But I never got to the cast bios, because there, printed on the title page, were the words that sent my heart thudding: Navel Gazing will be performed without an intermission.
I stared down at the program, trying not to panic. My whole plan had been built around there being an intermission. How was I supposed to leave and get downtown if there was no intermission? How was this going to work?
I tried to concentrate on the play—I didn’t want to miss anything big in case Mr. Campbell wanted to discuss it back home—just hoping that it would be short. Most of the plays I’d seen without intermission were ninety minutes, max. But not all of them. I suddenly remembered watching Fun Home with a sippy cup of soda, not realizing until the lights went down that it was over two hours, with no intermission and no reentry. Stupid theater in the round.
But! This was not in the round, and it also wasn’t a musical, so surely it wouldn’t be longer than ninety minutes. I sat back to watch, all but certain that it would be over soon enough that I could still make it to Josephine’s—and possibly even with enough time to tell Mr. Campbell how good the show was before leaving.
But the more I watched, the more I realized I wouldn’t actually be able to tell Mr. Campbell that without lying. Because the play was not good. At all.
I spent the first few scenes rationalizing that this was all deliberate, these were choices that were being made, that there would be a payoff for the actors being out of synch with each other, the tone being just a little off. As I sat in my seat, I told myself that surely, it would get better.
It didn’t.
Everyone always seemed to be screaming or stating exactly what their feelings were. The jokes didn’t land, even though the actors seemed to expect them to, holding a beat too long for laughter that really wasn’t coming. And though I was trying not to, I couldn’t help but think about what Mr. Campbell would have told us if we’d been putting on a performance like that. Everything was too big, directed toward the audience, nothing internal… and maybe, I figured, desperately trying to rationalize, that this had been intended for a larger space. That maybe everything wouldn’t have been so overdone if the space had been bigger and they wouldn’t have had to indicate so much?
But it just… wasn’t working, which I didn’t understand. This was Mr. Campbell. His taste was sacrosanct. He knew everything about theater. And if he’d just been acting in someone else’s production, or directing a play someone else wrote, I could have put it down to other people’s decisions… but this was all him. So what did it mean that it was almost unwatchable?
And it just kept not ending. I’d never in my life wanted a watch so badly. I had no idea how much time was passing, but when it seemed like at least an hour had passed—and the play really didn’t appear to be winding down, since everyone was talking about the police inspector who was going to come investigate the death, and that would be a weird thing to end a play on—it became clear to me that I was just going to have to go.
I knew it wasn’t ideal, but I figured I could always write Mr. Campbell an email later and tell him I came to see the play, but I had to leave early, since I had to be somewhere at nine thirty. I slowly gathered up my coat—every crinkle of the fabric sounded like a cannon blast. I wished the theater wasn’t so small. The lights started to dim on a scene change, and I knew this was my moment.
I got up and hustled toward the back, ducking low—and crashed into an actor walking down the aisle. I kept my balance, but barely, stumbling back a step. The lights came up a second later and I saw, my stomach plunging, that the person I’d crashed into was Mr. Campbell.
His eyes widened in surprise and recognition and I stepped to the side—but he moved to the same side. I moved to the opposite side, just as he did the same. It was probably only a few seconds but it felt like ages, a terrible dance we were doing, until finally he walked around me and strode down the rest of the aisle and onto the stage, announcing himself as the police inspector everyone had been talking about.
I hesitated for only a moment before I took a seat again, my heart slamming against my ribs, wishing more than anything I could just undo the last thirty seconds. Because even if I’d waited just a little longer, I might have been able to leave. But now? Now that Mr. Campbell had seen me? I had to stay. I had to stay to the end or it would be worse than if I’d never come here at all.
My only desperate thought was that maybe it would end sooner than I thought. Maybe, just maybe, there was still a way out of this.
But the play just continued. Not getting any better, somehow getting worse—it was revealed that the character who’d spent the whole time sitting in the back of the room and not talking to anyone was, in fact, the ghost of the man who’d died. (Since the character’s name was Bank Quo, I really should have picked up on this sooner.) There was a second murder, but then that character showed up as the judge at the end—and I couldn’t tell if they’d run out of actors, or if it was supposed to be a metaphor.
But by that point, I didn’t care. All I could think about, with every minute ticking by, was that while I was trapped there, watching this bad play, Stevie might be sitting alone at a restaurant.
When it finally ended—it certainly felt like we were pushing beyond two hours—the cast filed out for bows. As the lights went up, I realized with a shock that I had not been the only person who had wanted to leave—there were now more cast members than people in the audience, which made me feel embarrassed, even though I wasn’t sure for who.
The second the applause petered out—there hadn’t been that much to begin with—I grabbed my coat and bolted for the exit. I could still get down to the Village. I’d be late, but I could still make it. I could show Stevie that I wanted to be there for her; I could explain about trying to leave and bumping into Mr. Campbell. If we could talk about it, it could become something funny as opposed to what it was now, something stressful that was twisting my stomach into knots.
I was already mentally planning out the email I’d write Mr. Campbell, telling him I had to catch a train but it was a great show—something friendly and kind and inoffensive and totally untrue.
I was halfway to the door when I heard my name. “Kat?” I turned around and there was Mr. Campbell walking toward me. He’d changed out of his last costume and was wearing regular clothes—but the kind we never saw him wear. At school, Mr. Campbell was always in button-downs, occasionally a golf shirt if we were rehearsing on a weekend. But now he was wearing jeans that were skinny, and a little too tight. He had a white T-shirt on with a low V, and a scarf looped around his neck. It was a look that one of the Chrises could have pulled off—maybe—but on Mr. Campbell it was just kind of embarrassing.
“Hi,” I said, giving him a bright smile, wishing I’d moved a little faster. I would have been out the door, walking down Fifty-First Street right now, eyes peeled for a cab. “I hope it’s okay I’m here.”
“Well,” he said, shaking his head with a chuckle, “I had a feeling one of you kids would show up one of these days. What’s done is done. I wish you would have asked me first, though.” He raised an eyebrow at me and I just stared at him for a moment. Was he saying I was in trouble?