Excerpt: Blue Mountain Rose

Blue Mountain Rose: A Novel in Five Acts is the story of the venerable Blue Mountain Rose Theatre Company, which is preparing to produce Hamlet amid the financial strains of the Great Recession. In this excerpt from act 1, scene 9, the cast is gathering for the first time. The scene features Peter Dunmore, their Hamlet, a British stage actor who recently played a vampire in a blockbuster movie and became a reluctant worldwide celebrity. He’s acting at the Rose under a fake identity to hide from fans and the media. Paparazzi discovered his previous hideout and took an embarrassing photo. Richard Keane is the company’s longtime executive director. His assistant, Kate Morales, manages the company. She and Peter are becoming friends during weekly ski outings.

The nearer they’d come to the all-hands meeting, the more nervous Peter felt. Someone in the cast might recognize him from his movie or remember him from London. Peter could imagine in detail the scene in which his cover was blown and he had to either face the consequences or turn and run once more, straight to the airport for the next plane out.

He’d fought the better angels of his nature throughout one Monday ski. Finally, reluctantly, he asked Kate about the cast list, not wanting to lean on their friendship but curious beyond the limits of his self-control. She’d been coy. Richard never shared the list publicly ahead of the first meeting, she’d told him. The secret created a bit of theatricality Keane immensely enjoyed.

But it’s a matter of life and death, Peter thought, recognizing immediately that it wasn’t. “Then never mind,” he’d told Kate.

Looking into the mirror that Friday morning, he had a crazy thought of shaving off the beard, cutting his hair short, dyeing it black, and strutting in prepared to be instantly recognized. “Hey, you’re that guy,” someone would say, and they’d be off to the races. “You’re the guy in that movie.” Or worse: “You’re that guy from the photo.” Though they’d never know him from the photo—not with my clothes on anyway, he amended morosely. No, I am most definitely NOT that guy.

Instead, he used trimmers to shape his mustache while still mostly hiding his upper lip, then carved his beard closer to his jawline, cleaning up his neck where he’d let the mountain monk thing go on too long. He hung a gold hoop in one ear and added gold cufflinks to his red button-down shirt. Ripped blue jeans and boots completed the look.

He’d turned himself into a pirate, estranged from the clean-cut image of his stage work and his darkly seductive look from the movie. If they didn’t recognize him the moment he swaggered in, he could hide in plain sight. That’s the hope, anyway.

Lifting one eyebrow, he gave himself an over-the-top pirate scowl in the mirror, then laughed at himself. One thing was sure: He appeared much different today than he had in Thirst. For that movie, they’d dressed him in black and used colored contact lenses to give him a dark-hearted glare. He could never frighten anyone today. Good. He wanted to draw attention to this new character, “Peter Dunmore,” a beach bum from New Zealand with a flair for the dramatic who happened to know his Shakespeare. Looking in the mirror one last time, he told himself, Prepare to flirt and flirt hard, Kiwi pirate.

* * *

Kate knew most of the actors already, and some came to greet her once they’d met Richard and poured themselves a steadying cup of coffee. If they hadn’t already connected casually at the Arden or acted together in previous seasons, she introduced them to each other by both real name and character. It was fun to watch their faces light up as they met scene partners. Her highlight so far this morning had been introducing Ted Harrington’s Claudius to Margaret Graham’s Polonius.

She noticed Peter the moment he walked in. She’d grown used to his scruffy beard, puffy jacket, and knitted ski cap; she hadn’t seen his hair in a month. Today, he looked positively dashing, with his beard trimmed and a red shirt that accented broad shoulders. He shook Richard’s hand and returned his greeting, then turned away; to the drinks table, she thought, but no. He scanned the room, looking from one actor’s face to the next. Then his eyes found hers and stopped. He sent her a smile. Returning it, she was startled to feel her heart jump. No, she commanded herself. Not for a player. Not ever again.

“You look quite the Hamlet,” she said as he walked over. “‘Th’ expectancy and rose of the fair state, the glass of fashion and the mold of form, th’ observed of all observers’ indeed.’” She gestured around the conference room at the people who were looking their way, curious to assess their leading actor for the first time.

He scanned the room again quickly before declaiming to Kate in a plummy British accent that would have made Sir Ian McKellen proud, “‘O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!’”

“‘A dull and muddy-mettled rascal’ you are indeed,’” she teased.

“That I am,” he agreed, switching to the broader New Zealand vowels. “And yet I just shook the hand that shook the hand of Olivier. The great Richard Keane.”

“Richard the Great, he likes to be called.”

“Richard the Great it is then.” He seemed nervous, and she wanted to ask why. He’d already met Richard, she knew, so it couldn’t be that. First day at school, she thought. To ease his jitters, she introduced him to LaShia Shay, the female actor playing Horatio, and stepped aside to let Hamlet meet his one true friend in Elsinore.

* * *

Richard was perhaps the only person in the room for whom nerves were not an issue. How many first cast meetings had he enjoyed here in this very room, seated in King Arthur’s throne (in reality, a humble oak chair with his last name carved into the back)? Too many to count, he thought.

There was one person he especially looked forward to welcoming. She came in last, as befitting a queen; after Claudius, after young Hamlet himself with his long hair and earring. (A hippie Hamlet; an audacious choice, he’d thought.)

When their Gertrude, no less a personage than Isabelle Rivette, swept into the room, he could hear the chattering actors grow quiet as all eyes turned her way.

“Isabelle,” he said, stepping forward. “Bienvenue.”

“Richard Coeur de Lion,” she said, her English softened by a whisper of her native tongue. Isabelle was the most highly decorated French actress of the past twenty years.

He kissed her cheeks, then held her hand for a long moment. “We’re honored by your presence. Welcome to the Blue Mountain Rose production of Hamlet.” Then, knowing everyone was listening, he turned to address the room. “Welcome to you all. Please be seated, and let us begin.”

* * *

At the end of the long day, Peter was glad to return to his nutshell. Opening the front door, he said, “Hi, Mum,” to the quiet room. He no longer felt sheepish about such things. She was here as much as she was anywhere, and he wanted to talk with her.

“First cast meeting today,” he continued. “Remember Isabelle Rivette, from the touring cast of Phèdre? She’s to play Gertrude! I’m chuffed to work with her.”

He set his papers on the dining table and walked the few steps to the kitchen to warm some soup for dinner.

“Once she came through the door, nobody looked at me again. I can be anonymous as a church mouse and just play my part. ‘O day and night,’ what a relief that is.”

Peter opened a fresh loaf of bread and dropped two slices into the toaster.

“We went round the table and introduced ourselves. Nobody recognized me. My Kiwi accent is spot on, thanks to hanging out with Huatare.” He smiled, thinking of his friend.

“We introduced our characters and talked about trust. Who does our character trust, and why? Who do they distrust, and why? Hamlet, of course, trusts nobody but Horatio. Horatio is my Huatare.”

Peter carried dinner to the table and sat down, then popped back up to pull a bottle of dark ale from its cool cupboard as a treat. “The woman playing Horatio is called LaShia Shay. She’s played the Rose before. She came up through the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival at Tulane and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Seems a good sort.” Peter took a long, appreciative drink from his bottle, then raised it as if making a toast.

“You always loved first meeting, Mum. When you played Medea, you brought me to the National. I sat by the wall and watched everyone greet everyone else. So much excitement in the room, so much tension. You were the star of the show, just like Madame Rivette today.”

He paused, remembering his mom’s tailored gray suit, her warm, gold hair curled and pinned up to accent her high cheekbones and graceful neck. “The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals” indeed—and now a quintessence of dust.

Grief came knocking, but he blinked away tears as they formed. To distract himself, he said, “Speaking of trust, we have the first fight rehearsal in a week. You know how I love a good sword fight. The choreographer wants to use rapier and dagger. I hope I can trust the guy playing Laertes not to stab me through the heart.” He laughed briefly before his face turned somber.

“I was glad not to be recognized, but it made me lonely, too. It’s one thing to hang out here, reading Shakespeare. He’s good company, and so are you. It’s quite another thing to stand in a room of strangers and realize nobody knows my real name, much less who I am, what I’m like, what I wish for or fear or—want.”

He recalled the electric flash he’d felt when he caught Kate’s eye through the crowd.

“Amend that. Kate Morales was there. I think maybe she knows. Not who I am in the world, but something of who I am at heart. Whether she knows what I desire, how could she? I’ve kept it close. I have to.”

The soup cooled as he stared off through the window into the darkening forest.

“I talked with Richard Keane again today, Mum. The Richard Keane. Well.” There was so much more to say, but the words caught in his throat.

“That’s it for now, I guess. Time to eat.” He tried to imagine his mother’s kiss on his forehead, her wise green eyes, darker than his own, and for a moment he almost could.

About the author

Julie Hammonds fell in love with Hamlet during a high school trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and has nurtured her passion for Shakespeare ever since. She studied the plays in school, stage-managed The Winter’s Tale and Much Ado About Nothing, and helped create the Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival. Her quest to complete the canon as an audience member has taken her from a community hall in Juneau, Alaska, to the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon. She has four plays to go. This is her first novel.

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