(The curtain rises on DAPHNE BEAUREGARD in bed. It’s a hot August day in Georgia, around eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning. LUCINDA, the maid, enters with a tray of iced tea and biscuits. She puts down the tray and draws the curtains. Daphne, still wearing her eye mask, stirs and reaches to her husband’s side of the bed. It’s empty.)
DAPHNE?Reggie is up bright and early, I see.
LUCINDA?It’s almost noon, Mrs. Beauregard.
DAPHNE?A girl needs her beauty sleep, Lucinda.
Lucinda fixes the curtains across the room.
LUCINDA?Maybe you could use a few more hours.
DAPHNE?What was that, Lucinda?
LUCINDA?I said, Mr. Beauregard has been out riding for hours.
DAPHNE?We have cocktails at the Whitmans’ tonight. I want to wear that darling dress I bought last week in Atlanta. They said Jackie Kennedy has the same one. Lay out my diamonds and my pearls—I’ll start dressing at five. Oh, which shoes shall I wear? Better make it four-thirty. I have quite a few decisions to make.
LUCINDA?As you wish, Mrs. Beauregard.
DAPHNE?And for the hundredth time, Lucinda, you need not call me Mrs. Beauregard.
LUCINDA?Sorry, ma’am.
DAPHNE?Much better. Tomorrow I’ll be lunching in town. Please spend that time dusting off my snow-globe collection. And make sure it’s when Rose is napping. I don’t want her touching them.
LUCINDA?I know that, Mrs. Beauregard.
DAPHNE?For the love of sweet Jesus, please call me ma’am.
At that point I stopped running the lines in my head. I was distracted by the man next to me. He had a small notebook. Probably a critic. He wrote down three words. I tried to read out of the corner of my eye.
Over her head.
Over her head. Oh boy. Could he be talking about the maid? For the love of sweet Jesus, please let him be talking about the maid. Maybe he was from Newsday. We could survive a bad review from Newsday. As long as it wasn’t the Times. Jesus—seven lines in and he already thinks she’s in over her head. And she hasn’t even slipped out of her southern accent yet. That usually doesn’t happen till Act Two.
Daphne’s husband entered the scene. His disdain for Daphne was palpable. As was the critic’s disdain for Jordana. He wrote a word I’d hoped not to see.
Ambitious.
You may think of this word as complimentary. I knew it wasn’t. I pictured his review.
Ms. Winston might have chosen a less ambitious role for her Broadway debut. One that didn’t have her accent stray farther south of her native Los Angeles than, let’s say, Pasadena.
Onstage, Reggie Beauregard took hold of Daphne’s most precious snow globe—an antique replica of Niagara Falls—and threw it to the ground.
Daphne shrieks.
DAPHNE?Not the Niagara Falls! You know that belonged to Mama!
REGINALD?Well, now it belongs to no one. And if you don’t stop meddling in my business, you will belong to no one as well.
Reginald exits stage right. Daphne throws herself onto the bed and sobs.
Curtain down. End of Act One.
The critic and his companion hurried to the bar as soon as the lights came on for intermission. I sidled up next to them, ordered a martini, and searched Web images of New York theater critics on my phone. I nearly choked on my olive. The man standing next to me was none other than Brad Bentley, chief drama critic for the New York Times. This is a total nightmare.
“She is way too old for that part. The guy who plays Reginald could be her son,” said his crony. Bentley agreed as he ordered another scotch. Maybe he would sleep through the second act. What was I going to do? A bad review in the Times would devastate her. Too old for the part? I could not imagine the hell and Botox a remark like that would bring about.
He spoke to his friend. “At least you can leave. I have to stay for the second act!” His friend dismissed the suggestion, but I took it.