The War of the Worlds Murder - By Max Allan Collins Page 0,17

was sleeping on her arms, like a schoolgirl taking a teacher-enforced nap.

Careful not to wake her, Gibson crept into the theater itself—no one, at 4:32 A.M., was taking tickets.

For Broadway, the auditorium was rather intimate, a rococo affair with two balconies and perhaps seven hundred seats. The licks of paint and the fancy touches (the gilt feathering on the façade, the chandelier in the lobby) appeared to represent the Mercury’s major investment in refurbishing the old house—the red aisle carpeting and the wine-color frayed seats had been sewn, though not with thread precisely matching the originals, and the walls and proscenium had the patchy look of plaster repairs and selective painting that were practical first, and cosmetic a distant second.

A showman of sorts himself, Gibson knew that the Mercury putting its money in the outside and outer lobby made sense: these imperfections would disappear in the dark, and anyway, the productions on stage would consume the eyes and dazzle the imaginations of playgoers.

This Gibson knew at a glance, as he took in the stunning, almost mind-boggling stage set of the Welles production about to open: Danton’s Death.

The play, while hardly a household word, happened to be one with which Gibson was familiar—he’d seen an elaborate Broadway production of it, about ten years before, directed by the legendary showman Max Reinhardt, who had filled the stage with mob scenes and grandeur. Written by Georg Buechner, a political activist who died at twenty-four in 1837, the play centered on a brief though pivotal episode in the French Revolution. Set in the spring of 1794, Danton’s Death reflected the full social and political upheaval of the Reign of Terror.

By ironic coincidence, Gibson had spent Thursday evening (on the Welles expense account) taking in a picture at the Astor starring Norma Shearer—Marie Antoinette. But the Mercury version of the French Revolution did not seem to have much in common with the MGM take on the same subject matter...though Gibson could see how the movie company currently courting the boy director, Warner Bros.—who after all gave birth to Little Caesar—might well be attracted to Welles’s expressionistic, melodramatic approach....

A dress rehearsal was in full swing, but it was the set that commanded Gibson’s immediate attention.

Dominating was a massive curved backdrop arrayed with hundreds of blank masks that, through shifting dramatic lighting (blood-red, steel-gray, garish purple) now might suggest the murderous mob, later invoke the skulls of the mob’s victims, or even the tribunal deciding life or death for the play’s characters.

In front of that wall of faces, just behind the forestage, rose a four-sided tower with steps on either side, so that actors could emerge from beneath—a pit had been carved out of the stage itself—and if that weren’t enough, the structure contained a working elevator that climbed a good twelve feet. The platform that rode the elevator was used in many ways—a rostrum, garret, salon, prison cell and, finally, at its full height, the scaffold of a guillotine.

Gibson watched, impressed but not quite getting the point of any of it, despite having seen that earlier production. Lighting effects seemed to shoot from every direction, performers appearing or disappearing as if from thin air, this lone actor orating to an unseen shouting multitude, that small group emerging from the darkness to discuss the effect of the Revolution on their lives and potential deaths. Occasionally music interrupted the drama, a revolutionary hymn, a macabre celebratory chorus chanting “Carmagnole,” with the actor playing Danton obviously speaking English as a second language, as he expressed his opposition to “pipple in welwet gowns.”

Welles and the Mercury had a reputation, from their informal Cradle Will Rock to their street-dress Julius Caesar, for making Highbrow Thea-tah accessible to the masses. But right now the resolutely middlebrow Walter Gibson was feeling pretty lowbrow....

One of the actors was not in costume, and after a while, Gibson recognized him: Bill Alland, the little big-voice guy who had sat in for Welles at the radio-show rehearsal yesterday afternoon. He seemed to be filling in for Welles again, so that the director did not have to be distracted by his own acting.

In fact, early on, Gibson—who’d tucked himself in a seat toward the back of the house—spotted Welles up in the seventh row, on the aisle, with his feet up on the seat in front of him. Now and then, in rolled-up shirtsleeves and suspenders and dark baggy trousers, the great man-boy would rise and pace that aisle—although on his return, that pacing would be backward, his