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1
GENEVIEVE
Genevieve Howard waspissed.
And not in the fun kind of way, either. Normally her anger, born from men telling her that she “just couldn’t do it,” and “oh that’s a wonderful idea, darling, but you just can’t pull it off,” or “I think you would do marvellously in the costume department,” spurned Genevieve on to push theatrical boundaries in ways that nobody thought possible. Ways that led to four Tonys and several hundred smaller awards besides.
Who the hell else besides her would have had the balls to stageRomeo and Julieton a narrow walkway, suspended above a stage of thousands of bloodied knives? With no handrail?
That one had led to Hollywood knocking on Genevieve’s door. Not that she had answered, of course. Bloody camera-cocks, the whole lot of them. But even then,Daniel Davies in his horrendous column had said of her masterpiece that it was “the desperate work of a jumped-up girl thinking cheap metaphors would garner respect, when in reality it’s the clear cry for help of a menopausal woman who hasn’t yet forgiven herself for her own menses. What else explains the bloodied-phallus metaphor of the daggers?”
Misogyny and condescension, Genevieve could deal with. She’d been doing so for over three decades. Soldiering on through the voices telling her, “you can’t,” with a grim smile and several expletives.
But this. This was fundamental. This was personal. There would be absolute hell to pay.
“You can’t cutMacbethfrom this season’s line-up! I won’t allow it.”
Sammy grinned at her, his veneers gleaming too-white in the stark white light of the minimalist office, the completely alabaster room empty, save for a chrome-black desk and three matching chairs. Supposedly his ode to the Royal Bard Company’s 1983 production ofHenry V.
Pretentious git. Anybody with a brain knew that the 1996 version was far superior.
“Gen,darling, I’m the artistic director of RBC, I can do whatever I like.” He threw around the Royal Bard Company’s abbreviation the way he threw around his weight.
“But it’sMacbeth,”she countered, “do you know how long I’ve been waiting to doMacbeth? Properly this time.”
“Ah yes.” Sammy leaned forward to prop his elbows on the desk, his tailored suit straining slightly against his softening body, “Twenty-twelve, was it? One of your mediocre visions. I hardly remember it.”
“Youwere the one who made me do that god-awful Olympics theme! The whole of bloody London was obsessed with the damn Olympics.”
“The whole world, darling,” he said breezily, “and I won’t change my mind. We don’t have space in the winter slots andMacbethis not a summer show. It doesn’t fit with the brand.”
“I can make it fit,” Genevieve forced out through gritted teeth, “deserts, heat, oppression that’s both mental and physical. Blood welling through the sand.”
“Sand?Oh, how absolutely awful! You’re not getting sand anywhere near my theatre. The water tanks last year were bad enough. The insurance alone . . .”
“I made you five million!” Genevieve cut him off, temper steadily rising. “The Tempestnever makes five million.”
“My answer is ‘no,’ Genevieve.”
She leaned back in her seat, fists clenching, immaculately manicured nails biting into the skin of her hands. Years she had been waiting for a chance to doMacbeth. Years. The last time had been a complete farce built on lycra and entirely too much flexing. She had tried to compromise, arguing that an ancient Greek theme was still technically in keeping with the Olympics vision, but she had been trampled over in favor of some horrendous, post-modern tourist bait. All this time spent honing her craft and Genevieve still hadn’t risen to the terrifying legend of directorial dictatorship that would allow her complete control.
What was any of it worth if she couldn’t even get Sammy to sign off on a show? There would be blood. She would move to America this time, she swore. She could make a killing over there. They wouldn’t even think to question the whims of the towering English theatre titan. Then who would Sammy be left with to direct his plays? Peter Henshaw? Gary Wollenstock? RBC would be a laughingstock.
“I do have something else that might interest you,” Sammy interrupted Genevieve’s bitter musing in a smarmy sales voice, dripping with enough sugar to make her teeth hurt. She scowled at him, red-lipsticked mouth pursed and eyes narrowed.
“If you intend to try and persuade me to do a musical again, so help me God . . .”
“No, no.” He waved his hands in mock surrender, thin strands slipping from their meticulously gelled, combed-overposition on top of his bald spot. “Not a musical. Tell me, have you ever met Alicia Pearson?”
“The author?” Genevieve replied, her voice dripping with thinly veiled disdain. What use was writing words on a page if you didn’t have the burning desire to see them lifted into a transcendent spectacle of raw human emotion? “We’ve met once or twice.”
“And what did you think of her?” Sammy asked, with a lewd wiggle of his eyebrows.
“Sammy, if you’re trying to set me up on a date to lessen the blow of rippingMacbethfrom me, my next production will feature you as the lead. How do you feel aboutFrankensteinwith a real-time vivisection?”
The maddening company director laughed, the sound high and reedy, and red spots appeared on his ruddy cheeks. “Oh, Genevieve, you’re too much! I can’t think of anything worse than the two of you in a relationship. After all, somebody needs to be ‘the woman.’”
Genevieve rolled her eyes with such commitment that they could have gotten stuck in the back of her skull. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I guess we could invite you to be our third, and then we’d be set.”
