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Authors: Susan Wittig Albert
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was “seriously considering” the Obermann sisters’ offer. Marian took Miss Jane’s script home to read over the weekend, and came back with her recommendation, which was hardly a surprise, under the circumstances.
“The play is a little . . . well, amateurish,” she told the board, “and it certainly needs some cutting and tightening up. But I think we can manage to stage it. In fact, it might work very well as a house opener, since it’s basically the story of Doctor Obermann’s life. There are a lot of people in town who still remember him.”
“Not always favorably,” somebody reminded her. “He gave away a lot of money, sure. But he screwed a lot of people along the way. A lot of important people, with long memories.”
Marian had waved the remark away. “Of course, the production isn’t going to be easy. Unless I miss my guess, that old woman is going to be the very devil to work with. We’ll all be screaming bloody murder.”
The board didn’t disagree, but as Marian reminded them, they were running out of options, fast. So after a long discussion of the pros and cons (the playwright herself headed the list of cons), they gritted their collective teeth and said yes, thank you kindly, Miss Obermann, we’ll stage your play, and we’ll take your playhouse, and we’ll even pretend that this whole thing is a wonderful idea and we’re having a whale of a wonderful time.
True to their word, the two Misses Obermann signed over the property and, with appropriate ceremony and picture-taking, deposited a very cool three hundred thousand dollars into the Merrill Obermann Theater Renovation Fund. A local architect drew up the plans, and the contractors went to work. The attractive old stone building was gutted and refloored, then reroofed and rewired. New plumbing was installed, along with the necessary heating and air-conditioning. One end was turned into the stage and dressing room space; rows of plush seats were set up in the middle; and the front became an entrance lobby. The theater was on its way to becoming a community showplace.
There was an irony here, some observers would have said, for the grand new theater stood in sad contrast to the run-down mansion in which the Obermann sisters lived. They had stopped entertaining decades before, and apparently had no pride of place. The house needed paint and repair, and the gardens were a weedy jungle. Once the most beautiful house in town, the old place was now a derelict relic.
But most people were too busy to notice the sad state of the Obermann mansion. While the renovations were going on, the play’s script was rewritten and Jean Davenport, the director, began the casting. Sets and costumes were discussed and designed, and rehearsals got underway.
All this was not without its problems, of course. Most of them were created by Miss Jane herself, who proved, as Marian had foreseen, the very devil to work with. Of course, nobody expected that the old lady would take the revision of her precious script lying down, and she didn’t disappoint. Carleton Becker, who was in charge of the rewrite, told me, in a tone of quiet desperation, that he couldn’t wait for the play to be over and done with.
“And if that doesn’t happen soon,” he’d said dramatically, “I promise you I am going to kill her.” He raised his fists. “With my bare hands.”
But Miss Jane’s meddling went far beyond the script. In the end, she managed to alienate everybody, from Marian and Carleton and Jean to the roofer and the plumbers and the people who installed the theater seats. Because she was constantly getting in everybody’s face, the construction took far longer and cost much more than planned, and dozens of tempers were frayed to the breaking point. As Marian put it, they were finding it harder and harder to pretend that they were having fun.
“If this drags on much longer,” she said through clenched teeth, “I am personally going to bash that old bird right
“The play is a little . . . well, amateurish,” she told the board, “and it certainly needs some cutting and tightening up. But I think we can manage to stage it. In fact, it might work very well as a house opener, since it’s basically the story of Doctor Obermann’s life. There are a lot of people in town who still remember him.”
“Not always favorably,” somebody reminded her. “He gave away a lot of money, sure. But he screwed a lot of people along the way. A lot of important people, with long memories.”
Marian had waved the remark away. “Of course, the production isn’t going to be easy. Unless I miss my guess, that old woman is going to be the very devil to work with. We’ll all be screaming bloody murder.”
The board didn’t disagree, but as Marian reminded them, they were running out of options, fast. So after a long discussion of the pros and cons (the playwright herself headed the list of cons), they gritted their collective teeth and said yes, thank you kindly, Miss Obermann, we’ll stage your play, and we’ll take your playhouse, and we’ll even pretend that this whole thing is a wonderful idea and we’re having a whale of a wonderful time.
True to their word, the two Misses Obermann signed over the property and, with appropriate ceremony and picture-taking, deposited a very cool three hundred thousand dollars into the Merrill Obermann Theater Renovation Fund. A local architect drew up the plans, and the contractors went to work. The attractive old stone building was gutted and refloored, then reroofed and rewired. New plumbing was installed, along with the necessary heating and air-conditioning. One end was turned into the stage and dressing room space; rows of plush seats were set up in the middle; and the front became an entrance lobby. The theater was on its way to becoming a community showplace.
There was an irony here, some observers would have said, for the grand new theater stood in sad contrast to the run-down mansion in which the Obermann sisters lived. They had stopped entertaining decades before, and apparently had no pride of place. The house needed paint and repair, and the gardens were a weedy jungle. Once the most beautiful house in town, the old place was now a derelict relic.
But most people were too busy to notice the sad state of the Obermann mansion. While the renovations were going on, the play’s script was rewritten and Jean Davenport, the director, began the casting. Sets and costumes were discussed and designed, and rehearsals got underway.
All this was not without its problems, of course. Most of them were created by Miss Jane herself, who proved, as Marian had foreseen, the very devil to work with. Of course, nobody expected that the old lady would take the revision of her precious script lying down, and she didn’t disappoint. Carleton Becker, who was in charge of the rewrite, told me, in a tone of quiet desperation, that he couldn’t wait for the play to be over and done with.
“And if that doesn’t happen soon,” he’d said dramatically, “I promise you I am going to kill her.” He raised his fists. “With my bare hands.”
But Miss Jane’s meddling went far beyond the script. In the end, she managed to alienate everybody, from Marian and Carleton and Jean to the roofer and the plumbers and the people who installed the theater seats. Because she was constantly getting in everybody’s face, the construction took far longer and cost much more than planned, and dozens of tempers were frayed to the breaking point. As Marian put it, they were finding it harder and harder to pretend that they were having fun.
“If this drags on much longer,” she said through clenched teeth, “I am personally going to bash that old bird right
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