Waiting offstage, Girard angrily tore off his new seven-hundred-dollar wig and hurled it into a corner, where it lay like a dead Pekingese. He appeared to be in the grim stages of chemotherapy-- nervous and shaky. His lips were thin and papery, the color of wet cement.

"Remember now," said the director of the Napoleonic drama. "Your cue is the cannon going off, stage left. Then you say: 'Hark! Is that a cannon I hear?' That's it. You'll be fine, Jerry."

When the cannon roared, Girard quickly snapped his head to the side and blurted, "What the fuck was that?"