“He seemed quite sure he was about to be tapped to head up the inquest committee.”
Wirt is a local attorney, whose claim to fame is that he unsuccessfully prosecuted Aaron Burr for treason. The problem is that he also fancies himself a playwright and is always trying to talk his way backstage. “Your most important job,” said Placide on Jack’s second day, “is to make sure that man with the big chin doesn’t come within twenty feet of me.”
“He’s going to be devastated when he hears about Nancy,” says Anderson.
At the mention of Nancy, Jack’s chest tightens.
“Christ,” says Placide. “I forgot about that.”
“Forgot about what?” says Jack. If it’s Nancy Placide forgot about, Jack will have no choice but to give up on him entirely.
Placide explains, “Wirt’s play.The Path of Pleasure. He wanted Nancy to play the lead. I think he figured she’d convince Green to stage it.”
“Could she have?” Jack asks.
“I’m the artistic director,” Placide reminds him. “So, no.”
“Why were you down at the Market Hall this early in the morning?” Anderson asks.
“The Common Council called an emergency meeting.”
“What for?”
“To establish the burial committee. And while they were at it, they passed an ordinance: no public shows or spectacles for four months. Seems a bit beside the point, but what do I know?”
“Does that mean no theater?” Jack asks them both.
“I’m afraid so,” says Placide.
“It’s not like we’ve got a place to perform anyway,” Anderson says, and Jack can feel the weight of his accusation.
“There’s The Swan,” says Jack, trying his best to remain sanguine. “And the City Tavern. We could fit a small orchestra in their side room.”
They both ignore him. Anderson addresses Placide. “Do you think they’ll enforce it? The ordinance?”
“The penalty’s stiff, so I would think so. Six dollars and sixty-six cents per hour.”
Anderson lets out a loud laugh. “Very puritanical of them.”
Jack doesn’t dare ask what’s so funny, but Placide takes pity on him. “One who understands can calculate the number of the beast.”
This means nothing to Jack, but he nods along anyway. Unfortunately, Anderson is on to him. “The Book of Revelation, Jack.”
“Six-six-six,” says Placide.
Jack can feel his cheeks flush.
“None of it matters,” says Placide. “There won’t be any theater in this town for years.”
“Years?” asks Jack.
“Not until there’s a new playhouse,” says Placide. “And not even then if we’re being likened to the Antichrist.”
“We can rebuild,” says Anderson. “Fireproof the whole thing from top to bottom.”
Jack likes that idea. He can’t imagine Richmond without a theater. Some of his earliest—and fondest—memories are of sitting on his father’s shoulders, at the temporary theater on D Street, and watching plays likeThe Irishman in LondonandEvery One Has His Faultcome to life in front of him. Jack’s father—like so many intellectuals of his day—was not a religious man, and for him the theater was his church and the actors his minister. Art, his father always said, was the closest any of them were likely to get to transcendence, and that was more than all right with him.
Jack and his father were in the audience when the new theater opened,in January of 1806, and a little later that season, when the great Thomas Abthorpe Cooper traveled to Richmond from New York, for one night only, to star inHamlet. “Pay attention,” his father had told him. “This performance will be one for the ages.” And Jack had done as he was told, never realizing, as he watched Cooper assume the role of a grieving son, that it was one he would soon be taking on himself.
