of reporters on break, hiding away in the magazine alcove. A sports reporter was slumped in his chair, head back, mouth open. Lacey saw a female production assistant asleep, head down, a magazine on her chest. Obviously not a scintillating issue. The library was so cold Lacey could practically see her breath, but the chill wasn’t keeping these people awake.
If only the paper provided an adult nap room, we’d be so much more productive, she thought. When we’re not napping.
The library wasn’t large, but movable stacks maximized the floor space and slid apart at the press of a button. The volume she sought from twelve years before was easier to find than she expected, and Lacey lugged the big binder to a table by the window. Nodding to the statue of Admiral Farragut and the birds perched on his hat, she settled down to read.
The newspaper’s physical layout had changed over the past decade-plus. The Eye had matured from its weekly tabloid origins, but it was still the brash and bracing newcomer on the D.C. media scene. While the paper had vastly expanded its online coverage, the page count had begun to shrink in recent years, and Lacey was amazed at how thick these old issues were, stuffed with page after page of classifieds, personal ads, theatre and restaurant reviews. She flipped the dusty pages, trying not to be distracted by the ads.
The first article was a preview in the Arts section of the upcoming production of The Masque of the Red Death, describing the Kinetic Theatre’s original design and unique production process. The show drew its inspiration from the Edgar Allan Poe text and the vintage Roger Corman and Vincent Price film, said the director, Yuri Volkov, but the Poe tale itself was so brief that they had needed to “flesh it out.” That job fell to young local playwright Gareth Cameron. Dialogue would be kept to a minimum, however, and Kinetic was creating a musical interpretation of Poe’s short story with the troupe’s signature style of dance and movement. Nearly the entire troupe consisted of Russian émigrés who had trained in Russian theatres, according to The Eye.
Next came a review of the show’s opening night. KinetiC THEATRE brings RED Death to Life was the headline. The Eye’s critic at the time (before Tamsin Kerr) described the movement style as “a cross between ballet, martial arts, and Cirque de Soleil” and the music as “heavy metal meets Russian folk songs way off-Broadway.” Nevertheless, she gave the show a rave, calling it “daring and visually exciting,” and provided The Eye’s readers with a synopsis.
...The castle’s seven rooms, described in the Poe story as being decorated in seven different colors, have been reinterpreted by the Kinetic Theatre as also embodying the seven deadly sins: Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Envy, Lust, Pride, and Wrath. Set on interlocking mechanical platforms, the colors change and the rooms rise and fall and turn as dictated by the action.
True to Poe’s tale, the plague of the Red Death is running riot through the land, the blood pouring from the bodies of its dying victims giving the disease its name. Fearful of this deadly plague, the cowardly tyrant Prince Prospero abandons his people and invites his nobles and favored subjects to his remote castle. They lock the gates and plan to party away the plague year, even as it ravages the common folk.
As an amusement, Prospero throws a grand masque, here staged as a play within the play, studded with nuggets from other Poe stories. His guests don elaborate costumes and masks of every color, the color red alone being forbidden. At the climax of the masque, Death crashes the party disguised as a beautiful woman, swathed in a glorious, flowing red gown, her face concealed by a jewel-encrusted red mask. Intrigued by this mysterious seductress, Prospero follows her, desperate to know her identity. They whirl and pirouette, up and down, around and through the castle’s seven sin-themed rooms. The woman in red teases and beckons the prince further and further, until finally in the red room (for Lust) he catches and embraces her.
But she is the Red Death. The beautiful stranger opens her red gown to reveal the rotting corpse beneath. She removes her red mask to show her face, a gleaming jeweled skull. With shifting light and dazzling makeup, Kinetic’s stagecraft sleight-of-hand transforms costumer Nikolai Sokolov’s beautiful crimson dress from a lovely dream to a ghastly spectre of doom.
The Red Death spins exultantly across the ballroom floor as Prospero, realizing his fate, falls and dies. Death triumphs over all, laughing and dancing as the music swells. The rest of the cast join her for one last big production number as the revelers drop dead, one by one, leaving only Death to take the final bow...
Sounds like a hell of a show. At least our theatre critic was having fun.
Lacey turned back to the preview describing the costumes and the overall production design. This article was accompanied by several photographs. In the first, Saige Russell, the young actress who played the Red Death, wore the jeweled red mask, only her eyes visible. In the second, she gazed seductively at the camera, wearing the red gown but sans mask. Saige Russell was lovely, with large green eyes and masses of wavy dark hair, and yet the only time in the show when she took off the red mask, she was made up to resemble a death’s head. A shame she had to play that part without ever showing her real face.
Lacey paged through the volume to find the issue immediately following the show’s final performance. The news of the Red Death disaster had jumped from the Arts section to the front page of The Eye.
Red Death Actress Dies in Tragic Closing Night ACCIDENT
Uh oh. So the rumors were true. Damn.
Lacey had convinced herself it couldn’t possibly be true, that it was just a lurid local theatre legend, like Ford’s Theatre’s ghosts of Mary Todd Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth, and the spectral Hamlet in the National Theatre. Now she felt like the crimson gown was mocking her. Or maybe it was simply the world at large that mocked. Saige Russell really was dead, it seemed, and had been dead for a dozen years.
The paper reported that Russell appeared to have fallen from the top of the highest mechanical platform on the stage in a freak accident, and she suffered a broken neck. Her body was not discovered until the next morning. A Kinetic Theatre spokesman said Russell failed to show up at the opening night party at a nightclub called the Black Cat. That was unusual, but everyone thought she was simply exhausted from the performance and went straight home. No one knew what Russell was doing on the stage after the final curtain, the paper said. The story neglected to mention whether or not she was found wearing her Red Death costume.
A Russian children’s play, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” had been scheduled for the following afternoon, using the same elaborate castle set but with brighter set dressing. That show was canceled. The Eye’s story was short on facts, but long on sympathetic quotes from Russell’s fellow theatre folk.
“Saige was on the cusp of great things,” said one Maksym Pushkin, the actor who had played Prince Prospero. “A star in the making.”
Of course. What else could anyone say?
“A beauty. A true professional,” said Yuri Volkov, the play’s director.
“She would have made it to the top,” said Katya Pritchard, another Kinetic actress and Saige’s understudy, apparently without irony.
It seems Saige did make it to the top, Lacey mused. And then she fell off.
More actors and theatre production people were quoted in several variations on what a terrible tragedy it was. There was nothing in the story that suggested to Lacey a connection to LaToya’s break-in. After all, it happened so long ago.
Lacey jotted down all the names mentioned in the three articles and lugged the heavy binder over to the library’s copier. It wasn’t easy wrangling the oversized book, but she was sure Mac and LaToya would want their own copies. She noted that the last seat in the chilly library had been taken by yet another sleepy staffer. Fighting a yawn herself, Lacey re-shelved the volume and gathered her copies.
Back at her desk she left a voice-mail message for Tamsin Kerr, The Eye’s current theatre critic. Did Tamsin know of any actresses who had worn the red dress who might be willing to talk about it?
She checked her notes. Amy Keaton still hadn’t returned her call. She tried her again: no answer, so she left another message. Why was this woman ducking Lacey’s calls? She begged me to intervene with LaToya, you’d think she’d want to hear from me. Was Keaton feeling ashamed of her behavior, which might include that bizarre break-in? Lacey hoped that was the reason.
Because if Amy Keaton didn’t do the break-in, my only other suspect is Saige Russell’s ghost. Maybe she wants her red dress back.
