A Song Flung Up to Heaven by Maya Angelou Page B

not been filled. I joined the line of actors auditioning, and, using a Langston Hughes poem and a Shakespearean sonnet, I was given the role of the nurse.
    I knew I was adequate, but I was never sure if Frank hired me because of my talent or to ensure that Beah had a way to get to the theater.
    Frank and Beah shared a profound mutual admiration. She would speak, and he would either laugh uproariously or stroke his chin and pace the floor, lost in a deep brown study.
    Rehearsals further increased my insecurity. I would stand backstage as Frank consistently positioned Beah center stage under the bright beams. Of course she was the star, but the role of the nurse was not irrelevant, and he never called on me. I began to smart in the shadows. I went to a bookstore and bought Euripides’ version of
Medea,
as well as every book I could find about Medea, Jason, the
Argo
and the Golden Fleece.
    There was a neighborhood bar next to the theater. I informed the stage manager that I could be found in the bar whenever I was wanted. Each day I would drop Beah off, greet folks in the theater, then go to sit at a table in the dimly lit bar. I worked out who the nurse was and why she was so loyal to Medea.
    In my created version of the play’s history, Nurse had been the midwife at Medea’s birth. Nurse had a baby just after Medea was born, but Nurse’s baby died. Medea’s mother, not wanting the bother, persuaded Nurse to become a nurse cow and give to Medea the dead child’s milk.
    In the bar, I built my character, her whims and her whimsy. I decided early on that Nurse thought of Medea as her own daughter and doted on the girl. As Medea grew into womanhood, Nurse cherished her, idolized her and followed her everywhere, walking as precisely as possible in her footsteps. When Medea married Jason, Nurse attended the ceremony. When Medea stole the fleece of pure gold from her father, the king, because Jason asked her to do so, Nurse helped her. Nurse later escaped the king’s rage by joining Medea on the Argonauts’ ship, the
Argo.
Nurse was crippled by arthritis because she often slept on the ground. She didn’t mind the discomfort as long as she was near Medea. She had grown old and dotty in service to Medea, who took Nurse’s worship as her due. Maddened by rage at Jason’s growing coldness toward her, Medea killed their two sons. Nurse knew of the murders but gave Medea no rebuke, saying, “She did what any woman would have done if provoked.”
    I began taking license with the simply told story of passion and horror. Since I was not directed, I had to create situations that would explain why the character I was playing could condone even the most base actions of Medea. I did not propose to comprehend Medea’s mind, or how love and idolatry could lead to theft and murder, but I did find that Nurse had a fair voice, and singing was the only pleasure she had that didn’t stem from Medea.
    I got some stage gray hair and ghoulish makeup, and a week before opening, when I was invited to join rehearsal, I brought the gray-haired, limping, singing nurse onto the stage. Beah and Frank were amazed, and neither was too pleased, but we were too close to opening for Frank to redirect me.
    The play opened to baffling reviews. Some critics loved it, while others loathed it. Some thought it modern and wonderfully acted, and some thought it stagey and mannered. All lauded Beah Richards, and a few had kind words for the elderly actress whom no one knew but who played the nurse so well.

Eleven
    Sid’s Café and Bar was a popular hangout for people from New Orleans. The owner, Jase, and his wife, Marguerite, were highly respected cooks of Louisiana food, and the bar was always filled with bright laughter and loud talk. Jase and Marguarite liked and welcomed me, so Sid’s became my base.
    One evening a group of four in the red booth at the front of the café were particularly interesting. The two women were as loud and fierce as the men, yet no