Baby Doll Games Read Free Page B

accommodate more than a hundred fifty people. Officer Papaky had estimated today’s attendance at around thirty- five adults and perhaps forty-five children-hardly Lincoln Center or even PS. 122, but respectable for a low-budget operation which seemed to be held together with spit and string and the eternal optimism of youth.
“My first foray into the art of Terpsichore,” mourned Roman, “and look what happens!”
“What did happen here this afternoon?” Sigrid asked abruptly.
“We called it Ghosties and Ghouls . I thought it should have been Fantasia for All Hallows Eve and Sergio wanted Scream Time , so we compromised.”
“Sergio is the Sergio Avril listed in the program?” Tramegra gestured discreetly to a meek-looking skeletal man in thick gold-rimmed glasses, who leaned forward with his chin propped on his hands at the far end of the front pew absorbed by the action onstage. “A talented composer but totally unappreciated.”
When conversing, Roman Tramegra liked to wander up and down hills and wallow in all the valleys. Sigrid usually preferred that he just skim across the peaks, but now she listened quietly.
“Sergio has occasionally provided music for the dancers gratis-exposure is the only way to get discovered, is it not?-and Emmy asked him to create something original for them.”
"Emmy Mion ran things?”
Roman considered. “Let us say she was first among equals. It was supposed to be an egalitarian enterprise but, yes, hers was the moving spirit. She acted. The others usually reacted.”
The company had received a rather large grant back in the spring for a children’s project and for the first time, there was money not only to commission Sergio Avril but enough to cover a scenarist as well, hence Roman’s presence.
“We decided to do this autumnal fantasy. Sergio is a genius at the synthesizer. Quite deliciously eerie sounds. Our talents meshed so beautifully. I could visualize the whole scene the minute he began to play: an overgrown, deserted garden. Silent. Ominous.” Roman’s bass deepened dramatically.
“A pale beam of moonlight moves down the aisle, picks its way through the cold iron fence while the music simply tiptoes along with the spotlight. A huge pile of pumpkins, then Bling! The spotlight widens, the music explodes and the pumpkin pile becomes a riot of dancing jack-o’-lantems. Wonderful!”
“And then?” Sigrid prompted.
“Then they exit, and the pumpkin patch becomes a graveyard. Emmy was quite good at improvisation, so we merely left it that this was to be a change-of-mood piece that she could dance any way she wished. Sergio gave her some marvelously sepulchral music for this passage and I sketched in some suggestions. She was supposed to be dancing alone here, giving the others time to catch their breath and get ready for the next scene with the stuffed goblins.”
“Those figures I saw in the wings?” asked Sigrid. “How were they to be used?”
“Like big puppets. You see, Helen Delgado-she designs the sets and the costumes and is, I might add, the consort of Cliff Delgado-” He paused and Sigrid nodded to show that she remembered reading the dancer’s name in the program.
“Helen, you see, stitched together some tights and sweatshirts and stuffed them with excelsior, so they’re rather light but quite lifelike, especially with the masks. You must see the dance. Utterly postmodern! Puppets and people are dressed alike so that when everything is moving, you can scarcely tell which is which flying through the air. Marvelous!”
Sigrid consulted the mimeographed program. “So Emmy Mion was supposed to be dancing onstage alone. Where would the others be then?”
“Around." Roman threw up his hands. “There’s no particular drill. I suppose they would remove those pumpkin heads and towel off-dancers sweat like horses, you know. Perhaps get something to drink, then put on their hoods and masks.”
At Sigrid’s questioning gaze, he elucidated.