In an old play of mine, when asked what he does when he goes to New York City for the day, a character answers, “Mostly, I wander around. Drink it all in. I guess you could say the whole city is one big play to me.” When I’m walking around and about New York, I am that character.
Late on a warm spring afternoon, I was walking up 9th Avenue in Manhattan, near its intersection with 50th Street, and I saw a woman sitting on the stoop of a brownstone, next to a restaurant that advertised itself as “The Heart of France in the Heart of New York.” She was wearing what I took to be a restaurant server’s uniform — dressy but comfortable-looking black shoes, black dress slacks, white dress shirt, black vest. She appeared to be in late middle age, trim and lithe-looking, someone to whom the adjective “handsome” could reasonably be applied. She was smoking a cigarette.
As I stared discreetly at her, the writer in me wanted to know her story. I continued up 9th to an Afghan restaurant I favor, but kept wondering what her story might be — what continuum of moments brings one to sitting on a stoop in midtown Manhattan as twilight approaches, in the day and in one’s life, smoking a cigarette in faux-formal wear. My curiosity has served me well at times in my life, particularly with my writing. At other times, it can be really itchy.
As I waited for my favorite meal at the Afghan place, I thought I’d scratch that itch by writing her story without hearing the words from her. In my story of her story, she had come to New York three decades before to “make it” in the way young people dream of doing so in New York — in her case, in the performing arts. She’d had just enough nibbles on the outer crust of success to keep her there for 30 years. Besides, she loved performing for itself and for the sparkle it brought to her life.
She hadn’t worked as an actor since a commercial almost seven months ago, but had an audition coming up next week for a part as someone’s mother on one episode of a TV series she’d never watched. The character had three lines of dialogue, one of which was “Bye, dear.” Only four times in her career had speaking roles in a TV episode or a film risen from the level of “bit part” to “supporting role.”
On the stage, she’d acted mostly in Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway plays and musicals.There were five parts in full-fledged Broadway productions over the thirty years, but never in a lead or major supporting role. She’d autographed Playbills when she exited the stage door after Broadway performances. Nowadays, she worked as an usher at Broadway productions, enabling her to see them for free.
Recently, a fellow actor had told her about work acting out the role of patient with symptoms of various diseases for medical students learning diagnosis and communication with patients. The other actor said that unlike the rest of acting, the older you were, the more likely you were to get hired, because older people are sicker and make it more realistic. She’d been meaning to look into it.
She was married once to a playwright whose Off-Broadway play she’d been in, but the marriage had lasted only two years. Among other reasons for it not working was that he was a drinker, even by theater people’s standards. She hadn’t seen or heard of a play of his for years. I couldn’t decide whether she had no children or a daughter living in the San Francisco area, in Oakland or the Mission District, from whom she might be estranged.
Her job as a server at the French restaurant next to the stoop was one of perhaps 50 “jobs of work,” as she called them, she’d had over the years besides acting .
Then, I started to feel a bit uneasy about writing her story without her having a say in it. After all, who was I to estrange her from her daughter? Besides, my character description could be totally off. She could be a married woman from Passaic who came across the Hudson for the good money you could make as a server in an upscale Manhattan restaurant.
After I finished eating at the Afghan place, I walked back down 9th Avenue. I told myself that although it was unlikely she’d still be on the stoop, if by chance she was, I’d push myself out of my comfort zone, play the columnist card, try to get her story as told by her, and maybe write a column about it.
She wasn’t on the stoop. I figured she was working inside the restaurant, but I wasn’t up for peeking in the window to confirm that supposition.
So I kept walking down 9th, taking in the next acts of the play.
Amherst resident Richard McCarthy, a longtime columnist at the Springfield Republican, writes a monthly column for the Gazette.