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- but I couldn't get too interested in them. For one thing, they kept drinking tea or some
goddam thing all through the play. Every time you saw them, some butler was shoving
some tea in front of them, or the wife was pouring it for somebody. And everybody kept
coming in and going out all the time--you got dizzy watching people sit down and stand
up. Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne were the old couple, and they were very good, but I
didn't like them much. They were different, though, I'll say that. They didn't act like
people and they didn't act like actors. It's hard to explain. They acted more like they knew
they were celebrities and all. I mean they were good, but they were too good. When one
of them got finished making a speech, the other one said something very fast right after it.
It was supposed to be like people really talking and interrupting each other and all. The
trouble was, it was too much like people talking and interrupting each other. They acted a
little bit the way old Ernie, down in the Village, plays the piano. If you do something too
good, then, after a while, if you don't watch it, you start showing off. And then you're not
as good any more. But anyway, they were the only ones in the show--the Lunts, I mean--
that looked like they had any real brains. I have to admit it.
At the end of the first act we went out with all the other jerks for a cigarette. What
a deal that was. You never saw so many phonies in all your life, everybody smoking their
ears off and talking about the play so that everybody could hear and know how sharp they
were. Some dopey movie actor was standing near us, having a cigarette. I don't know his
name, but he always plays the part of a guy in a war movie that gets yellow before it's
time to go over the top. He was with some gorgeous blonde, and the two of them were
trying to be very blasé and all, like as if he didn't even know people were looking at him.
Modest as hell. I got a big bang out of it. Old Sally didn't talk much, except to rave about
the Lunts, because she was busy rubbering and being charming. Then all of a sudden, she
saw some jerk she knew on the other side of the lobby. Some guy in one of those very
dark gray flannel suits and one of those checkered vests. Strictly Ivy League. Big deal.
He was standing next to the wall, smoking himself to death and looking bored as hell.
Old Sally kept saying, "I know that boy from somewhere." She always knew somebody,
any place you took her, or thought she did. She kept saying that till I got bored as hell,
and I said to her, "Why don't you go on over and give him a big soul kiss, if you know
him? He'll enjoy it." She got sore when I said that. Finally, though, the jerk noticed her
and came over and said hello. You should've seen the way they said hello. You'd have
thought they hadn't seen each other in twenty years. You'd have thought they'd taken
baths in the same bathtub or something when they were little kids. Old buddyroos. It was
nauseating. The funny part was, they probably met each other just once, at some phony
party. Finally, when they were all done slobbering around, old Sally introduced us. His
name was George something--I don't even remember--and he went to Andover. Big, big
deal. You should've seen him when old Sally asked him how he liked the play. He was
the kind of a phony that have to give themselves room when they answer somebody's
question. He stepped back, and stepped right on the lady's foot behind him. He probably
broke every toe in her body. He said the play itself was no masterpiece, but that the
Lunts, of course, were absolute angels. Angels. For Chrissake. Angels. That killed me.
Then he and old Sally started talking about a lot of people they both knew. It was the
phoniest conversation you ever heard in your life. They both kept thinking of places as
fast as they could, then they'd think of somebody that lived there and mention their name.
I was all set to puke when it was time to go sit down again. I really was. And then, when
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