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The first day of rehearsal is far too early for Geoffrey to hate everything, and yet.
“I hate everything,” he says, words muffled against the desk his head is currently plastered to.
Darren’s sympathy leaves something to be desired. In Darren’s defense, he’s somewhere in Europe where the time zone might be anything from nine PM to three AM; Geoffrey’s never sure, nor does he particularly care to find out. Darren’s voice, in any case, sounds as crisp as polished as usual when he says, “Fuck you, Geoffrey,” into the phone, so Geoffrey doesn’t have to pretend to have any guilt for potentially waking him up.
“It’s only been a day and I’m already this close to tearing my hair out.”
“If you’re fishing for compliments, this is not the way to do it,” Darren says brusquely. “That said, please don’t do anything to your hair, it’s your one saving feature.”
Geoffrey groans. “It’s this play.”
“Ah. The Scottish Play.”
“Don’t call it that,” Geoffrey begs. Every time someone calls it that, another part of his soul shrivels and dies. Like a horcrux.
“It is a Scottish play, Geoffrey,” Darren says, his voice dripping with far more satisfaction than is really warranted, Geoffrey feels, although that could generally be said for ninety percent of their interactions. “Written by a Scot. Takes place in Scotland. Ergo, etc.”
“Really, though, when it comes down to it, it takes place in the hell that is our rehearsal room—”
“Which you should have been in five minutes ago!” Maria yells from the doorway.
Geoffrey thumps his head against the desk again. “I have to go.”
“Did you seriously wake me up just for tha—” is all he hears before he hangs up.
*
Geoffrey’s cousin is considerably more well-known than Geoffrey. Oliver might have pointed that out as the understatement of the decade.
Geoffrey’s well-known cousin gave the New Burbage Festival the rights to a three-week run of You Know Who and the Cursed Child, on the condition that Cousin Geoffrey would direct. Geoffrey refused for about a week, until his cousin tweeted to the world at large that he himself would be traveling to the New Burbage Festival to take part in the play, at which point it became impossible to stuff the cat back in the proverbial bag. Besides, Geoffrey might on occasion be old and bitter, but even he couldn’t bear to imagine the look on Ducky’s face if he had to tell him he couldn’t play Dumbledore.
David Tennant arrives in New Burbage on a Sunday, two weeks after rehearsals begin. “No need to thank me, Geoff-o,” he says, settling on Geoffrey’s couch and spreading his arms across the back, uninvited.
“Don’t worry,” Geoffrey says lightly. “I wasn’t.”
David’s mouth twitches. “You know, Nan says it’s that attitude that’s holding you back in the theater world.”
Geoffrey makes a sincere effort not to kick him in the face.
“Now, about the play,” David continues, “I’m sure you have a vision, I respect that, but I do have some thoughts about good old Sev. As you know, I played—"
*
“’—Barty Jr in the movies, and Jo always said', I’m one Jo reference from stabbing someone in the eye with a prop wand.”
On the other side of the line, Darren is, as usual, non plussed. “Stabbing, again? Really?”
Geoffrey doesn’t blush. “Meanwhile, I’ve got Richard pestering me about how long I can make the intermissions because he wants to sell more merchandise, and I’ve got four intermissions, Darren, that is a lot of pestering. Our insurance won’t cover any of the suspension harnesses, there’s something about a Giant Lake I’m still not sure how we’re going to solve, and I still can’t tell apart the kids who play the Potter and Malfoy children. I have directed Fentons and Faulconbridges, Malvolios and Margarelons, Timandras and Tintiniuses, but it will be Albus and Scorpius who are the death of me.”
“Very dramatic,” Darren says dryly. “Is there more?”
“Yes. The cast have decided to revolt.”
“Against you? About time.”
“About the play. It seems there is a lack in consensus – by which I mean no one in the cast has any earthly idea – why the two protagonists of this place do not,” Geoffrey makes rabbit ear quotes with his fingers, hating himself for every second of it, “’get together’ by the end.”
Geoffrey regrets it almost as soon as he says it, because he knows what’s coming next.
“This is what happens, Geoffrey—”
“Please don’t—”
“This is what happens,” Darren repeats, “when you work with humans. Tragically unprofessional.”
Darren, by his own admission, had fallen in love with musical theater, and was now in Brussels directing a production of Cats with all of the characters played by actual cats. Geoffrey finds it physically painful to think about.
Maria pops her head into the cupboard under the stairs set piece where Geoffrey is hiding. “Five minutes,” she says, and then, over her shoulder as she leaves, “Oh, and Barty has some notes for you.”
“I give the notes!” Geoffrey calls after her, shaking a fist. “Stop that,” he tells the smug silence on the other end of the line.
“I said nothing,” Darren says.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Well, naturally. It always pleases me to remember how, in the eyes of the Tennant theater royalty clan, it is you who is the ultimate loser. The embarrassment who needed a charity gift from his respected cousin just to get a decent gig.”
“I did Julius Caesar just last month!”
“Didn’t impress your Nan much though, did it.”
Geoffrey knows Darren is only trying to rile him up because he has a thing for Geoffrey’s scowl, which he calls ‘unreasonably attractive’ and can’t even see over the audio connection.
Geoffrey scowls at the phone anyway.
*
The dress rehearsal, in the end, goes fantastically. Consequently, opening night goes to shit. They go out for drinks, after helping mop up the Great Lake that flooded the orchestra pit. Geoffrey’s cousin can’t join them – very tragic – because he’s mobbed by too many fans. The actors, still on a high from going rogue and improvising a passionate ending for Scorpios Malfoy and Albus Severus Potter, get plastered early on, and one of them – Geoffrey still can’t entirely tell the two apart – slips and knocks himself out against a bar stool.
Ducky, who actually killed it as Dumbledore, pauses his fingers at the piano, and shakes his head at the two. “For never was a story of more woe,” he says sadly, “than this of Albus Sev, and his Scorpio.”
Geoffrey joins the others in raising a glass.
With his other hand, he makes a phone call.
“Fuck you, Geoffrey, it’s five AM.” Darren doesn’t sound even a little bit tired. “How was opening night?”
“Opening day,” Geoffrey says. “We had two shows.”
“Yes, the semantics were critical just now, thank you for that crucial correction.”
“Well, tonight was a disaster.”
“And?”
“And.” Geoffrey takes a drink. “You should buy a ticket.”
“Naturally, I already have one.”
Geoffrey grins. “Naturally.”
He still hates The (Other) Scottish Play, but, he figures. Maybe he doesn’t hate everything after all.