the touring company by shirley lim .

TENGGARE- October 1968
Dept. of English /  Univ. of Malaya
Kuala Lumpur/ Malaysia.


                     Shirley Lim


                                                                THE TOURING COMPANY


THE afternoon sun striking against the curtain surged noiselessly round.  It was a hot day.  A few steps out on the heated road and she had retreated in the negative discomfort of her room.  Somewhere, she thought passionately, are wet, cool, running, deep sleep, ease.  She saw out the window, clouds hanging torpidly over the red protruding bellies, and turned languid somersault which took much time to complete.

There was no time to watch them all.  She returned to her assignment.  Oberon and Titania moved lighly through the fantasy coolness of their midsummer's  night and purple-blue woods.  By constrast her body felt heavy, het flesh already sagging on the bone, while swear ran in uncomfortable pools in hidden joints as hollows.  The play had a strange glamour for her, always.,  Elusive sprites, lovers' quirks, fumbling tradesmen and bureaucratic authority fell toi the quality of night, the distortion of shadow and dream.   Reading the volume of criticism on it, her eyes marking went to sleep.  Once too, the had been Mustardseed, a ten-year old schoolgirl in stage makeup, in gauze and wings, combing Bottom's rough hair which smelt of horse.  It was perhaps then, that night first took on its weight of  glamour for her, which even the long and hot days should not entirely dispel.   As if she had been  enthralled those few nights, or is it awakened; and all the nights after, and the days, she had been asleep in disenchantment.

The arrival  of the Shakespearian Touring Company was the most exciting thing to happen in the school in a long time.  The girls talked about it all during Recess, and under cover of their books.  A few lucky girls had caught a glimpse of some of the actors when the Reverend Mother was showing them round the school.  There was a pretty lady with long yellow hair, a handsome young boy and  a big lumbering man.  Their presence transformed the school.  The angsana trees in the front lawn appeared to droop more darkly over the fence, the sunshine outside was dustier and brighter.

Next morning, at Chapel, she looked up to where the tabernacle was and prayed fervently.  Not for anything.  The quiet building the slow dancing light of the oil-lamp and the statues caught not be contained, and looked up intently towards the altar, dancing inside.  So she was not especially surprised when the Reverend Mother came into class, interrupting their reading of Moses on Mt Sinai.   The Company needed four fairies for their staging of
 A Summer Night's Dream.  Surely among this brood of cheery children are four lovely fairies.  Everyone smiled and nodded .  It was a happy day.  She kept her eyes on the principal's black  coif.  The morning was burning bright.  Even the dark angsana trees were leafgreen and the lawn was green with sunlight.  It was decided she was to be Mustardseed,  and they were to meet the players at 8 that night.

She had never been out so late at night. Cycling though Old Church Street, she heard swallows twittering in the caves of Christ- church.  The streetlamps were dim-yellow, hardly lighting any large space along the narrow road.  The road along the park was wider, running past the old Fort gate and its companion flame-of-the-forest.  The schools on the left were unlighted and deserted.  By the time she reached the schoolhall, she was hungry, having some without dinner, and a little frightened.  The school corridors were unfamiliar; the holy pictures hanging along the walls, and the crucifix above the hall-door, were newly strange with menace brought on by shadow.

                          " Thou, hast by moonlight at her window sung,
                                 With feigning voice, verses of feigning love;
                                 And stolen the impression of her fantasy "

The greater part of the hall was empty.  A small crowd was gathered below the lit stage.  Some were talking loudly.  The figure on the stage, with a hand outstrecthed, continued with what he was saying,  his voice raised above the others.  A few stood listening to him.

"Daphne, Daphne, where are you ?" a huge, bearded man  was callingf.  She had hardly arrived at the noise and movement when someome frowned vaguely at her direction. 

" Oh here you are dear, well we must do something about the fairies now, musn' t we, where are the others, oh yes,  xome long now, we shall have to learn a dance, can you do a little something, skip about you know, Joan Joan, come along now and give  this fairy a copy. " 
This agitated mouth which made a pink hole in the pale face, took charge of her.  She was now a fairy, chnting " Lulla, lulla, lullaby, hulla, hulla, hullaby ."

Some distance away from their circle, the butly man  was shouting furiously, " Daphne, Daphne. " She was Daphne stepping out of the unlighted wing, her yellow hair swing in the air of the stage lights.

" Yes, yes, yes, "  she laughed pirouetting.  " I forgot something. "  Her skirt balonned and collapsed around her white thights.  

 Everyone paused in what she was doing to look at them.  The vague mouth stopped moving and looked too at the stage, then called out clearly, " Dear,  I've finished with the fairies.  Do you want to try them out now ." 

When he turned round, his eyebrows were in a stright line. " All right over here everybody."

The children buddled together on stage.  The lights were too bright.  She remembered how her eyes smarted.  Also, how angry the bearded men was, walking up and down on the breadth of the hall and striking the air.  " No more of your tricks Daphne."

No one paid much attention to the fairies.  She could stare at Daphne who smiled on her and showed her where top stand.   Beautiful lady with yellow hair, she laid down on the dusty stage floor and stretched her arms out, saying, " What angel wakes me from my flow'ry bed ?"  She could not understand half of what was said, only that the words were beautiful as they were spoken by that sweet mouth. Lying on her bed that night, she thought she loved Daphne and wished to be like her.  Daphne laughed at everyone except when she was acting.  Even the bearded man smiled when she took his hand.

Backstage. on the night of the performance, everyone was talking and stepping out of the way.  As she ran up to take a peep at the audience, her fairy's turn her clumsy, and she tripped over Titania's bank of paper flowers.  Bending to examine the stiff net for tears, she saw Daphne standing behind the prop.  Someones's hand was on her white dress. It was the handsome one called Lysander, talking softly.  No one was looking so she twiched the curtains aside and laughed to see the teachers sitting in the front row like boarders at Sunday Maas.  Then she was abashed at her excitment when Daphne, who had come up behind her, laughed in her ear.  She was to hurry to the dressing room.  Didn't she know that even fairies wore make-up on stage ?

Running carefully down the stairs, she found her way blocked by the bent back of the bearded man.  He was shouting at Lysander, who was standing a few steps further down, and did not hear her coming.  Or rather, he appeared to be shoutingh because his voice was angry, but the words were indistinct.  She knew by then that he was the director which Daphne said meant that he should be angry with everyone all the time.  All the players kept silent except Daphne who laughed at everyone anyway .  She herself was frightened of him and when he drew back  scowling for her to pass, she stumbled against Lysander.  Lysander was friendly and indifferent to the fairies and she was grateful when he turned and caught her from falling.  For a moment, he saw his face close-to, befoe he turned away to face the director again.  His eyes had showed no consciouness of her presence.  The handsome face was frowning and behind the mouth, the teeth were set tight.  She ran ll the way to the dressing-room wishing she could kick the director for frightening her and for making everybody unhappy.

During most of the performance, she and the other fairies stood in the wing out of the way. They each wished secretly that she was plating Puck, or at least, that John were more friendly.  They envied her her green tights, and because she had eyebrows drawn up to her forehead.  She was twelve-years old and she overawed them all.  When it was their cue, the stage-lights did not hurt their eyes anymore.  They danced and sang loudly, and though there were mosquitoes, none of them dared scratch herself.  Only once was she distracted Daphne was leading the way off-stage, where the director was waiting, smiling at them.  Some one else stood some way behind him.  Only the pale facec opud be seen in the shadow of the back-stage.  It seemed almost asleep, like an old ivory head, and so beautiful she did not recognize who was immediately.  As Daphne sweetly intended her last lines ,

                               "And when she weeps, weep every little flower
                                       Lamenting some enforced chastity
                                       Tie up my love's tongue, bring him silently ."

she was  the carving break.  A pinkish hole flowered out, disfiguring them oval, and is creamy perfection darkened.  Before the face turned away, she recognized the lady who had taught them the dance and knew that she was crying.  She put her hand out to tell Daphne this, for perhaps, Daphne would know why and would run to comfort her.  Then the curtains drew shut, there was  loud applause, and the director was talking to Daphne about some other thing.

At the end of the play, Daphne was given a bouquet of flowers.  the children curtsied and the Reverend Mother nodded to them from the audience.  Later she came backstage when they were having then make-up removed and patted them on the shoulder, saying they had performed creditably and had been good children.  The players seemed to be running everywhere so that the little dressing-room was crowded, warm  and noisy with everyone talking and laughing and nobody listening. Outside, the patch of the playground was 
criss-crossed with light, coming from the back-entry to the stage , and from the dressing-room.  Here and there the light showed the fence of morning-glory with its purple flowers now shut right, the shaky seesaw with one and lifted to the sky, and made humps of shadow on the uneven level of course grass and sand.  It was the first time she was in school grounds so late in the night.   She looked around her at the room crowded with all sorts, sizes and sharpes of people, cluttered with heaps of costumes on chairs, and make-up stuff falling onto af loor littered with soiled tissues, paperbags and newpaper wrappings.  The excitement of the last three days left her.  In its place, she left the strangeness of these people, travelling from one unknown town to another, shuttling with their metal trunks down unkown roads.  Almost as it forever, she saw them travelling through countries and peoples, shut among themselves in dressing rooms and backstages, talking angry, crying , laughing.  She would not the director, who came up and smilingly disimissed them with a tin of sweets each, nor the crying lady with the beautiful pale face, who even now was kneeling quietly in the corner packing the costumes away and did not look up to say goodbye.  Outside, walking to the bicycle-stand she saw the stained glass of the chapel flicker with colour, and remembered wonderingly the tabernacle flame burning alone to the shut building.

She summarised the last paragraph of the chapter she was reading, squashing her writing to fit in the blank margin left on the sheet, then looked through the page.  How perceptive the writer is, she thought, and yet, how absurd.  No, no amount of writing however intelligent, can contain the piay.  She was overcome by nostalgia.  The tin of butterscotch had lasted two weeks.  She had eaten a sweet a day, religiously, and each time, she had recalled the bright, exciting tune among those strange, energetic men and women.  Even now, she loved buttersoctch.  And somehow, since then, she had always been  open to the night, and to its changes on people and things.  Its total darknes brought out the colours of lights through curtains.  Sometimes, in the day too, she lapsed into these strange musings and she whould grow sulky and restless.  She walked up to the window and looked out across the road, to the hills.  Perhaps, she thought, she should have a bath.  In a few hours it would be dark. He was coming to fetch her, and they would kiss under the trees and talk about their life together.   if she could only tell him how, for her, the plants and flowers, the houses drawn against the night and seen from outside. the black roads, were beautiful,  but left her disturbed,  reaching forward to where he and the place were not.

She did tell him, but diffidently, nor passionately as she thought she would.  He was silent. She knew then that the critics were right after all.  That fairies were the other side of madness, and as much beings of darkness as she had taken them to be magical and delightsome creatures.  She lay back smiling on the grass and let the moon stare into her eyes, seperated from him by his silence till the sound of his unhappiness reached her and she turned back to him. []

shirley lim 

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*  SHIRLEY LIM  also writes poetry.  She is graduate student in the University of Malaya, and is shortly to submit an M.A. thesis on the novels of William Golding.   TENGGARA' S CONTRIBUTORS .