Spotlight

Chapter Two: Closing Time

Well, the show did go on, and it was an excellent closing night. Not flawless, of course, because live theater never is, but that's part of the magic, really.

At one point, the actor playing Laertes skipped a couple of lines and Claudius had to cover for him. Ophelia's flowers disappeared backstage, and a stagehand pretending to be a "maidservant" had to run on mid-scene to give them to her before her big tragic monologue. The Porter dropped the giant-sized prop dildo during his scene and tried to make it look like it was intentional.

Of course, the audience probably didn't notice any of those mistakes, so overall it was a really good night.

Mr. Davidson, of course, was about as perfect as could be. As far as I could tell, he didn't flub a line, step out of his light or make a single mistake the entire evening. Every face he made was correct, every strikingly handsome gesture and pose was a showstopper. He turned Hamlet into the kind of Byronic hero that every woman dreams about, and if you've read the play you'll know how impossible that ought to be. I mean, the guy was an experienced professional who'd worked for years on the London equivalent of Broadway, so I guess I should have been expecting perfection. You don't get to where he was in life and in the theater unless you're really the best of the best. The sheer excellence of it was almost irritating.

While the final scene played out onstage, I did my best to clean up the dressing room and get ready for the end of everything. By everything, of course, I mean the world of the play, the world of this show, and...well, my marriage, my life as I knew it. Mr. Davidson and I would both be leaving that night to start new adventures, and the closer we got to the closing lines, the weirder and more melancholy I felt about it.

By the time the curtain fell, I had finished packing up the costumes, the makeup, and any personal effects of mine or his that were lying around the dressing room. I had wiped down the counters and rearranged the furniture so that the room would be ready for its next occupant.

When Mr. Davidson finally returned from greeting his adoring fans, I was sitting on top of my suitcase, scrolling through pages and pages of texts from Danny, feeling sort of empty.

When I was in college, they'd called this feeling "Post Play Depression," or PPD for short. I wasn't sure if it had a name in the real world, but I knew that I wasn't the only one who felt it. The melancholia was normal, even for people who weren't about to abandon their entire lives and strike out on their own. The end of a good show left a hole in your soul, and everyone in the theater knew it, felt it, maybe got a little bit of a masochistic high off of it.

"Rachael, my sweet!" announced Mr. Davidson, bursting into the dressing room in high spirits, covered in the fake blood from the final fight. "We've done it, my lady of the laces! A standing ovation for all of us is a standing ovation for you as well. Tonight I was not Hugh Davidson, aging, befuddled Britisher, but Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, brooding and charming, in the flesh. You are, and have been, primarily responsible for that transformation, and for that you have my eternal gratitude. Thank you for the brutal beatings you have given my face every night. I shall miss the sweet abuse."

Dramatically, apparently intoxicated by the success of a great performance, he knelt at my feet, took my free hand in his, and again pressed it to his lips.

I glanced up from the messages I was reading and managed a tired smile.

"You're an amazing actor," I told him. "It's been a privilege. I'm glad I could help."

Mr. Davidson's face fell, and he peered thoughtfully at me, frowning a bit.

"What is it?" he asked. "You're troubled. Am I perhaps overdoing it? I apologize for my excitement. I can be serious. Yes, let us be serious."