Barter Theatre (Cont.)
Screen 3 of 3

While in the dining room, I was introduced as "a friend passing through" to several members of the Barter Company -- all of them with wide experience on the professional stage. After supper, Mr. Porterfield took me for a walk around the grounds and across the street to see the Barter Theatre itself, where the company plays were staged twice each week.

Several times during the walk, he expressed regret that I had made the trip to Abingdon in vain, but he was still quite firm that there was no place for me in the Barter group. I assured him I understood, but asked him if I could stay there at the company's headquarters until I decided what to do. He agreed but only to "a day or two at the most," reiterating that I must not harbor any hope of staying longer than that.

I had a comfortable dormitory bed that night, but slept very little. The great disappointment of not being allowed to join the Barter group was uppermost in my mind, as I tossed about on the sheet less mattress; but also haunting me was the "girl I left behind" in New York. At one point in the night, I turned on the room's one dim light and wrote Carol a short letter, not telling her about my rejection but just that I had arrived safely and that I missed her very much. The remainder of that sleepless night, I was debating whether I should return to New York -- provided I could borrow enough money to buy a bus ticket -- or whether I should go back to Bowling Green and try to get a job on a construction job. I even considered applying for a teaching position, a prospect that did not particularly appeal to me in the middle of the night. But I came to no conclusion about what I should do next; I just vacillated from one alternative to another until daybreak.

My First Break

But now for the second miracle within three days. Just before lunch the next day, Mr. Porterfield called me into his office and told me that a relatively new member of the company, a young man from Arkansas, had just been called home because of a death in the family and that he would not be able to play his role in the Barter play being given that week. I listened carefully but made no comment except to say I was sorry for the young man.

Mr. Porterfield then asked me directly, "How fast are you at learning lines?" and before I could respond, he posed a second question, "Do you think you could carry the role of the English butler in tonight's play?" My reply was simply that I thought I could if there were not too many lines to learn, reminding him that curtain time was less than eight hours away.

With that, he called in the director, a Mr. Abbot, explained the situation to him; and in a typical "the-show-must-go-on" style, we agreed I would play the role of the butler beginning that night!

Such was the inauspicious beginning of my brief career with the Barter Theatre. With the help of Bob Hudson and Helen Wright (two others playing in that night's murder mystery), I learned the butler's lines and the necessary stage action, was squeezed into a costume not quite my size, did my own makeup, and somewhat less than sedately carried a tray of drinks to guests in the opening scene of the play which started at 7:30. My English accent left much to be desired, but the excitement of the plot and the "cover ups" provided me by the professionals on stage kept the audience's attention away from my mistakes. I should add the butler was not the "one who dun it" in this play, even though he was at first suspected. I remember at one point in the drama when I missed my cue, I was glad the vegetables and canned fruit had been collected at the door for admission. That step surely kept the audience from throwing the farm produce at me in protest against a poor performance.

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