The Ghost in the Garrick

Richard Midwinter arrived early at the Garrick and on entering the theatre was struck by a large eighteenth century painting in the foyer of a man with his arm around a stone bust of Shakespeare. Quite a striking image, he thought. Midwinter, himself an actor, stood for a moment staring at the playwright, in the embrace of the famous child of Thespis. Shakespeare had inspired, and fed, more than one generation of actors, and the fact there has been no better writer of the inner life of the mind gave the painting an extra gravitas. “His shadow casts no end. Or at least, no foreseeable end” he said to himself, echoing Jonson. He recalled what one of his teacher’s had told him at drama school ‘you don’t read Shakespeare, he reads you’ and smiled to remember it.

He stared up at the silent painting for a while, somehow caught in its net. The actor in the painting was David Garrick, for whom the theatre is named. He knew that David Garrick had been famed for developing a new, more natural style of acting which relied on authenticity and emotion. He had revolutionised the theatre of his day. Midwinter took in the face in the painting, the large brown eyes and a faint flair of the nostrils around the noble nose, two maverick souls of the theatre joined in perpetuity, and he wondered what it meant to be a theatre man in those half-remembered days.

The actor turned and walked down the staircase to the stalls where he entered the auditorium by the stage. There was nobody there. He had the strange feeling he was being watched. Maybe by someone hiding, or maybe by the theatre itself, who he always saw as a kind of ghost, and said so often. He was surrounded by invisible remnants again. He looked up and saw the theatres balconies adorned with golden cherubs with their cheeks puffed (possibly to give those on stage enough wind for their sails? He asked himself) and he wondered about the things they must have seen, the changes they had registered and the applause they certainly echoed. He sighed and then climbed back up the stairs to get a drink. The audience was beginning to arrive in earnest downstairs. Gin and tonic in hand, he decided to explore and went up the carpeted staircase to the grand circle, the highest tier of the theatre, where, finding himself alone, he looked down on the quiet, empty stage.

The safety curtain was still lowered. He thought back to the time he had acted on that very stage many years before. It brought back an avalanche of memories. He knew the Garrick theatre well indeed. As he looked down at the stage, he remembered hearing the theatrical story that the term ‘break a leg’ isn’t referring to the breaking of a human leg. It refers to a mechanism in the old days by the stage which lifted and lowered the curtain called ‘the leg’. If the performance pleased the crowd they would shout for the curtain to be lifted up and down, cheering the actors back to the stage for more applause. Through incessant lifting and lowering to placate the ecstatic crowd ‘the leg’ could break through overuse. Hence, ‘break a leg.’

Midwinter sat down in one of the comfortable red chairs, resting his empty cup on the floor and slowly closed his eyes. When he opened them moments later, he was full of alertness. And that was when he saw it. An open door and a dimly lit flight of stairs that seemed to be inviting him to approach. He walked over slowly and when he reached the doorway he looked around. Now was his chance to explore the old theatre. He reckoned he could claim ignorance if he was caught by one of the members of staff and say he was lost. As if some strange force had taken over, he found himself walking up the staircase and soon he arrived at the top, in a long Victorian corridor. The wall paper, the carpet, the light fittings, everything spoke of a bygone era. There were ornate silver gas lamps decorating the walls. He felt a dim glow of adrenaline as he looked up and down the corridor and made the decision to turn right where there was a door at the end and a flight of stairs. He walked down confidently and then suddenly, and without any warning, all the lights turned off.

He stopped still where he was, motionless in the pitch black. He thought he had made a bad mistake coming up here, that maybe he was indeed being watched, and turned to go back down the way he came. In the darkness, he put his hand out to feel the wall as he couldn’t even see his quick moving fingers an inch in front of his face. He carried on walking with his left hand dragging the wall but when he looked back, the staircase he had come up wasn’t there anymore. He began to distrust his senses. He put it down to faulty depth perception and continued on his way. He looked ahead and at the end of the corridor a light came on behind a closed door and a rectangular beam of white light shone out at him. A moment later the lights flickered back on in the corridor and the door at the end swung open.

Standing there in the doorway was a man dressed in a smart grey three-piece pinstripe suit with a lemon-yellow tie and a top hat in his hand. The man instantly reminded Midwinter of the face he had seen in the painting downstairs. He stared at his face intently and could have sworn it was the face of David Garrick himself. The moment filled with strangeness, so he put it to the back of his mind. The man in the doorway had a large but well-manicured moustache and was leaning on a smart black oak walking cane. His brooding dark eyes fixed on Midwinter’s. ‘Come in’ said the well-dressed man ushering with his hand for him to approach, ‘we’ve been expecting you.’ Midwinter looked around, confused as to how the man knew his name. He looked him up and down and immediately noted the man was wearing spats as he was encouraged into the office. The man sat down behind a fine desk and began to speak in an excitable, frantic way.

“Wonderful play. Extraordinary. This man Wilde really has captured the imagination of the public. Maybe capture is the wrong word. Stoked perhaps, will do. The new one. Marvellous. Just marvellous.” Then he began to sing in a low, in-tune, baritone ‘come into the garden Maud, I am here at the gate alone, I am here at the gate alone!” And he became sentimental with emotion. Midwinter became bewildered by this man who was finely dressed, but, to him at least, evidently as mad as a carrier bag full of spiders.

“Are you talking about Oscar Wilde?” Asked Midwinter, bemused.

“Yes! Of course, who else could it be. Perhaps the other Irishman I suppose, Shaw, we have his new play ‘Mrs Warren’s Profession, showing here at the Garrick you know.”

“Yes. I know. New play? I don’t….”

“What do you think of it?”

“What?”

“The Wilde play”

“Which one?”

“Which one? The Importance of Being Earnest.”

“I liked it, but then, I only saw the televised version.”

“Televised? What the devil is that?” Midwinter knew something wasn’t right. The man was obviously playing games. He thought perhaps he had been hoodwinked into an elaborate practical joke. Midwinter played along to see where it would go and said,

“The actors were good I remember. Anyway, sorry who are you? And why have you brought me here? I was just………….” Said Midwinter before the man behind the desk cut him off.

“Dalliard Talinsky. Welcome to Infinity and the Abyss, that others call our theatre.” He stressed the word ‘our’ with theatrical zeal. He put out his hand and when Midwinter shook it, he felt that it was icy cold. “I am the manager here at the Garrick. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” He sat back as he produced a cigar from a silver box on the table. “I have brought you here Mr Midwinter to discuss a proposition. You are an actor. And, well, I need a theatre person you see.”

“Who told you I was an actor? I don’t believe we have met before.” Midwinter became suspicious.

“Well. I have my sources.” Midwinter looked around the room and back at Talinsky. His intrigue outweighed his confusion and the misapprehension he was feeling began to dissipate.

“You invited me to talk. Should I have ran?” The question revealed a cunning in Talinsky’s smile but he stayed silent.

“Why I am here?” Asked Midwinter.

“You are here because I need you to bring the real world some news.”

“The real world?”

“Yes. The real world. The world out there. As I said, this is infinity and the abyss. You are no longer in the realm of the living.” A light flickered in Talinsky’s dark brown, softly devious eyes. The room took on a silence that discomforted Richard Midwinter. He looked Talinsky directly in the eye and held his stare. He wondered what kind of man he was.

“What do you want me to tell them. The real world I mean.’ Midwinter sensed that Talinsky thought he was trying to catch him out.

“I need you to right a wrong. I need you to expose an injustice. I need you to……shall we say, liberate redemption. Then, and only then, can I be set free. I have learned many things in my time here. Many things indeed. If you live forever, a century is the blink of an eye.”

Midwinter responded with silence.

“You are my way out of here.” He paused and leant back in the chair, naturally at ease. “How long have you been involved in the theatre?” Asked Talinsky.

“All my adult life.” Midwinter’s response was prompt.

“Ah. Then you will know P.T Yardly.”

“I can’t say that I do.”

“What! You don’t know Yardly?”

“I believe not.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. How strange. Yardly is a real theatre man. Yes wonderful. He has a genius for crowds. For the Zeitgeist. He knows what the people want and gives it to them. Hit show after hit after hit. It seemed he could do no wrong. He had been an actor himself, then a director, but it was in the production of plays, that was where his true talent lay. He was my inspiration, in many ways.” Talinsky picked up a large crystal lighter and lit his cigar, producing an oblong smoke ring with his initial lug.

“I might as well come straight out and say it.” Said Talinsky. “I am unable to leave this theatre. God knows how I have tried. A century has passed me by. Maybe more.” Midwinter let out a short sharp burst of laughter, thinking he was joking.

“It’s true.” His mood took on a sombre tone. “I have been confined to this theatre for over a hundred, long, dark years. It is my limbo. It is my purgatory. And now I wish to leave.” His face became veiled in a deep sadness.

“This is nonsense.” Said Midwinter “I am the one that should be leaving. I’m going to go now. Goodbye.”

“Go ahead, if you must.” The look in Talinsky’s scrupulous eyes changed, as if some dark brooding force, almost malevolent, had been unearthed inside his electrified expression. Midwinter stood up, perturbed by the mad intrusion, but when he turned around he saw that the door he had entered through had completely disappeared, replaced by gold and black wall paper. The two of them were in a doorless, windowless box. He span around and saw that Dalliard Talinsky was still sat behind his desk, but now with a red crow standing upon the upraised forefinger of his right hand.

“What is this? What’s happening? Who are you?!” Demanded Midwinter.

“I told you. I am Dalliard Talinsky. I am the theatre manager here. Imprisoned for forgotten years.” Again, the face of David Garrick, who he had just seen in the foyer below came into focus. The large brown eyes that could suddenly switch from doleful to sharp, to elation to melancholy, with a deft control.

“What do you mean you have been here for a hundred years. Have you lost your mind?! Then let me ask you this. When were you born?”

“I was born on the fourteenth day in the month of May, in the year of our Lord 1845, in the Oblast of Ukraine.”

“What is he talking about?” He thought quietly. “You look less than 50!” He said.

“Well guessed. I just turned 49. My word, is it that year already?” Thinking he was in the clutch of a con trick Midwinter’s mood changed, as if he was about to be robbed. He began to feel the sense of dread a child feels walking up the stairs having turned off the lights below, and the sensation something or someone, is creeping behind, following up the stairs, and through the house, and becoming too scared to turn around. Wondering if Dalliard Talinsky might be trying to do him harm, he became hesitant to move to see indeed if his eyes had deceived him. The pull was too great and he looked again, and again no door and no means of escape. He jumped up and threw himself against the wall frantically feeling for the door edge with his finger tips but found nothing. He was trapped.

Reason took hold in the panic of the moment. Perhaps Talinsky was the only way out. Midwinter thought if he tried to harm Talinsky he could jeopardise his chances of escape. Been here for a hundred years?! The man was mad. Talinsky hadn’t moved from behind his desk, but now the crow was standing on his shoulder, and had changed colour, to an emerald green flecked with cloth of gold. His eyes, now full of malice and cunning, fixed on Midwinter with an expression of absolute seriousness. Midwinter saw his struggling was no use and stopped dead. Then he turned around, out of breath and shaking. Moments passed by and he calmly sat down with his arms rested on the arms of the chair. Looking again at his face, Midwinter thought Talinsky could be the devil himself, and a great sense of unease went through him.

“What do you want with me?”

“I told you. I need you to escape.”

“You are making no sense at all.”

“I repeat myself. I am in limbo. WE are in limbo. It is where you are now. The incredibility of my story doesn’t make it less true. What’s wrong? It’s as if you don’t believe me.” The flame of his lighter turned bright red, then green, then back to the yellow of a normal flame. Midwinter closed his eyes hoping this action would be able to tell him whether or not he was hallucinating. Whether he was away with the faeries, in a weird land of dreams. When he opened his eyes. Talinsky had disappeared. Midwinter was alone again. His neck twisted sharply and he saw the door that he had entered the room through had reappeared.

“Thank God.’ Said Midwinter. He stood up and turned the door handle. He expected to see the corridor that led back down to the theatre, but when he opened it there was only an infinite blackness. He looked down and saw that there was nothing under his feet. The walls of the room had evaporated. In this impenetrable dark there was no floor or ceiling, no up or down or left or right, only darkness. Not even starlight, only black.

Then suddenly in the near distance, a candle flame appeared. It glowed brightly, but all it illuminated was the tall wax candle that had breathed it into life. Midwinter stood in oblivion. Then, through the black void, in the dim candle light, a human face appeared. At first it was just a shape, a vague image. He rubbed his eyes. Quietly, he watched the scene, by now accepting that reality had abandoned him. Like the calm man at the gallows, he had excepted his fate. Perhaps he had gone mad and this was the asylum. It was Talinsky’s face appearing, and he began to speak.

“Please” said Talinsky. “Let me introduce two of my old friends. My old friends of the theatre. They have been here even longer than me.”

Two men appeared from nowhere, magicked out of the darkness. One of the men was fat and rosy cheeked, the other thin and gaunt. The three men stood for a moment in silence watching Richard Midwinter. Overwhelmed by peculiarity, by questions, Midwinter was rendered unable to speak.

“Let me introduce you.” Said Talinsky. “This is the well-beloved Sir John.” The fat man took off his hat in recognition, out of which protruded a large peacock feather. “And this is………well. We just call him The Prince around here.” Two benches appeared, one from a tavern and one from a church. The fat man sat on his, and the prince lay down on his, with his hands behind his head. Midwinter looked at them both closely. All three men had the same face. The same face as the man he had seen in the old painting, in the foyer of the theatre. The three men were all David Garrick, and David Garrick was all three men. He was playing them all at the same time, as he would characters in a play.

“Are you David Garrick? The man in the painting?” Asked Midwinter.

“I have been may people in my time.” The thin, gaunt man replied. Then the fat man said “Let us to the singing.” He looked at Sir John and knew for certain that even though much fatter and fuller of face, belly and arse, they had the same eyes. The eyes of Garrick. The man in the painting.

“Sweet prince” said the fat man suddenly bursting into life. He turned to Midwinter. “And what manner of man are you? You drink? I hope.”

“Yes. I drink.” Said Midwinter. More candles came on suddenly, glowing the blackness of the void.

“Nonsense young man, you’re still breathing, aren’t you? You look as fit as a fiddle to me, and my eyesight is better than most men’s. Yes! We have heard the silence at noon, master Midwinter.” The thin gaunt man said nothing as Midwinter turned his gaze on the prince but it seemed he was thinking deeply about something that had nothing to do with any of them. A conversation with himself, obscured, hidden in the dark recesses of his mind. Talinsky looked Midwinter in the eye and paused.

“Well, what do you see?” Asked Talinsky.

“Three men in the darkness.” He replied.

“I see infinity.” Said Sir John, smiling.

“And I see the abyss.” Said the Prince.

Talinsky looked at Midwinter with an expression of great hope that emanated from his whole face through the prism of his eyes.

“Help us.” Said Garrick in the unison of three men. The characters all spoke as one voice.

“What can I do? For Christs sake!” Shouted Midwinter.

“You have done enough. Now I must go.” Said Talinsky. ‘To return to the world. Thank-you, Mr Midwinter. You have set me free. But now you must stay. You must replace me, until you find another. Goodbye Midwinter. And thank you for your sacrifice. You shall be remembered in heaven!”

“I’ve been tricked! You have tricked me!” Shouted Richard Midwinter overwrought with emotion. And with that Dalliard Talinsky smiled back at him and disappeared from sight, melting out of existence, out of the void.

“Infinity or the Abyss. Infinity or the Abyss!” Went the two characters, singing together in a loud whisper.

“I am infinity.” Sang the fat man.

“And I am the abyss.” Whispered the Prince.

The Fat Man looked at Midwinter straight in the eye and said,

“Just as there is a heaven and hell on earth, so there is in all the creations of man, including the hereafter. We are the masters of punishment and reward. We are conscious of our own souls. If there were no humans in the universe there would be no God of humans. Thus, and therefore, you have a choice. Infinity?’

“Or the Abyss?” Said The Prince.

“You live with us now.” They said together.

“No. No!” Shouted Midwinter in fear.

The fat man began to laugh and dance in the blackness of the void. The prince raised his bony finger and pointed it at Midwinter. “I am the abyss!” Said the sad faced prince. “And I am infinity!” Said the laughing fat man. “And you are an actor! We together make up your soul, so don’t be afraid.” The jolly fat man pulled a fiddle out from nowhere like it was a magic trick. They sang in perfect harmony. “We are your soul” and then they turned and walked away into the distance of the black void singing and dancing as they went, even the sad prince. Midwinter found it impossible to move as if an invisible force was holding him down. He held out his arm with an open hand shouting to the actors who didn’t look back from there departing performance.

‘No…No…No!” Said Midwinter until the blackness turned to the longest night and he cried himself into a deep sleep.

Midwinter woke up and found himself still in the infinite black void. He looked around and saw that he was alone. Totally alone in black, endless nothingness. This is what hell is like he thought, and he remembered something his devoutly Christian mother had told him when he was a child about hell not being fire and brimstone, but simply ‘the absence of God.’ In this place he could feel himself walking, and running even, but there was nowhere to go. Sitting and standing felt the same. Minutes turned to hours, hours to days, days to months and months to years. A thousand years could be lived in a minute and a minute in a thousand years. He thought, what is there new to be imagined, now all I have is imagination? His imagination would fly, pen-less. He felt a sudden, unexpected joy. And then, miraculously, he heard a woman’s voice penetrating the void. It came to his ears like music.

“He’s waking up!” She said.

The blackness of the infinite nothingness was obliterated by light, it’s brightness fierce enough to make him squint hard. Richard Midwinter blinked rapidly, the watering of his eyes coming at him like overflowing cups. He was alive and back in the world. He was home. He looked around as his blurry vision cleared and soon realised he was in a hospital ward, lying in bed. He looked around and saw all the other patients lying in their beds, waiting patiently for something to happen. He saw the voice was coming from a nurse standing over his bed.

“What happened?” He asked through blurry eyes.

“You have been in a coma. You fell into a coma sitting in the theatre.” Said the nurse.

“How long have I been here?”

“All in good time. Doctor Garrick will explain everything, don’t worry, he’s here now.’ Said the nurse.

“Who?” Said Richard Midwinter bewildered. He looked up with his eyes becoming wilder as he acknowledged Doctor Garrick standing over him, those deep brown eyes full of thinking, full of cunning, smiling down from the bedside.

Feature Image: The Garrick Theatre by Katie Chan