Orson Welles, Vol I Read Free Page A

to be a millionaire. They had no money themselves: Welles, typically, had spent the large sums he earned as soon ashe had got it; Houseman was struggling on his small salary as Hallie Flanagan’s understudy. The sum they needed was small (barely more than $10,000) but without it, they couldn’t even begin. If the gamble failed, they would simply have to swallow all their brave words. Houseman’s first move was to secure a theatre (the Comedy, very cheap) and install a telephone. It never stopped ringing, but notwith investors, only theatre-workers wanting work, and theatre-goers wanting theatre. This was, in its way, encouraging (they were filling a definite need) but no basis for creating a new company. Houseman began to despair; finally, out of the blue, a perfect stranger, George Hexter, called offering to put up $4,500 of the $10,500 they needed, and the ball started rolling. With Hexter’s sum on thetable, the remainder was quickly found; without it, they would simply have had to give up. The Mercury came into existence by the skin of its teeth, and it remained in existence on the same basis. Houseman quickly assembled his team from friends, old FTP hands and newcomers; from the beginning there was a shrewd emphasis on selling: in addition to the usual technical team (stage manager and companymanager) there was a press and public relations officer (Henry Senber), a special promotions division (SylviaRegan) and a special department devoted to student subscriptions. They knew from the start that they must build a loyal Mercury audience. The Theatre Guild had its subscribers, plump and middle-class; the Mercury would have to be more streetwise. Having identified their constituency, theyimmediately set about reaching it. All this is very modern, a strong indication of Houseman’s organisational flair, and an essential part of the enormous impact that the Mercury made.
    Under the masterful control of that steel waif Jean Rosenthal as technical director, the theatre was swiftly converted to their purposes. As well as commanding her own troops, she used her particular elfin qualitiesto enlist support: she ‘inveigled some wonderful night watchman into feeding us heat from a bank across the street when we couldn’t pay our heating bills’. 4 The transformation of the Comedy was more radical than the one they had wrought on the Maxine Elliott, only a block away. While that boudoir of a theatre had somehow retained its dainty character through the alternately magical and surrealproceedings unleashed onto its stage by Welles, the Comedy was, in Houseman’s phrase, ‘made functional’. The stage and its needs were favoured over those of the 623-seat auditorium, which was rather left to fend for itself – as it had been doing for some years. Once the home of the Washington Square players and scene of Ruth Draper’s debut, it had become the centre of a scandal with the steamy drama, Maya : the theatre was closed down for immorality and padlocked; the actors, held responsible for the content of their roles, were threatened with legal action. The resulting outcry forced a revision of the censorship law; this turned out to be the high point of the Comedy’s career. Thereafter, it led a twilit existence, with occasional visits from amateur companies from Newark. Now it was rudelyawakened from its slumbers by the Mercury’s army of labourers knocking it into shape; Houseman watched the transformation through a peep-hole in his office, the old projection booth left over from the Comedy’s brief and unsuccessful spell as a movie-house. Once the job was done and the conversion complete, there was a moment of jubilation as the company gathered to watch the old COMEDY sign beingtaken down, and the new neon MERCURY erected in its place.
    The work was done with remarkable speed, as was the entire creation of the Mercury. Houseman remarks in Run-Through , that the same process would now require ‘a million, months of discussion,