The Straw Hat Theater Mysteries - On Stage!

Written by William Shepard

The accident happened on Opening Night, before a full house. It was in the Third Act, when Mrs. Danvers enters from stage right for a bit of business, as they say in show business. She was going to plump up the cushions and dust the curtains in that room, that sacred shrine, where the late Mrs. de Winter, known far and wide as Rebecca, had lived. The gestures that Mrs. Danvers would use would show an awe of her late employer, an awe verging on adoration.

But Mrs. Danvers never got to make those gestures. As she swept across the stage to open a window at lower stage left, she simply disappeared from view. We all heard the scream. Those in the audience seated nearest the stage saw that she had fallen through the stage trapdoor. It was a painful but minor injury, and it certainly would not keep Grace Upshaw from performing during the play’s two-week run. A slightly sprained ankle, the injury was worth an admiring “show must go on” mention in Variety magazine!

With a few modifications for her reduced mobility, Dr. Herbert Gordon, our local physician, said that Grace Upshaw could continue the role. Not that she would have listened to him otherwise. Grace was determined to play her part, the trapdoor accident had been just that – an accident – and that was that!

Or so we all thought at first. It was due to the determined insistence of Director Arthur Glendon that the accident came to be investigated by the local police. Fortunately, as a longtime summer resident, I was there that night, and I saw the “accident” at the performance firsthand. Sherwood Blodgett, retired FBI Agent, at your service.

The local police viewed the entire thing as an accident, one of those bad luck things that just happens when show business people run things. I wasn’t so sure. And so I started talking with people, finding out the background …

*****

“Well, I suppose you got the part?” Samantha Powers snipped, looked quizzically at her young roommate, Molly Trumbull. Molly was returning from her tryout for the part of the second Mrs. de Winter, the leading role in the Daphne du Maurier classic thriller, Rebecca. The play was scheduled to be presented the next month at the Straw Hat Theater. “After all, you’re pretty enough.”

“No such luck. Arthur Glendon is giving it to one of his Broadway friends. Somebody ought to tell him that we’re in Vermont, and the audiences here want to see some local talent get recognized. All I got was a callback for a minor role, the maid. How about you?”

“Sorry I snapped at you, Molly. I had no luck either.” For Samantha, who had years of experience in secondary roles, the prospect of landing a meaty part wasn’t just a professional goal – it was a clear necessity for her career.

“Oh, that’s too bad. You would have made a perfect Mrs. Danvers,” Molly said, and immediately blushed. Her words hadn’t come out right at all. Mrs. Danvers was a vindictive and psychotic character. Judith Anderson, who had played the part in the Hitchcock film, had scared the pants off three generations of theatergoers.

Samantha hadn’t taken it the wrong way. In fact, she said in a joking tone, “Maybe then I could burn down the set, as Mrs. Danvers would have done.” The reference was to the end of Rebecca. So loyal to the memory of the first Mrs. de Winter that she sabotages her employer’s second marriage, Mrs. Danvers finally burns down Manderley, the family estate, and herself with it.

Molly giggled and Samantha asked, “When do we find out who got the roles?”

“They’re supposed to be posted tonight, after dinner.”

And they were. Two experienced actresses had been chosen for the two roles the girls had been discussing earlier. Linda Grant, fresh from an Oscar nomination for a successful film comedy, would play the young second Mrs. De Winter, the part that Joan Fontaine had played in the Hitchcock film. And Grace Upshaw, a sinister presence in several recent Tennessee Williams revivals on Broadway, had snagged the coveted Mrs. Danvers role.

Once the casting announcement was made, the play sold out very quickly. Nobody would remember – or even know – that neither actress had tried out for her part at the Straw Hat Theater. It had all been decided in advance by the Resident Director, Arthur Glendon. It was some comfort, perhaps due to the prodding of Glendon’s guilty conscience, that Samantha Powers was chosen as understudy to Grace Upshaw for the Mrs. Danvers role, while Molly Trumbull, passed up for the maid role, was picked as understudy to Linda Grant for the part of the second Mrs. de Winter.

Rehearsals went smoothly for the most part, which was a minor theatrical miracle, all things considered. Grace Upshaw and Linda Grant clearly could not stand each other; their mutual dislike was of long standing. It broke out afresh in a noisy argument about which actress should receive top billing. Finally Linda Grant yielded top billing, ending the argument with aplomb: “Oh, I give up, she can have it – the poor, insecure thing needs top billing to rescue her train wreck of a career.”

The cast rehearsed Rebecca in the afternoons, while the week’s current play was presented in the evenings. That posed no conflicts, for neither Samantha nor Molly had been cast in the current play.

If Samantha Powers was upset at being Grace Upshaw’s understudy, she didn’t let it show. Perhaps she was just better at hiding her feelings, being a more experienced actress than Molly Trumbull, who fairly seethed at playing second fiddle to Linda Grant, with a smile made of wax when anyone was looking. Clearly she didn’t think the casting was based on superior talent or experience. But the show must go on. As the rehearsals wore on, all four actresses had memorized their respective two roles.

*****

The trapdoor was bolted from below. Anyone with access to the lower stairs could have shot the bolt. The trick, then, would have been to brace the trapdoor somehow so that it would not hang open …

Yes, there it was, an ordinary yardstick. Sufficient to brace the trapdoor, but flimsy enough that it would give way under anyone’s weight. It was snapped in half. It had been an eight-foot drop from the stage, a nasty fall. Fortunately, the usual mattresses were there to cushion the fall. Otherwise, there would have been more than a sprained ankle. Broken bones, most likely.

I read the play. Mrs. Danvers’ entrance in Act Three followed an intermission of fifteen minutes. She would be onstage, by herself, for perhaps eight or ten minutes. The stage directions made clear that she entered from stage right, crossing center to perform her silent soliloquy of worship for her dead employer, Rebecca.

The actresses’ dressing rooms were on the right side of the stage, while the actors were on the left. In order to get to the downstairs prop storage area, you had to take a doorway not far from the actresses’ dressing rooms. I checked thoroughly, and nobody had seen anyone go through that doorway. For that matter, since the actresses each had separate dressing rooms, not one of the four women had an alibi for the crucial start of Act Three.

As is the usual practice, the two understudies, Samantha Powers and Molly Trumbull, had dressed for their roles, more or less. As a matter of fact, after Grace Upshaw's fall, Samantha Powers had dressed quickly, picked up her character's fan from the props table, and then gone on and finished Act Three, to considerable applause.

Beyond that doorway leading downstairs was the props table, where everything needed for the next scene, from canes to calling cards, was laid out. Actors would pick up what was required before going on stage, and then leave the same item on the table for the prop girl when they left the stage. I examined the table carefully. It contained a fan for Mrs. Danvers later in the fateful scene, a tray with calling cards for the maid to deliver to the new Mrs. de Winter, and some magazines for her husband, Maxim de Winter.

“Well, how’s it going?” Arthur Glendon asked.

“You’ll be surprised,” I said. “I know HOW this accident was arranged, and WHO did it. The WHY, on the other hand, will be up to a seasoned theater shrink to explain!”