Feign
Legacy Name: Feign

The Story

Adelaide L'Engle only ever had one dream: to act.
Theater was all she had ever known since childhood, which had, in turn, come and gone with the rising and falling of a crimson curtain. Many who knew her would have agreed that the stage was like her second home...but they would have been wrong. The stage was her only home. Storytelling was her passion--her gift--
her pride.
The process of emptying herself completely and donning the identity of a playwright's alien character was intoxicating; and night after night, she was only too glad to forget herself, submerging beneath the carefully crafted charades of the play--for the sake of the play.
.
Everyone expected great things from the selfless starlet-- what they did not expect was for her to return to her sleepy hometown in northern Maine, only two years after her high school graduation, and take up a full time job at the Scott Faarve Playhouse--the small community theater in which she was raised.
Why? They wondered. Why would she so willingly stay when she had the talent to make a name for herself in the world?
To this, she always responded with the same, rueful half-smile and well-rehearsed response:
"I've never wanted to be recognized for who I am--but for who I could be."

Adelaide stayed with the troupe for almost two years, performing in a considerable array of sundry shows--everywhere from William Shakespeare's Hamlet and A Midsummer Night's Dream to classic childrens theater such as Peter Pan or Beauty and the Beast. Though she did not always received the lead role, she was always the one character that was remembered.

Until, that is, Elsa Cambridge arrived on the scene--or rather, the stage.

As a feisty, condescending diva who reveled in her own brilliance, Elsa's very presence made Adelaide sick beyond measure. But her nausea soon turned to outrage when Elsa was given the coveted lead role in the troupe's production of Phantom of the Opera--and outrage turned to cold shock when she discovered that Elsa could, in fact, act.
Not just act--but act very well. In fact of matter, Elsa was vindicated in all the stage talent she had ceaselessly boasted of; so much so, that people began to compare her to Adelaide.
And then, slowly but surely, audiences of the northern Maine playhouse began to agree: Elsa was just as good, if not better, than their homegrown starlet.

Better than Adelaide.

Though it was hard to perceive, Adelaide steadily grew jealous. Her stifled contempt became a personal demon every time the new, haughty prima dona made an entrance--but for each entrance, her contempt constantly refused a gracious exeunt.
In direct consequence, Adelaide's Muse began to suffer as she did: and for the first time, Adelaide began to see the world for what it was, and not as it could be. Instead of playing the endless possibilities of paper faces and painted lips in the mirror, Adelaide only saw her empty, sallow reflection. The starlet's stagnation became more and more evident--though especially in her craft; and as Elsa continued to bathe in the glorious isolation of a front and center spotlight, Adelaide fell further into the background. The joy had disappeared from her curious brown eyes, and the words she recited, once alive with purpose and meaning, dimmed into a worthless pattern of phrases.

Her passion had left, and her muse had abandoned her.

Adelaide had never truly experienced hatred for herself; she had only ever felt it through the eyes of another--or rather, through some of the characters she had once portrayed. She had seen it fester all around her in the world, and she had studied it and calibrated it down to a science, so that she might recreate such a hatred solely for the stage. She had never intended to lose herself in the role of such a savage sentiment. Sadly, as Elsa Cambridge received role after role, ovation after ovation, Adelaide felt her already wounded facade fall farther and farther away, replaced by the hideous new face of loathing.
The last straw was drawn when Elsa was given the role of Juilet, from Romeo and Juliet, in Adelaide's place.

Elsa only wanted to know why they even auditioned anyone else for the part.
"I mean, I AM the obvious choice," she had said.
"Though I suppose they wanted to at least pretend give the other girls a chance. But seriously, I'm everything they need; I have the looks, the voice, the talent--I mean, have you ever seen me die on stage before? I'm awfully good at it, and with such an iconic death, it's so obvious the director wouldn't have trusted anyone else to play the part."

Adelaide's spite only increased further as Elsa continually drawled on about the flawlessness of her staged deaths. They were always perfect, it seemed--she could always leave the audience in tears and heartache by the end of the night. Everyone had told her so.

And as the last of her self restrain snapped, Adelaide decided to put Elsa's words to the test.

The Scott Faarve production of Romeo and Juliet ran for a solid four weeks; and true to her word, the drama critiques of the local newspaper could not stop praising Elsa Cambridge's final scene.
"The shock of the death scene only wore off after Miss Cambridge reappeared for curtain call," One such theater-goer wrote.
"I truly couldn't tell whether she was acting or whether it was real--which is indisputably the mark of not an exceptional, but an outstanding actress. Tom Cruise, take note!"
The final performance was a sold out show--not that anyone expected otherwise. And as the lights dimmed across the crowded theater, the clear summer night promised nothing less than an unforgettable experience.
Elsa Cambridge's blood-curdling scream as she plunged the toy dagger into her chest during Juliet's final scene seemed so hauntingly real; three brilliant seconds passed as the audience admired the young actress in the full splendor of her flawless execution. But as stage hands began to frantically flood in from the right and left, scrambling from the shadows and straight to the collapsed actress, the whole theater knew something had gone horribly wrong. Eventually, an exceptionally keen audience member in the third row stood and shouted, raising the alarm in an astonished wail of terror and disbelief:

'Blood! There's blood on the stage! It wasn't an act!'

It was never discovered how Elsa's prop knife had been switched with a real one, or who had made the costly mistake of doing so - if it had been a mistake at all. The small town was ablaze with suspicion and rumors for weeks after the young actress's funeral; fingers were pointed, theories were established, and no one did a thing about it.

Only a handful of players in the troupe that were aware of Adelaide's grudge against the late Miss Cambridge. Half of them immediately dismissed Adelaide's involvement in the horrific incident, saying she was too sensible and good natured to do such a thing. However, the other half were never fully convinced. Adelaide, for her part, had the decency to act as if she were just as devastated as the rest of the troupe...and if not the decency, then unarguably the ability.

The Scott Faarve playhouse avoided performances that involved death scenes for almost two years afterward. This was partly out of respect for Elsa, and partly because the manager, a dubious, wizened gentleman, was quick to assert how much damage the scandal had cost the playhouse - not to mention his nerves. But childrens theater and comedies only entertain for so long--and after an audience witnesses a play so unintentionally life-like as Romeo and Juliet, everything else seemed a pale mockery in comparison.

And so, after two years of hum-drum, happy ending shows and dwindling audiences, it was announced that the Scott Faarve Playhouse would be holding open auditions for Shakespeare's infamous Hamlet.

This decision hardly sat right with anyone--save the eager, well-paying masses. But before any of the players could protest, the public was promised the production, and the company begrudgingly accepted their fate.
"After all," They said,
"The show must go on..."

With Adelaide's status as leading lady restored, everyone assumed that she would be a shoe-in for the part of the tragic heroine, Ophelia. What they did not expect was for Adelaide to be cast as the supporting role of Lady Gertrude instead, and for a virtual nobody to be cast as Ophelia. (To be fair, miss Bethany Anderson was not altogether a nobody; though as Ms. Anderson had been an understudy all her life, the troupe's trepidation at this appointment was more or less well grounded.)

A few of the troupe's long time members asked her one day if she was displeased with losing another leading lady role to a new comer. To their surprise, Adelaide raised an eyebrow and replied coolly: 'No, I've no hard feelings against Bethany - why would I? I didn't even audition for Ophelia anyway. No, I only ever tried out for Gertrude. It was my first choice, and I'm only glad the director agreed to let me try my hand at a death scene.'

A month of rehearsals came and went, and finally after it, opening night. There was a full house when the curtains went up on the first show, and for weeks to come afterward the whole small town could not stop praising the production. Flawless, they said; impeccable casting with exceptional actors - even Ms. Anderson easily exceeded expectations. Adelaide was praised again and again for her portrayal of Lady Gertrude, saying that her death scene was easily the starkest performance of the whole production.

It wasn't until the local entertainment editors started likening it to the late Ms. Cambridge's performance when things started to go wrong.

'One of the best productions of the Scott Faarve Playhouse yet!' They said.'Adelaide L'Engle's Lady Gertrude is so reminiscent of the Fateful Production(as they had started to call it) involving the late Ms. Cambridge - such dedication and tragic beauty! Undoubtedly Ms. Cambridge's last performance remains second to no other, but Ms. L'Engle secures the well deserved second in this community theater's production of Shakespeare's classic.'

...Even with Elsa gone, Adelaide was still only second best.

It was not too long after the opening of Hamlet, when the reviews began pouring in, that Adelaide started to retreat further and further into herself. She withdrew from the cast, from the directors, and everyone that maintained normal contact with her outside of her stage life. Eventually, with only a week left of Hamlet, almost three weeks later, Adelaide announced privately to the director that she would no longer be acting with the troupe after Hamlet had run its course. Astounded, a panicked cast demanded why. She replied very simply, if vaguely, that it was time to move on with her life - though she went on to promise everyone present that her last few performances would be her greatest.

The cast swore to keep her retirement a secret - which naturally meant that the whole town found out by nightfall. As a result, tickets for the final performance sold out a good four days early; it seemed that the entire town wanted to see Adelaide's final act.

They were hardly disappointed.

All the actors seemed to resonate with energy and conviction the night of the final performance. Even throughout the monstrous monologues, the audience was enraptured with the sights and sounds of the stage. There was a great ooooh-ing of wonder and ahhh-ing of terror as the closing swordfight dominated center stage, and in the midst of it, Adelaide delivered her the last lines she would ever say again.

'No, no, the drink, --O my dear Hamlet,-- The drink, the drink!'

The golden goblet slipped from her pale, shaking fingers. All eyes turned to her for the space of a single heartbeat, and that moment of farewell, dying glory was forever burned into the audience's heart.

'...I am poison'd!"

Adelaide sank to the ground with the grace of a sad, fleeting memory, and did not move again. Sincerely and utterly won over, the audience jumped to their feet and filled the auditorium with thunderous applause for their starlet's final act. The cheers died down again as the play closed, only to start right back at the same level of ferocity as before when the curtains swung shut one last time.

There was a great confusion when the curtains did not lift again for curtain call. A twinge of foreboding began to gnaw at the atmosphere of the crowded auditorium, and murmurs of uncertainty rippled through the crowd as they were left in the dark for nearly five minutes.

Sadly, the audiences worst fears were confirmed when a frightened stage hand was shoved into the spotlight to make what was probably the singularly most awful announcement of his reasonably normal life:

'Ladies and gentlemen,There's been an incident...'

It was later determined that Adelaide had actually drunk from a poisoned prop; the arsenic had been applied in a lethally large dose, and even if she had tried to get help during the performance, there was no antidote or doctor's aide in the world that could have saved her after she had taken the first sip.The Scott Faarve Playhouse closed for good not too long after the incident, for obvious reasons. Adelaide was buried in the churchyard of St. Anthony's, during a private, familial service. Her killer was never determined, and the investigation remains open to this day, and though evidence of suicide was suggested, no one dared to take the implications seriously. The young actress simply had too much to live for, they said. She couldn't have done such a horrible thing to herself.

Years later, when the shock of the incident had finally wore off, people began to compare the deaths of the two tragic starlets - and everyone finally agreed, without question, that Adelaide was the better actress.

'Elsa stopped the whole show with her death, remember? ' They would say to each other. 'It was a scandal, sure, but it left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. Now Adelaide - now she was an actress. Selling the part till it killed her, you could say. Had us fooled right till the end, when we figured out it wasn't an act at all. Now that's staying in character - that's dedication for you.'

~fin