Dan returned to find a company tearing itself apart. There was no concept of Company in Izzy’s idea of Broadway. There was a group of performers who could be replaced and a faceless chorus behind them. But I was his Fabulous Star. I would have been flattered, but it was like being told you’re beautiful by a cephalopod.
Izzy loudly explained how he’d improved Dan’s work, with his arm draped over his director’s shoulders. Viola looked distressed, but as she usually looked as if her piles were playing up it was difficult to know if her discomfort was only due to her husband’s rank insensitivity.
‘Okay Dan, here’s the bottom line. We’re going to go straight from the overture –’
Dan looked startled – there was no overture in his production.
‘– into Eleanor’s first scene. It’s funny, we gotta establish funny right there.’
It was my turn to look startled. My first scene was short and, unless I fell down the stairs, not particularly amusing. ‘Funny’ was no way to introduce a Fabulous Star. Then I noticed Susan looking at Izzy, hand on generous hip and chin tilted, as if he were the second coming. Posing.
The penny dropped. My role was comparatively small but showy. Hers was larger but with only one solo number, which Dan had reduced from a six-minute ad for the Noise Abatement Society to a short, quietly touching ballad. By putting my scene first, while the audience was still unwrapping their cough sweets, I would be her prologue. Very clever. I wondered whose idea it was.
‘And Susan came to me with some great ideas, so I’ve put her number back as writ. Full length. With the money notes. Big band sound. Great. You can’t have a voice like Susan’s in a show and not use it, Dan. See, you gotta understand, I’ve produced on Broadway –’
‘And I’ve written, directed and produced in the West End. And that’s where you’ve chosen to be.’ Dan spoke with a smile. Had Izzy been listening, he’d have heard the warning.
‘See, pal, here’s the bottom line, lemme tell you –’
‘No Izzy, let me tell you. I have the artistic authority on this show. That’s why you employed me.’
Izzy hadn’t seen Dan angry before. Neither had the rest of the cast, who were riveted to the spot, torn by embarrassment and fascination. He spoke softly but his face was white with fury.
‘If you want to be the laughing stock of London, you carry on and I’ll go home. This isn’t Broadway, Izzy, and it certainly isn’t the Broadway of twenty-three years ago when you were an investor, producer in name only, on a revue – a series of old songs held together by rhinestones, which had no dialogue nor any discernible dramatic construction.’
Dan’s contempt for Izzy was withering. I watched Izzy’s face and saw expressions that included fear and hatred cross it like clouds across a windy sky. Finally a benign smile spread across his rubber features. Arms outstretched, he turned, like a pope blessing the company.
‘Say, Dan, pal, you know what I say? The actors are the most important thing. Without them there is no show. Am I right?’
He was rolling over, showing his belly to Dan, backing down, as the textbook says all bullies do. I thought I saw something else, though: the expression of a temporarily defeated hyena. Partly frightened by the vigour of the living prey, but mainly sly and vicious, determined to outflank it, to snipe and snap until it rolled dying in the dust.
I was romancing. Izzy was less like a hyena than a fawning dog as he tried to deflect Dan’s fury.
‘Dan, hey, c’mon – I’m like you. I just want the best for the show, for the actors. This group of people here, the best there is, these great actors, they’re what it’s all about, isn’t that so, Dan?’
Dan, still angry and less able to turn on a lie than Izzy, looked truculent and ungracious before this onslaught of charm that was winning over those honoured to be called actors.
‘So, pal, you carry on… I wanted to help you, share the load… It was only you being away for so long made me want to keep the ship on course. I’m sorry, real sorry if I upset you. Okay?’ He paused, his tongue hovering over his lower teeth. ‘Come on, Dan… Shake my hand.’
There was a long, ice-heavy pause. Dan knew the popular balance had changed in favour of Izzy. Reluctantly he walked towards his producer and stretched out his hand, as if reluctant to get too close. Izzy grasped it and pulled Dan into an embrace. Dan was rigid in his arms as Izzy laughed and thudded his palms on Dan’s back.
I glanced round the room and, to my surprise, saw the Canadian Kelvin was shaking his head, as aware as I was that we were going on with a crack in our infrastructure. Only time would tell if it would open up and sink us all.
Hands clasped in triumph above his head, Izzy disappeared out of the door with his cigar clamped between his deceptively toothless jaws.