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Chapter 17
Ordinarily, the theater stage was the only place where Jo could relax, forget about her everyday life, and just play. It was a place where Jo could set aside all her troubles and just live a different life, tapping into the heart of her characters.
She felt safe on the stage. Free.
Except for today.
A few things contributed to her unease.
Firstly, Selena came in late to the rehearsal looking quite sickly. She was pale, weak, and with continuous bouts of nausea. And as if worrying for her friend’s health wasn’t enough, Mick was constantly watching Selena under hooded eyes, acting strange and quite frightening. Had he done something to her?
Was he the reason for her poor health?
She had asked Selena, and she just shook it off, but as the day progressed, even though Selena’s well-being improved, Jo’s worries didn’t subside.
Secondly, when the rehearsal had come to an end, the theater manager, Mr. Hart, announced that he was looking for fresh plays and new ideas to renew life in his theater.
And this could have been good news. Jo had actually perked up, rushed to her dressing room for her scripts, and brought them to him proudly. Yes, he’d rebuffed them before, but she was more experienced now, and she was a respected actress.
Only Mr. Hart, the elderly, rounded man, had laughed, patted her on her head, and said that women were not good playwrights and she should stick to her strengths and act.
Rather his actual words were:go play. And in a remarkably patronizing tone.
This wasn’t the end of her terrible day, however. By the time Jo had finished her conversation with the manager, Selena had already left for home so she couldn’t even talk to her about her worries.
She reached her dressing room in a rotten mood and low spirits, and that, of course, was the exact moment Mick appeared before her.
Could this day get any worse?
“I heard your conversation with Mr. Hart,” he said, blocking the entrance to her dressing room.
“Thank you for confirming my assumption that you’ve always been nosy. Now let me pass.”
Jo attempted to step forward, but Mick casually leaned against the doorjamb and studied his nails, as if he hadn’t heard her request. “He isn’t wrong, you know. Have you ever heard of women playwrights?”
“Eliza Haywood, Charlotte Charke, and Mary Robinson to name a few,” Jo gritted through her teeth.
“Mary Robinson was a mistress of the King. That’s the only way her drivel was ever published. Charlotte Charke spent her life as a man, and Eliza Haywood… Well, she spent her life being ridiculed by the satirists.”
Jo pursed her lips. “Ah, so you have heard of them?”
“That is not my point. The point, Jo, is that they are known because of how bad they were. Women are simply not made for this.”
“What about Jane Smith?” Jo raised a brow, as she mentioned a popular contemporary playwright, quite successfully running a theater,The Incomparable,in her own right.
Mick just laughed. “She is terrible. And so is her father, who by the way, is the one who actually runs the theater. Not her.”
This argument was pointless. Mick would never change his mind no matter what Jo said. She was just wasting her precious time and giving Mick leverage to ridicule her.
Jo stretched her lips into a faux smile. “Thank you for a lovely discussion. But I’d rather go now.”
He pulled a grimace. “But you see, if they had someone to help them… Perhaps they would be better. Suppose one of them had a friend. A man. Who had decided to help them rewrite the feminine drivel? Then perhaps they would have succeeded.”
“They did succeed. Without any help. Now, please, move.”
He didn’t budge. Didn’t even move a muscle. “I can be that friend for you, Jo. I, of course, will have to be named the author of your plays, but you’ll get half the money.”
Jo let out a bitter chuckle. “What a wonderful deal. But I have another idea. If you think you’re so good, how about you write your own play and submit it to Mr. Hart? And then you won’t have to lower yourself to reading and editing my… feminine drivel.”
