Author's Note: I found it kind of hard to translate this ensemble piece Prima Donna onto the page, so while I hope I did a good job, this part may be a bit slow. Maybe not. I hope you enjoy it regardless. The MIDI file is... er... interesting, and the only one I could find...
Rating: PG
Phantom From the Creek
Act One Scene Six
Pacey returned, whistling, to Carmington Theater and found it in a state of chaos similar to that of when he left. Mrs. Giry had just given Andre, Firmin and Abby the Phantom's latest note, which came with a script.
"No!" Abby screamed. "I refuse to!"
"Let me see that," Pacey yanked the letter out of Firmin's hand.
"Gentlemen, I have now sent you several notes of the most amiable nature, detailing how my theater is to be run. You have not followed my instructions. I shall give you one last chance..."
"We could not follow the instructions even if we wanted to!" interrupted Andre. "Joey was in no state to perform tonight, so we had to postpone!"
"Josephine Potter has returned to you," the note continued, "and I am anxious her career should progress. In the new production of 'Il Muto' that I have enclosed, you will therefore cast Abigail as the Pageboy, and put Miss Potter in the role of Countess. The role which Miss Potter plays calls for charm and appeal. The role of the Pageboy is silent-- which makes my casting, in a word, ideal!" Abby let out a shriek. "I shall watch the performance from my normal seat in Box Five, which will be kept empty for me. Should these commands be ignored, a disaster beyond your imagination will occur! I email, Gentlemen, Your obedient servant, O.G."
"Joey!" Abby exclaimed with rage.
"Threats?" Andre asked blankly. "Whatever next?"
"It's all a ploy to help Joey!" Abby turned, pointing her index finger.
"This is insane..." Firmin said.
"I know who sent this," Abby said, shaking her finger when it found its target, "the patron, her lover!"
"Indeed?" Pacey smirked. "Abby's giving me reason for that to be true, isn't she?" he asked his managers.
"Miss Cooper!" Andre said desperately.
"This is a joke!" Firmin exclaimed.
"This changes nothing!" Andre added. Abby gave them both a huffy look.
"Miss Cooper, you are our star!" Andre said authoritatively.
"And always will be," agreed Firmin. "This 'O.G.' is mad."
"We don't take orders," Andre said, raising his voice. "I'd like to announce to the entire cast, or anyone who is here to listen, that Miss Potter will be playing the Pageboy... the silent role..."
"Abigail will be playing the lead!" Firmin joined him.
"It's useless trying to appease me," Abby said dramatically. "You're only saying this to please me!"
Mrs. Giry pounded her cane to get everyone's attention. "Beware to those who scorn his word!" she announced.
"You have reviled me!" Abby said, her hand to her forehead.
"The angel sees, the angel knows..." Mrs. Giry continued.
"You have rebuked me," Abby began waving her arms in the air. "You'd have me be replaced!"
"Please, Mrs. Giry, we beseech you..." Andre begged.
"This hour shall see your darkest fears... the angel knows, the angel hears!" Mrs. Giry pounded her cane again in warning and fell silent.
"Abandonment! Disgrace!" Abby feigned swooning.
"Abby, sing for us! Don't be a martyr... our star!" Firmin insisted.
Andre cleared his voice. "Abby, your public needs you."
"We need you, too!" Firmin said quickly.
"Would you not rather have your precious little ingénue?" Abby asked haughtily.
(Listen to Prima Donna)
"Miss Cooper, no!" they responded simultaneously. "The world wants you. Prima Donna, first lady of the stage, your devotees are on their knees to implore you!"
"Can you bow out when they're shouting your name?" Andre asked.
"Think of how they all adore you," Firmin insisted. "Prima Donna, enchant us once again! Think of your muse and of the queues round the theater! Can you deny us the triumph in store?"
"Sing Prima Donna once more!" they both said.
Pacey took Jen to the side worriedly. "Joey spoke of an angel," he said. Abby, quite pleased with being the center of attention again, was fully aware that she'd return to the stage in a heartbeat. She wanted to continue being flattered, however, and tried her best to still seem a bit unsure.
"Prima Donna, your song shall live again!" she sang.
"Think of your public!" Andre cried.
"You took a snub, but there's a public who needs you!" Abby sang gleefully, not noticing Pacey and Jen speaking off to the side.
"Those who hear your voice liken you to an angel!" Andre said. Pacey looked over at the sound of the word.
"Jen, I don't like this one bit. I'm as hesitant to give into 'O.G's' demands as anyone, but Joey is good, and I'm afraid for her safety and possibly ours if we don't."
"Oh... Is this ghost an angel or madman?" Jen shook her head.
"No," Pacey said. "Dawson or madman? Or are they one in the same?"
Jen's jaw dropped. "That can't be..."
"Think of their cry of undying support..." Abby sang, practically with stars in her eyes. "Follow where the limelight leads you. You'll sing again, and to unending ovation!" Andre rolled his eyes and motioned to Firmin to take a few steps away from Abby.
"We get our production," Andre whispered.
"She gets her limelight," Firmin whispered back. "Leading ladies are a trial!"
"Orders! Warnings! Lunatic demands!" Pacey said of the Phantom.
"Tears! Oaths! Lunatic demands!" Andre said of Abby.
"This miscasting will invite damnation," Mrs. Giry said to Pacey and Jen.
"Bliss or damnation?" Jen asked wistfully, thinking of what would happed if Dawson was alive. "Which will claim us?"
"Surely for her sake..." Pacey started.
"Would he strike back...?" Jen continued.
"Surely there'll be further scenes, worse than this!" Andre pointed to Abby. He laughed and once again whispered to Firmin, "who'd believe a diva happy to relieve a chorus girl who's gone and slept with the patron? Pacey and the soubrette entwined in love's duet! Although he may be demur, he must have been with her."
"Think before these demands are rejected!" Mrs. Giry noticed them whispering and approached the managers again. "Please!" she begged them.
"I must see these demands are not rejected!" Pacey followed her.
"If his threats and demands are rejected..." Jen proclaimed, tentatively stepping forward, "Joey must be protected!"
"Think how you'll shine in that final encore," Abby sang, ignoring them all. "Sing, Prima Donna, once more!"
"Okay, wait," Jen said, pulling on Pacey's sleeve. "If it can possibly be Dawson, aunt Lila is being overly concerned. We don't have to get so caught up in her warnings. He'd never hurt any of us."
"If it can possibly be Dawson, he's quite a different person, I'm sure," Pacey said, concerned. "If he can make us all believe he's dead for more than a decade, he may not be... all there. We don't know what he's capable of, or if the Phantom even is him. We'll talk about that later. Right now we need to stop them from ignoring him, just in case."
"You'd never get away with this in a play, but if it's loudly sung and in a foreign tongue, it's just the sort of story audiences adore," Firmin joked, ignoring Mrs. Giry now that Pacey and Jen had once again wandered off to the side. "In fact, a perfect opera!"
"This has to end," Pacey said.
"This is like a game for him," Mrs. Giry replied, trying to bring focus back to her words, "a game you cannot win."
"In Box Five, a new game will begin!" Pacey said suddenly.
"You have an idea?" Jen asked. Pacey nodded.
"For if his curse is on this production..." Mrs. Giry trailed off and looked desperately to Pacey and Jen.
"Come with me," Pacey said to Jen and Mrs. Giry. "We can't win with them. They've outvoted us."
"The stress that falls on upon a famous Prima Donna!" Abby beamed with importance. "Terrible diseases, coughs and colds and sneezes. Still, the driest throat will reach the highest note in search of perfect... opera!" Andre and Firmin sang with her.
"Light up the stage with that age old rapport! Sing, Prima Donna, once more!"
"SO," the Phantom's voice boomed and echoed through the hallway at Abby, Andre and Firmin so loudly that Jen, Pacey and Mrs. Giry trembled in Mrs. Giry's office, "it is to be war between us! If these demands are not met, a disaster beyond your imagination will occur!"
Abby looked up defiantly and loudly belted out, "once more!"
"Oh fools, to have flouted his warnings!" Mrs. Giry broke the silence and closed the door to her office.
"Why are you so afraid of the Phantom, aunt Lila?" Jen finally asked. "You always seem as if you know something more."
"Please don't ask, Jenny," Mrs. Giry said, looking quickly around the room. "He might hear."
"I'm sure he's quite busy with Abby. Please," he urged her, "should we really be afraid?"
"I will not speak of this here!" Mrs. Giry said. At that moment, there was a tapping at the door. It was Lily.
"Good day, Mrs. Giry," she said. "Abby wants you to come review the choreography with her for 'Il Muto'."
"Foolish girl," Mrs. Giry said, "but I have no choice. You two," she looked at Pacey and Jen, "be careful what you say here. There may always be an extra set of ears listening." She left her office with Lily and closed the door.
"Pacey, how could the Phantom possibly be Dawson?" Jen asked the moment her aunt left.
"Okay, there are only two possibilities here... one, Joey is insane. She insists she was with him, or a-- a shade of him, last night," Pacey recounted to Jen. "The other is that Dawson is the Phantom. Let's go over them one at a time..."
"As for Joey being crazy," Jen said, "this has really been an impossible situation. It has been for all of us, but especially her. He was her world when he was taken away from her. Pace, have you ever read Lolita?"
"Yes, I have. The guy who is the pedophile... it's because he never got to sleep with his first love. They were only about 15, and she died suddenly, and it drove him crazy in a way."
"Joey never got any sort of closure," Jen said. "She didn't say goodbye, she didn't see the body, she had no ties to him because his family left. She could never fully move on because the circumstances were so tragic and strange."
"And suspicious," Pacey added. "Let's pretend for one minute that Dawson lived. Let's say, however, that he was so badly mutilated, he scared small children. Plastic surgery wasn't enough because he had so much skin burned off. What if..." Pacey looked thoughtful. "What if he was so disfigured that it drove him crazy?"
"So he hid," Jen started to believe their idea. "He couldn't face us like that, and he'd rather remember a happy childhood and disappear than have his whole world reject him."
"So he moved with his parents, hoping to heal, and became a recluse, teaching himself to compose, and maybe to be an architect or inventor, and how to hide in the shadows and not be seen," Pacey said. Jen's lips pursed into a straight line.
"That's completely ridiculous," she said, "it's--"
"Insane?"
"Yes."
"The Phantom is a man. Joey was with someone last night, I am certain of that," Pacey sighed.
"Dawson still loves her," Jen said, becoming adamant about the idea of Dawson being the Phantom again, "and found her and watched her, wanting her to be happy but not forget him?"
"Maybe," Pacey conceded.
"My God, Pacey!" Jen jumped out of her chair to her feet. "Dawson is alive! Our friend, he's alive! No more mourning!" She looked around the room frantically. "We have to find him!"
"Jen!" Pacey said sternly. "It's just a remote possibility. And if he's spent so many years as a bitter recluse... cutting off his ties to us so absolutely... he might be dangerously insane."
"Just because you have competition for Joey doesn't mean you should speak badly of him!" Jen's eyes burned into Pacey's. "He's been gone so long, I missed him and I thought you did, too! We dedicated our lives to the stage almost as-- as a testimonial to him!"
"Jen!" Pacey yelled, "I cared about him just as much as anyone else! He was my best friend! But my best friend never used to run around theaters in a cape and mask, threatening people and referring to himself as an Opera Ghost!" His hands started to tremble. "I'm just trying to be practical here. I don't want to believe he's come back and then find that... he may still be alive, but the Dawson we loved is dead. It was hard enough to lose him the first time."
"I know," Jen said quietly. "I'm sorry for what I said about Joey. I shouldn't have brought her back into it."
"I-- I'm going to go, Jen. I need to leave the theater for a while and think about things. Take care of yourself, and I'll see you tomorrow," Pacey said sadly.
"Good night." Pacey walked out of the office. Jen did as well and went into the theater. She stood looking at the stage, when she thought she saw a movement out of the corner of her eye. She looked up and saw the shadow of a man in Box Five.
"Dawson!" she yelled frantically, but with a flicker of his cape, the Phantom was gone.
--------------------------------------------
Feedback, please. I don't get much of it at for this series, and I'd really appreciate it.