All About Eve Page #12

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MARGO:

Where is she?

LLOYD:

Up in the room.

MAX:

If you'll excuse me-

(to Margo)

I'll tell Miss Caswell...

He goes out. A pause.

MARGO:

Who's left out there?

LLOYD:

Too many. And you've got a new guest.

A movie star from Hollywood.

MARGO:

Shucks. And my autograph book is at

the cleaners.

Another pause.

MARGO:

You disapprove of me when I'm like

this, don't you?

LLOYD:

Not exactly. Sometimes, though, I

wish I understood you better.

MARGO:

When you do, let me in on it.

LLOYD:

I will.

Another pause.

MARGO:

How's the new one coming?

LLOYD:

The play? All right, I guess...

MARGO:

"Cora." She's - still a girl of

twenty?

LLOYD:

Twentyish. It isn't important.

MARGO:

Don't you think it's about time it

became important?

LLOYD:

How do you mean?

MARGO:

Don't be evasive.

LLOYD:

Margo, you haven't got any age.

MARGO:

Miss Channing is ageless. Spoken

like a press agent.

LLOYD:

I know what I'm talking about, after

all they're my plays...

MARGO:

Spoken like an author.

(abruptly)

Lloyd, I'm not twentyish. I am not

thirtyish. Three months ago, I was

forty years old. Forty. Four oh.

(smiles)

That slipped out, I hadn't quite

made up my mind to admit it. Now I

feel as if I'd suddenly taken all my

clothes off...

LLOYD:

Week after week, to thousands of

people, you're as young as you want...

MARGO:

...as young as they want, you mean.

And I'm not interested in whether

thousands of people think I'm six or

six hundred-

LLOYD:

Just one person. Isn't that so?

(Margo doesn't answer)

You know what this is all about,

don't you? It has very little to do

with whether you should play "Cora"

it has everything to do with the

fact that you've had another fight

with Bill.

A pause. Margo closes the box of bicarb.

MARGO:

Bill's thirty-two. He looks thirty

two. He looked it five years ago,

he'll look it twenty years from now.

I hate men.

(she puts the box

down)

Don't worry, Lloyd. I'll play your

play. I'll wear rompers and come in

rolling a hoop if you like... let's

go say good night.

They exit into the dining room. As they open the swinging

door, the CAMERA REMAINS in the doorway. Margo and Lloyd

walk toward the stairs. In the b.g., Eve is talking to the

group.

How much she says is dependent on how long it takes Margo

and Lloyd to reach her.

EVE:

(in the b.g.)

Imagine... to know, every night,

that different hundreds of people

love you... They smile, their eyes

shine - you've pleased them, they

want you, you belong. Anything's

worth that.

Just as before, she becomes aware of Margo's approach with

Lloyd. She scrambles to her feet...

MARGO:

Don't get up. And please stop acting

as if I were the queen mother.

And as Margo speaks - or before - we

FADE OUT:

FADE IN:

EXT. N.Y. THEATER STREET - DAY

Margo gets out of a cab in front of the theater and goes in.

It's Friday afternoon - no performance.

MARGO'S VOICE

What was it the wise man said - "This,

too, will pass away"? Two weeks later -

the day of the audition - all was

well with Bill and me, the world and

me-

INT. LOBBY AND FOYER - CURRAN THEATER - DAY

Margo comes from the street through the lobby (a few people

buying tickets) and into the deserted foyer. She spots Addison

sprawled on one of the sofas.

MARGO:

Why so remote, Addison? I should

think you'd be at the side of your

protegee, lending her moral support...

ADDISON:

Miss Caswell, at the moment, is where

I can lend no support - moral or

otherwise.

MARGO:

The ladies' - shall we say - lounge?

ADDISON:

Being violently ill to her tummy.

MARGO:

It's good luck before an audition.

She'll be all right once it starts.

She heads for the auditorium.

ADDISON:

Miss Caswell got lucky too late.

The audition is over.

MARGO:

(stops)

Over? It can't be. I've come to read

with her. I promised Max.

ADDISON:

The audition was called for 2:30.

It is now nearly four.

MARGO:

(lightly)

Is it really? I must start wearing a

watch, I never do, you know... who

read with Miss Caswell? Bill?

(he shakes his head)

Lloyd?

(he shakes his head)

Well, it couldn't have been Max!

Who?

ADDISON:

Naturally enough, your understudy.

MARGO:

I consider it highly unnatural to

allow a girl in an advanced state

of pregnancy-

ADDISON:

I refer to your new and unpregnant

understudy. Eve Harrington.

MARGO:

Eve! My understudy...

ADDISON:

(keenly)

Didn't you know?

MARGO:

(quickly)

Of course I knew.

ADDISON:

It just slipped your mind.

A moment of silence.

MARGO:

How... how was Miss Caswell?

ADDISON:

Frankly, I don't remember.

MARGO:

Just slipped your mind.

ADDISON:

Completely. Nor, I am sure, could

anyone else present tell you how

Miss Caswell read or whether Miss

Caswell read or rode a pogo stick.

MARGO:

Was she that bad?

As Addison speaks, he rises with excitement.

ADDISON:

Margo, as you know, I have lived in

the Theater as a Trappist monk lives

in his faith. I have no other world,

no other life - and once in a great

while I experience that moment of

Revelation for which all true

believers wait and pray. You were

one. Jeanne Eagels another... Paula

Wessely... Hayes - there are others,

three or four. Eve Harrington will

be among them...

MARGO:

(flatly)

I take it she read well.

ADDISON:

It wasn't reading, it was a

performance. Brilliant, vivid,

something made of music and fire...

MARGO:

How nice.

ADDISON:

In time she'll be what you are.

MARGO:

A mass of music and fire. That's me.

An old kazoo and some sparkles.

Tell me - was Bill swept away, too,

or were you too full of Revelation

to notice?

ADDISON:

Bill didn't say - but Lloyd was beside

himself. He listened to his play as

if someone else had written it, he

said, it sounded so fresh, so new,

so full of meaning...

MARGO:

How nice for Lloyd. And how nice for

Eve. How nice for everybody.

Addison, of course, knows exactly what she's doing. He senses

the approaching typhoon, he whips it up...

ADDISON:

Eve was incredibly modest. She

insisted that no credit was due her,

that Lloyd felt as he did only because

she read lines exactly as he had

written them.

MARGO:

The implication being that I have

not been reading them as written.

ADDISON:

To the best of my recollection,

neither your name nor your performance

entered the conversation.

Miss Caswell appears, uncertain, in the b.g.

ADDISON:

Feeling better, my dear?

MISS CASWELL:

Like I just swam the English Channel.

Now what?

ADDISON:

You next move, it seems to me, should

be toward television.

Margo, abruptly, starts for the auditorium. Addison smiles.

He takes Miss Caswell's arm.

MISS CASWELL:

Tell me this. Do they have auditions

for television?

ADDISON:

That's all television is, my dear.

Nothing but auditions.

He takes her toward the street.

INT. THEATER - CURRAN THEATER - DAY

The curtain is up; the set, covered, is a bedroom in a

deteriorating Southern mansion.

There is no one in the theater but Max, seated on the aisle

about two-thirds down, and Eve with Lloyd and Bill on the

stage. She is seated; they stand between her and auditorium.

There is some ad lib talk among the three which we cannot

make out. Margo marches down the aisle with a steady pace.

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