The show must go on!!!!
From Part 17
Clark walked over to the mirror. He adjusted his tie and he, too, smiled. No problem for Dan, but one big problem off his hands. Now he could devote his energy to getting through the play tonight, getting Lex tomorrow and getting Lois back.
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Part 18
Smallville, Kansas
Friday,
February 25, 1994
7:40 p.m. CST
“Well,” Martha said looking carefully at the assembled cast waiting for their usual opening night pep talk. “This really has been a very difficult time for each and every one of us,” she said looking first at her old friend, Beatrice Drake, and then at Libby Barton.
“And I realize that as we have followed the philosophy of ‘the show must go on’, we have probably offended every theatre hobgoblin in the process and most likely broken several fundamental rules of theatre superstition along the way. I’m just glad that, at least, we’re not doing the ‘Scottish Play’,” she said carefully.
“Scottish Play?” asked Perry.
“Yes, Macbeth,” Donald Botts said quickly and then cupped his hand to his mouth.
Martha glared at him. “I’m not usually a superstitious woman, but we have worked so long and so hard that I believe we need something to help us do what we have to do,” she said eyeing Clark, Libby and Beatrice. There *is* a way to override any theatre faux pas that we might have engaged in,” she explained passing around a sheet of paper to each of the actors. “If we intone this speech together, we will extinguish the possibility of failure and scare off the bad gremlins.”
“Now surely Mrs. Kent,” Richard interjected condescendingly. “You don’t really believe this nonsense. Do you? People create their own success. ‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles’.”
“Sun Tzu, ‘The Art of War’,” Clark stated looking over at him. “This is not a war, Thurston.”
“All encounters are like warfare, Kent.”
“Right,” Clark said sharply. <And our war escalates now, Luthor!> he thought to himself.
“All right, everyone,” Martha said, waving the piece of paper at them. “Let’s all get into a circle and read this together. Needed or not, we can get the theatre spirits on our side; and if nothing else, this is a good vocal exercise to get us going for tonight’s show.”
The cast of the Smallville Players production of ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ moved to form a circle and in unison read out loud:
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this,--and all is mended,--
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend;
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call:
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.
“Now,” Martha continued. “Let’s all join hands and have a moment of silence to remember friends and loved ones that are no longer here.”
Jonathan, standing in between Martha and Cindy, took their hands. Richard standing next to Lois on one side and Miss Libby on the other, took Lois’ extended hand but didn’t reach out for the older woman’s offered hand.
Miss Libby looked over at Richard quickly, and then reached out with her other hand to take Martha’s waiting palm on the other side of her. The two women smiled at each other and Martha squeezed Libby’s hand.
Perry seeing Thurston neglect Libby, moved from his spot by Jimmy and Keith to stand beside her and clasped her unoccupied hand.
After Richard took Lois’ hand, she looked to her left, paused and then took the hand that Clark extended toward her. Out of habit, their fingers interlocked. The warmth of Clark’s hand encircling hers felt strong, yet gentle and reassuring.
The two looked at each other.
Clark could see the pain resting just beneath the surface of Lois’ brown eyes and knew that he had ridiculously put the hurt there. Three friends had died--friends who would never again feel the warmth of someone they loved. Yet he had pushed his one love away, and had done it by choice. How stupid could one man be? He had given in to fear and cowardice--he the man of steel, the great superhero had let criminals dictate to him.
Lois bit her lower lip and looked away from Clark.
Clark watched her turn away from him and toward Richard. He couldn’t have lost her, he just couldn’t.
He thought back to the first play he and Lois had performed together. Her character in that play was the one who was ashamed, scared, uninspired--so far from Lois’ real persona. Clark knew the real Lois. She had been so magnificent, so brave and so creative in her quest to achieve what was right for those around her and for her newly adopted community. How in the world could he have behaved like a half-witted lunkhead when he had that model as an example? The words of Professor Tommy Turner came back to haunt him.
Tommy/Clark: ...and if we surrender to prejudice and dictation, we’re cowards.
Clark remembered how Lois had looked at him when he argued for truth and justice during that play. If only she would look at him that way again.
He refocused as he heard his mother begin the final words of encouragement.
“Now I know all of you will do your best. It’s hard doing a comedy given the tragedy we have endured of late,” she acquiesced. “But there was a character that I once played on stage that had this great line. It was ‘laughter through tears is my favorite emotion’. Right now we can help bring some laughter into people’s lives so, okay, everyone get out there and have a great show,” Martha told her cast.
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Smallville, Kansas
Friday,
February 25, 1994
7:50 p.m. CST
Jaxon Luthor stood in front of the massive desk where his father had stood the day before, and pulled open the center drawer. Inside was his father’s script for the play. Jaxon flipped through the pages reading some of the lines and especially the copious notes the elder Luthor had made.
Jaxon’s father had written critiques about the author’s words and about Martha Kent’s
interpretation--none of which were flattering.
Several lines jumped off the page.
Mortimer: Well, Teddy was always my favorite brother.
Elaine: Favorite? Were there more of you?
Mortimer: There’s another brother--Jonathan.
Elaine: I never heard of him. Your aunts never mention him.
Mortimer: Now, we don’t like to talk about Jonathan. He left very early--by request. Jonathan was the kind of boy who liked to cut worms in two--with his teeth.
Next to this line, Lex had written: A poor description of a visionary character but it does bring back memories of a young Jaxon.
Jaxon stared at the note, anger rising in him. He flung the script across the desk and as he did so, it came to rest by the note pad Jaxon’s father had been using the previous day.
The Luthor scion removed a pencil from the desk drawer and started to carefully shade the blank page that was now on the top of the pad. The indentations of eight scratched out names appeared as did five, no six remaining names. Jaxon stared at his own name at the bottom of the list and reached for the phone.
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Smallville, Kansas
Friday,
February 25, 1994
8:15 p.m. CST
As scene two began, Lois took her place in back of the flats that masked the Brewster’s front door. Clark, Miss Libby and Beatrice were on stage providing the audience with exposition.
Mortimer/Clark: All right--now--who was the first one?
Aunt Abby/Beatrice: [Crossing from above the table to walk toward Mortimer/Clark.] Mr. Midgely. He was a Baptist.
Aunt Martha/Miss Libby: Of course, I still think we can’t claim full credit for him because he *just* died.
Aunt Abby/Beatrice: Martha means without any help from us. You see, Mr. Midgely came here looking for a room--
Aunt Martha/Miss Libby: It was right after you moved into Metropolis.
Aunt Abby/Beatrice: And it didn’t seem right for that lovely room to be going to waste when there were so many people who needed it--
Aunt Martha/Miss Libby: --He was such a lonely old man....
Aunt Abby/Beatrice: All his kith and kin were dead and it left him so forlorn and unhappy--
Aunt Martha/Miss Libby: --We felt so sorry for him.
Aunt Abby/Beatrice: And then when his heart attack came--and he sat dead in that chair [Pointing to the armchair beside the table.] looking so peaceful--remember, Martha--we made up our minds then and there that if we could help other lonely old men to that same peace--we would!
A few slight titters came from the audience.
Mortimer/Clark: He dropped dead right in that chair! How awful for you!
Aunt Martha/Miss Libby: Oh, no, dear. Why, it was rather like old times. Your grandfather always used to have a cadaver or two around the house....
The audience laughed a little more loudly.
“Well, they’re warming up,” whispered Jimmy who had slipped quietly in behind Lois. Jimmy was not due on until the middle of Act III, but he hated to wait it out in the dressing rooms and he loved to watch the show from the wings.
Lois nodded, but her eyes were fixed on Clark.
Mortimer/Clark: And that’s how all this started--that man walking in here and dropping dead.
Aunt Abby/Beatrice: Of course, we realized we couldn’t *depend* on that happening again. So---
Aunt Martha/Miss Libby: [Crosses to Mortimer/Clark.] You remember those jars of poison that have been up on the shelves in Grandfather’s laboratory all these years?
Aunt Abby/Beatrice: You know your Aunt Martha’s knack for mixing things. You’ve eaten enough of her piccalilli.
More laughter.
Aunt Martha/Miss Libby: Well, dear, for a gallon of elderberry wine I take one teaspoonful of arsenic, then add a half teaspoonful of strychnine and then just a pinch of cyanide.
Mortimer/Clark: [Appraisingly.] Should have quite a kick.
The audience howled, and Lois could hear, above all the others, the irritating laughter of one particular member of the audience. She frowned.
“Well,” Jimmy whispered. “CK has them all in the palm of his hands, especially the chick he brought. She’s really a look....ooops sorry Lois,”
Lois turned to retort Jimmy’s statement but stopped when she realized it was just about the cue for her entrance. <So Mr. Clark Jerome Kent has the audience on his side, including little Ms. Kipling.> Lois thought. Well, she’ll spark an even better performance out of him. Martha had mentioned during the last week that Lois wasn’t sexy enough--that she wasn’t coming on to Clark the way her character should be continually doing.
Martha’s vision of Elaine, which she had explained several times to Lois, was that Elaine being a Minister’s daughter had heightened that character’s need to play against type--to be seductive, enticing. Martha believed that Elaine should have Mortimer drool over her and, therefore, would cause him to constantly be fighting with himself to make his character push Elaine away while he deals with all the twists and turns of the plot.
Okay, Lois would do just that. She smiled. She would create a much more flirtatious character and on stage, she would have him begging for mercy in no time. And then, off stage, Clark would come crawling back to her and then she...she would simply toss him aside, the way he did her.
[Mortimer/Clark crosses to the window-seat, kneels down, raises the cover and looks in. Not believing, he lowers the window-seat cover, rubs his eyes, and then raises it again. This time he really sees Mr. Hoskins. He closes the window-seat hastily, rises, steps back. He runs over and closes the curtains over the window. He backs up to just above the table and sees the water glass sitting there, which he picks up, and raises to his lips. He suddenly remembers that poisoned wine comes in glasses and puts it down quickly. He crosses to the cellar door and opens it.]
Clark’s opening the cellar door was Elaine’s cue. Lois walked in, put her bag on the desk and walked deliberately toward Clark.
Mortimer/Clark: [Speaking with faint surprise.] Oh, it’s you.
[Elaine/Lois goes to him and takes his hand.]
Martha had directed that she do this particular action, but then Lois took it further. She looked up at Clark seductively, and then pulled him over to the window-seat and shoved him down, sitting on his lap. She ran her fingers through his hair and then stroked the side of his face playfully while saying her next lines.
Elaine/Lois: Don’t be cross, darling! Father could see that I was excited--so I told him about us and that made it hard for me to get way. But listen, darling--he’s not going to wait up for me tonight.
Lois began nibbling at Clark’s ear.
Mortimer/Clark: Uhm...uhm...
Clark Looked down at the window-seat, which was his supposed action. But then he frowned, stood up holding Lois in his arms and set her on her feet abruptly.
Clark stared at Lois. What had gotten into her? This was not the way they had rehearsed this scene. Was she telling him that she....No! There was a hint of mischief in her eyes now. Well two could play at that game.
Mortimer/Clark: You run along home, Elaine, and I’ll call you up tomorrow.
He turned her and gave her a small slap to her behind, shoving her toward the door.
Lois turned on her heels.
Elaine/Lois: Tomorrow! But that’s so very far away. [She throws her arms around him and kisses him on the lips.]
Martha watched the action on stage from her seat in the back row. What was Lois doing? Her line was simply “Tomorrow!”, and Martha did not block that last kiss. As the director, she had told Lois that there appeared to be no chemistry between the two of them recently. Perhaps Lois was finally getting into character a little more and Clark was responding.
No, Martha realized. Lois had a purpose in all this. <Ah, Veronica,> Martha thought and then smiled. Well, knowing her son, Clark had added that slap and would continue reciprocating. She normally would be angry at the change of blocking and added dialog, but...maybe this was the push they both needed. She chuckled softy. Tonight’s show was going to be fun.
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The curtain came down and the house lights went up, signaling intermission. Martha stood up and hurried out of the auditorium. The first half of the show had gone exceedingly well. The audience was obviously enjoying it, but not as much as she was--especially as she watched the cat and mouse give and take of Elaine and Mortimer.
Martha could sense the passion beneath their looks, the restrained desire with every touch and the suggestive innuendo of each phrase they uttered. It was exactly how she had wanted it to be. Their acting was perfection. Hopefully the two of them could see that they were no longer acting--that they deeply and fiercely loved each other and that nothing could or should interfere with that love. Least of all *him*.
Martha rounded the corner and turned down a hallway.
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At the same moment, Beatrice Drake hurried off stage and grabbed her set of keys. Libby Barton joined her and they both moved quickly down the hall for the planned meeting. They heard footsteps and looked behind them to see Martha Kent coming from the front of the auditorium to join them there. As they moved into the classroom, Clark was already there pacing the room, waiting for them.
“Do you think she’ll do it?” Libby asked the other three.
“She just has to,” Beatrice responded.
Clark walked up to Beatrice, taking her hand. “Rachel, will. I’m sure she...,” he began and then got a faraway look in his eye. “Mom,” he said, moving toward the door. “I forgot to get my props ready for the third act. You three talk to Rachel and fill her in on the plan. I have to go.”
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Lois looked at her face in the mirror as she repaired her make-up. The additional brief teasing kisses she had added to the script during Acts I and II had eroded a great deal of her lipstick. She smiled at her reflection as she realized that her actions on stage had had an amazing impact on Clark. His delivery of lines was more breathless, his touching her more eager and his eyes more intensely demanding. She *had* him.
Now in the final Act she would pull away, she would be cold, she would be standoffish which is what the script called for--but she would make sure that underneath that aloofness was a hint of ‘you can have me if you want me’. But she would not give in. She would not let him win. He could have his Ms. Kipling. She had other fish to fry. She opened the drawer at the right side of the make-up table and glanced at the velvet box that contained the diamond necklace Richard had given her.
Lois sighed, closed the drawer and looked up into the mirror and gasped. Behind her own reflection she saw that of a monster. She sighed again as she realized it was Richard. He came toward her and put his hands on her neck and moved his cold fingers slowly to massage her. Lois shrugged him off. “Don’t, Richard. I have to fix my make-up and hair, and change my costume.”
“What is it Lois?” he asked.
“Just getting into character for the last act, getting ready for the final curtain, I guess.”
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Sheriff Rachel Harris walked up the aisle to the lobby. The note that Linda Botts had slipped her just before the curtain went up asked that she meet Beatrice during intermission in classroom 177, which was just down the hall from the auditorium. Rachel wondered what would cause the actress to use those few minutes she had to rest, to speak to her. The Sheriff knew that Beatrice still had questions about her daughter’s death, but Rachel hadn’t any more news to tell her since they had spoken two days before. This had been hard on Mayson’s mother, Rachel knew that and it was difficult for the Sheriff to inform Beatrice that the investigation remained stalled.
When Rachel entered the room, Beatrice pulled her in and closed the door. The Sheriff looked at the small group of anxious women.
“We only have about ten minutes,” Beatrice told her daughter’s childhood friend. “So just listen to the three of us.”
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Highway 17
Just outside
Smallville, Kansas
Friday,
February 25, 1994
9:40 p.m. CST
Superman landed quickly and pulled open the door of the wrecked car and removed the man to safety.
“My little girl,” the man yelled.
Since the door on the passenger side was mangled, Superman ripped open the top of the car and carefully lifted a young child of about three out of the snarled metal.
“Is she, is she?” the father asked with fear in his eyes.
“She’s alive,” Superman told him. “But she’s hurt badly.”
“Do something, Superman,” the man begged.
“I’ll fly her to the hospital. I can hear one of the sheriff’s cars coming. Get them to take you there.”
The man of steel flew up into the sky with his small charge. He noted the time on the clock tower as he passed it. <Please, Lois. I need you to cover for me.> he thought.
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Smallville, Kansas
Friday,
February 25, 1994
9:42 p.m. CST
The lights in the lobby blinked several times to inform the audience that the show was about to start again. The patrons chattering happily to each other filed back into the auditorium. The house lights dimmed and then blacked out. Two audience members hurried down the aisle to their seats.
Martha slipped into her seat in the back row.
[After Intermission, the curtain rises on an empty stage. The window-seat is open and the audience can see that it is empty. The curtains over the windows are closed. All doors except the cellar door are shut. Aunt Abby’s hymnal and black gloves are on the sideboard. Aunt Martha’s hymnal and gloves are on the dining room table. Otherwise the room looks the same as it did before Intermission. As the curtain continues to rise, the audience hears a row from the cellar, through the open door.]
Aunt Martha/Miss Libby: You stop doing that!
Aunt Abby/Beatrice: This is our house and this is our cellar and you can’t do that.
Dr. Einstein/Wayne Irig: Ladies! Please! --Go back upstairs vere you belong.
JB/Richard: Abby! Martha! Go upstairs!
Aunt Martha/Miss Libby: There’s no use your doing what you’re doing because it will just have to be undone.
Aunt Abby/Beatrice: I tell you we won’t have it and you’d better stop it right now.
Aunt Martha/Miss Libby: [Entering from the cellar.] All right! You’ll find out. You’ll find out whose house this is. [She crosses to the front door, opens it and looks out. She then closes it.]
Aunt Abby/Beatrice: [Entering.] I’m warning you! You’d better stop it! [Crosses over to where Aunt Martha/Miss Libby is standing.] Hasn’t Mortimer come back yet?
Aunt Martha/Miss Libby: No.
Aunt Abby/Beatrice: Where do you suppose Mortimer went?
Aunt Martha/Miss Libby: [Moves down stage, further away from the cellar door.] I don’t know, but he must be doing something--because he said to Jonathan. ‘You just wait, I’ll settle this.’
Aunt Abby/Beatrice: Well, he can’t very well settle it while he’s out of the house. That’s all we want settled--what’s going on down there.
Miss Libby and Beatrice look toward the door expecting Clark to enter hurriedly, but as in the rehearsal a few days ago, they are looking at an empty spot on the stage.
“I...I hope that Mortimer gets here soon,” Beatrice Drake ad libbed, looking worriedly over at Libby.
Lois, who was standing in the wings, stage left, realized that the ladies were in trouble as Mortimer had not made his entrance. Where could Clark be? He wouldn’t miss an entrance. Where....she knew where. Lois rushed behind the masked door and quickly entered the living room.
“Where is Mortimer?” Lois said, stalling for time.
“That’s what we were wondering,” Libby responded, she too beginning to understand.
Beatrice looked back and forth at the two of them, deliberating what to say next.
Lois began pacing the living room set. “He’s...he’s always running off like that. It’s like being engaged to Su, uh... some doctor or something. It’s really hard,” she said dropping onto the sofa.”
“I know, dear,” Libby Barton told her, sitting down next to her, realizing what she needed to hear. “But he loves you so very much.”
“Does he?” Lois asked, looking at Miss Libby with tears welling up in her eyes.
“Of course he does,” Beatrice added and sat down on the other side of Lois.
“Mortimer worships you,” Libby said, stroking Lois’ hair as she stared directly at her, knowing that Lois would understand.
“Maybe too much,” Lois said looking from one to the other. “He’s always trying to protect me, keep me safe, and by doing that control me.”
“Thoreau said, ‘the remedy for love is loving more’,” Beatrice said.
Lois smiled at Beatrice. “I do love him so much,” she admitted. “But you saw how he treats me. He just keeps pushing me away,” she explained and looked out toward the audience as if just remembering that they were there. “Uh...every time I came into this house he...uh...Mortimer told me to go away.”
Out in the audience, Martha was holding her breath. Clark should be back soon, but what was going on, on stage, was incredible. *Lois* was incredible and Martha realized again how wonderful that young woman was and how stupid her son had been the last few weeks. How could he have thrown away this relationship?
Clark adjusted his tie and moved to stand behind the masking of the front door. He listened, realizing that Lois was out there with Libby and Beatrice. He knew, he just knew that she would always be there for him. Clark heard Lois say that she loved Mortimer, but that Mortimer... No, she wasn’t talking about Elaine and Mortimer, she was talking about them.
Clark entered through the living room door.
Beatrice looked at him relieved and returned to the script.
Aunt Abby/Beatrice: [Crossing to Mortimer/Clark.] Mortimer, where have you been?
Mortimer/Clark: I’ve been over to Dr. Gilchrist’s. I’ve got his signature on Teddy’s commitment papers.
Aunt Martha/Miss Libby: [Rising and joining Aunt Abby/Beatrice.] Mortimer, what is the matter with you?
Clark walked over to Lois, knowing that he had to figure a way to get her off the set, he pulled her up off the sofa. “I love you...Elaine, but you have got to get out of here!” he exclaimed pushing her toward the door.
Lois sighed and opened the front door.
“But not before this,” Clark told her and turned her around. He pulled her toward him and captured her lips in a quick kiss. “Thank you,” he whispered and kissed her again. He gently pushed her through the door and closed it.
Lois leaned against the back flat after she exited the door. She took a deep breath and then reached up and touched her lips. The brief kisses had only left her wanting more. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, Richard was standing there looking at her.
tbc.
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