Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been preserved.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.For a complete list, please see the end of this document.
This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction,December 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
I dipped through the filmy curtain into the boys' half of the dressingroom and there was Sid sitting at the star's dressing table in histhreadbare yellowed undershirt, the lucky one, not making up yet butstaring sternly at himself in the bulb-framed mirror and[151]experimentally working his features a little, as actors will, andkneading the stubble on his fat chin.
[152]I said to him quietly, "Siddy, what are we putting on tonight? MaxwellAnderson's Elizabeth the Queen or Shakespeare's Macbeth? It saysMacbeth on the callboard, but Miss Nefer's getting ready forElizabeth. She just had me go and fetch the red wig."
He tried out a few eyebrow rears—right, left, both together—thenturned to me, sucking in his big gut a little, as he always does whena gal heaves into hailing distance, and said, "Your pardon, sweetling,what sayest thou?"
Sid always uses that kook antique patter backstage, until I sometimeswonder whether I'm in Central Park, New York City, nineteen hundredand three quarters, or somewhere in Southwark, Merry England, fifteenhundred and same. The truth is that although he loves every last fatpart in Shakespeare and will play the skinniest one with loyal andinspired affection, he thinks Willy S. penned Falstaff with nobodyelse in mind but Sidney J. Lessingham. (And no accent on the ham,please.)
I closed my eyes and counted to eight, then repeated my question.
He replied, "Why, the Bard's tragical history of the bloody Scot,certes." He waved his hand toward the portrait of Shakespeare thatalways sits beside his mirror on top of his reserve makeup box. Atfirst that particular picture of the Bard looked too nancy to me—asort of peeping-tom schoolteacher—but I've grown used to it over themonths and even palsy-feeling.
He didn't ask me why I hadn't asked Miss Nefer my question. Everybodyin the company knows she spends the hour before curtain-time gettinginto character, never parting her lips except for that purpose—or tobite your head off if you try to make the most necessary conversation.
"Aye, 'tiz Macbeth tonight," Sid confirmed, returning to hisfrowning-practice: left eyebrow up, right down, reverse, repeat, rest."And I must play the ill-starred Thane of Glamis."
I said, "That's fine, Siddy, but where does it leave