Made glorious, p.24
Made Glorious, page 24
“Is there much drinking in Grover’s Corners?”
The figure turns, the light hitting her ruffly lace blouse. It is a girl, dressed in Edwardian women’s wear and not the medieval garb of the Good Knight! Sweet Lady cast. But that isn’t what’s caused my heart to jolt.
It’s the light, rushing right through her transparent limbs. She is only visible when she turns just so. An apparition.
“Is there much drinking in Grover’s Corners?” she says again. This time the words penetrate.
I swallow hard, my throat suddenly dry.
The very first Bosworth production I was ever a part of: Our Town, fall semester of my sophomore year.
I auditioned with the “Sunbonnet Sue” monologue from Quilters, my recent acceptance into Bosworth’s elite and expensive halls buoying me into a callow optimism. Even with Pam’s formal declaration of her no-sophomore rule, I somehow believed I might breach her boundaries, might be the one to make her untie that rule —
But I was cast in the ensemble.
Not everyone in the ensemble gets a speaking part. My one line made me feel like a god.
Onstage, the girl shuffles around in a daze. Another figure joins her; I recognize myself in both their pale, spectral forms —
Fiddler on the Roof, my junior spring semester. Auditioned for Hodel with another gust of hope, landed in the ensemble again.
This time, my one line (“Tradition!”) was said with the rest of the group, and by closing night I knew better than to think that my own individual voice could be distinguished, no matter how loudly, brightly, or passionately I spoke it.
Another figure.
“What do I care who you should rob?” this newcomer shouts. She’s singing her one solo line from Les Misérables on a miserable repeat; my scalp aches to recall the hours of intricate braiding I endured, all so my plaited head could appear before the audience for a whole four minutes of stage time.
My breath comes faster. Here comes the North Pole elf I played for the Christmas revue my junior year. “And I’m Jinglepuff!”
Here comes a beautician from the Merry Old Land of Oz. “We can make a dimpled smile out of a frown!”
“He’s giving a ball!”
Random townswoman from The Importance of Being Earnest whom I named Ermintrude, because in the script she was simply listed as “rag woman” and Pam insisted we give our minor characters backstories, preferences, favorite foods, hidden traumas, all to enrich the verisimilitude of the production.
Even back then, I think I knew it was bullshit. That my lines were just springboards to push the spotlight back onto the leads.
“Jolly old town!”
The curtains blow from their folds behind the proscenium, arcing around the stage.
“Every theatre is haunted.” Pam’s ghost story from my first Halloween as a Princely Player chants through my head. Haunted by every character who has ever been played on that stage —
Every character I’ve ever played —
You gave them your all. You let them wear you like a skin suit and play their little parts in the shows. You owe them nothing.
“Break a leg tonight,” says Ermintrude, who is nothing.
“Let’s hope they clap louder for you than they did for me.” The Rory from The Crucible stares out at me, our round face like a turnip plopped onto a Puritan’s collar. She flickers in and out of sight.
“You really did it,” says the North Pole elf, looking the jester in her toe-curled shoes. “You worked your way up. You paid your dues, and you finally got to see your name on the cast list.”
They still don’t get it. And, being ghosts or spirits or echoes or whatever they are, they never will.
You didn’t wait until Pam finally noticed you.
You made it happen yourself.
Fair is fair, fair is fair.
All stages are haunted.
I am haunted by the versions of myself who believed it was that simple —
But these suckers don’t realize there’s only one rule.
One rule for the theater, one rule for life:
Watch out for yourself.
Only you.
There is no one else.
If you do not make them pay attention, you will be forgotten. If you do not take what you are owed, you will have nothing.
And if you do not take the crown for yourself, you will never know power —
The lights shut off. Dark stage, dark auditorium.
I blink until my eyes cease their flowering and adjust, and I understand I am alone.
I am alone.
ACT I
Last September.
Two days of auditions for The Crucible.
Pam wanted to explore what was possible with a stripped-down set — she wanted her Crucible to prove that minimalism didn’t mean low effort. “There are no ghosts in The Crucible, but every character is haunted” was the sermon she preached at the parent meeting. There would be twisting black tree branches, Escher staircases inside the Parris home, faint lavender backdrops clouded over by hazy fog.
Rory could see it. She could see exactly what Pam was envisioning — The Crucible had always felt like the perfect fall play to Rory. There were no ghosts, like Pam said, and no real witches, either, and yet from the very script rose a palpable spookiness, a seasonal gravity, the promise of crisp, smoky air and hooded figures slipping into the woods.
“You’re a shoo-in for Mary Warren,” Ethan told her as they waited in the hallway for their turns to audition.
Rory rubbed a scuff off the toe of her high-top, refusing to let him see her coy smile.
“You think?”
If she had her pick, she’d choose Goody Proctor — wise, willowy, patient Elizabeth, who was the play’s bleeding heart — but Mary Warren was a tricky role to inhabit. Only the rarest of actors could get the audience to sympathize with weak-willed, moon-faced, hysterical Mary Warren, and Rory was flattered that Ethan considered her up to the challenge.
“We’re seniors now,” Ethan reminded her, dropping his voice as a student exited the Elizabethan, their face unreadable. “We’ve been waiting for this for years. Now it’s our turn.”
Rory’s turn.
Inside the auditorium, Rory handed her sweaty audition form to Shandie and Pam, then ascended the steps to the stage.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Pam said.
Rory took in a deep breath, her eyes fluttering.
Her insides were snarled with nerves and fears and expectations, but she knew Ethan had already sneaked into the tech booth. She knew he was up there, watching.
It’s our turn.
“Today I’ll be performing a monologue from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women,” Rory said.
She’d selected this monologue after hours of thoughtful, detailed research. Little Women — another classic, like The Crucible. A period piece, like The Crucible. And though Jo March was much less conniving or cruel than Abigail Williams, Winona Ryder had played them both in the ’90s — so Rory hoped there would be a subconscious connection.
“Oh, Teddy, I’m so sorry, so desperately sorry, I could kill myself if it would do any good! I wish you wouldn’t take it so hard. I can’t help it; you know it’s impossible for people to make themselves love other people if they don’t.”
Out in the audience, Pam and Shandie were little more than silhouettes, only the softest gleam lighting up their faces.
Rory homed in on Pam, their eyes connecting. “Well, they do sometimes, but I don’t believe it’s the right sort of love, and I’d rather not try it.”
Louder, she told herself. Push it. All the way to the rafters.
“I’ll never marry you; and the sooner you believe it the better for both of us — so now!”
Her audition piece concluded, Rory let out a long, shaky breath and bowed her head until her hair fell.
“Thank you very much, Rory; that was wonderful.” Pam glanced down at Rory’s audition form. “It says here you’re okay with any part?”
Rory’s chest quickened. “Yes,” she confirmed. “Anywhere you want me.”
Mary Warren, yes. Abigail Williams — quite the stretch, but she would make it work. Elizabeth Proctor? She’d die.
Outside the Elizabethan, Ethan gathered her in a shrieking hug and showered her with compliments. “That was the best I’ve ever seen you! How do you think it went?”
And with complete confidence and unbridled honesty, Rory answered, “Perfect. It couldn’t have gone better.”
Seniors, finally.
Ready to collect.
ACT II
No callbacks. Not for anyone.
“That just means Pam knew exactly who to cast,” Ethan reminded Rory, who wore this reassurance as a coat.
When the cast list was posted, Rory’s heart thumped so hard in her body, it made her stomach turn.
None of the names next to the characters were hers.
She found her name at the bottom of the list.
Courtroom attendees: Chelsey Eda, Amelia Bronson, Rory King.
Ensemble.
ACT III
Opening night of The Crucible. The show sold out.
Backstage, Pam led the cast in warm-ups and set them loose to take their places.
Rory made sure her bonnet was secure, even though she didn’t go onstage until the second act. She stood next to Ethan, who was waiting for his cue in the wings. When he went on — the most charming Reverend Hale there ever was — Rory went back into the drama room and stayed there through act 1, act 2, and intermission, until act 3, scene 3, approximately one hour and forty-two minutes into the production.
By the two-hour mark, Rory’s part was done, and she was back in the drama room until curtain call.
ACT IV
“How is The Crucible?” Miss Keating asked. “Miller’s finest hour?”
“It’s fine.” Rory shrugged, digging her nails into her palm. “I’m only in the ensemble, so I’m backstage for most of it.”
“No, I mean how is it? The production itself?” Miss Keating narrowed her eyes, inviting Rory to conspire. “The Crucible can be such low-hanging fruit. It takes a really special cast and director to make it stand out.”
Rory wished she could claw through her palms until there was blood under her nails. “It’s good,” she admitted. “Stripped down. Pam’s focused on the judicial system, you know? Drew’s so great as Danforth.”
“I think I’ll come tonight. I want to see how our Miss Hanson handles Miller.” Miss Keating did not bother hiding her slightly critical air; Rory wondered if there was bad blood in the faculty lounge. English versus the performing arts. “Plus I want to support you! I’d love to see you onstage.”
“I’m — I’m not in it very much,” Rory warned Miss Keating.
Miss Keating waved a hand. “Nonsense. What’s that saying? There are no small parts, only small actors?”
Rory smiled to hide her disdain. There wasn’t a theater student alive who didn’t want to wring the neck of anyone who repeated this platitude — it was only ever said to the saddest, most neglected actors. No one ever said it when the leads were being assholes.
“I’ll see you tonight, then,” Miss Keating told Rory. “I mean, I’ll see you. You probably won’t see me.”
You probably won’t see me, either, Rory wanted to say, and a feeling rushed over her just then. A bleakness, a mist. Walking a never-ending road in the pitch-black. An eternal treadmill. A hallway with no exits or entrances. Your own body, a prison; your own skin, a vise. The feeling of no future.
ACT V
That night, when act 3 rolled around, Rory was technically onstage, the lights barely hitting her face, and she knew that her head was the size of a grape to Miss Keating.
When her scene was finished, she walked past the leads slurping water at the drinking fountain. She walked past the drama room, where the rest of the ensemble was dealing a round of Uno to keep them occupied until curtain call.
You could leave right now if you wanted. No one would know.
No one would notice if you didn’t come out for the final curtain call.
You could leave forever. No one would remember the scholarship student who hung around the Princely Players for two and a half years only to fill up space on the stage.
It was against the rules to leave Euripides during a production. Rory walked right past the student ushers and away from the Elizabethan, off to the empty chambers of the rest of the school.
She moved swiftly, a dreadful march as she held in the worst of her desolation. She had every reason to believe she was alone. She had every reason to believe she would always be alone.
Rory went to the tower in the library, up in the tallest spire, and finally allowed herself to cry. Her feet had brought her there on instinct — her favorite place to hide away, there by the window, that view of campus. But perhaps she loved it because towers, attics, secret dark nooks . . . those were where they put stowaways. Imposters. The unwanted.
The unbelonging.
In an ordinary public school, that window wouldn’t have opened. It would have been tiny, barred shut, the glass triple-paned thick, meant to signal to the students that school was government-sponsored babysitting and if you happened to come out with an education, bully for you.
But Bosworth trusted its students. Bosworth believed that its students were capable of great things, and so Rory was able to slide the window open, punch out the screen, and stare at the grounds below. The cold November air rushed around her, through her, chilling her in her thick linen Crucible skirt and ridiculous collar and bonnet.
It was supposed to be her turn.
Work hard, pay your dues, and when you’re a senior, you’ll see it was all worth it.
Was it worth it? She placed her hands on either side of the window and leaned outside, farther, as far as she could go before she felt gravity’s pull, and scanned the ground below. Maybe she’d find her answers there.
“Rory?” Miss Keating’s voice was an unexpected shock. Rory arched back inside to see her English teacher behind her, panting from her sprint up the tower stairs. “What are you doing?”
Now Rory was fully aware of the reality of her state. She’d cried so hard, her eyes were puffed and round, her stage makeup streaking off in weird lines. She’d stained her collar — dammit. Cynthia would wring her neck for that.
Miss Keating was waiting for an answer, any answer, and Rory’s insides seized with the instinct to tuck it all away — to be a good actor and act her way out of this. Feign the death of a family member. Feign boy troubles, blame rascally adolescent hormones.
But Miss Keating was looking at her with worry and an almost parental exasperation and yet with compassion, with a calmness, as if she knew she’d be able to fix whatever Rory had broken.
Something split open within Rory, and she spilled over.
“I wanted a lead. I’ve worked so hard for Pam for years now! My audition was good; I’ve put in more than my fair share of hours, gone above and beyond to prove myself to her! It was my time —”
Our time. Rory choked on a sob.
“There isn’t room for everyone at the top, I know. But I want it. I want it so bad! There’s only one musical left. And if I get put in the ensemble again . . .” She looked to the window, clenching her teeth as despondency shuddered through her.
“That simply isn’t true.” Miss Keating’s interruption was gentle but bracing as a cold rain. “There will be plays and auditions in college —”
“I won’t get into college.” Rory smeared her wrist across her nose, her sleeve catching tears and snot. “This is my peak in life. There’s no way they’ll let me into college — not unless it’s for something really practical like nursing or teaching. And I don’t want that. That would be such a waste — I know I’m capable of so much more. But sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who does.”
Miss Keating, to her credit, did not argue. Did not point out that, actually, she had always seen Rory’s potential.
“What were you planning on doing with the window?” Miss Keating’s tone was so very kind, her aura so very safe, Rory nearly melted into a puddle.
“I was — I was going to — I mean I was just thinking about —”
“That’s what I thought.” Miss Keating reached for Rory’s hand. “Come on. Let’s go tell your director that you’ll be going home early tonight.”
When they got to the bottom of the tower stairs, Miss Keating paused. “Rory? Let’s make a plan, you and I. You want to go to college? To study the arts? Let’s do it. Any college you want. It’ll take some hard work and some strategic planning, but there are enough scholarships floating around out there — you should be able to go anywhere you want. You can study what you want.”
RORY: looking up at her teacher like a child
You really think so?
“Absolutely,” said Miss Keating.
And with that, Miss Keating whisked Rory out of the school and into her own car, a sensible little Camry with clean seats and a quiet purr to its transit.
Miss Keating waited until Bosworth was out of their sight line. “Look, it’s a tough thing to break into theater. There’s so little you can control in that discipline — you can’t control what the director’s standards are, or who your competition is, or if there are some secret backdoor deals being made. It’s like playing the lottery — and if you want to keep on gambling, fine. But if it’s causing you this much stress, you should think about sitting the next production out. There will be other chances for you to perform — including in college. Everything will be better in college.”
Rory said nothing, but rested her head against the cool glass of the passenger window, and Miss Keating drove to the emergency room — not to admit Rory as a patient, necessarily, but first to find Rory’s mother.
Miss Keating’s words sounded good. But she’s wrong.
College will just be another round of people playing by their own rules, making up their own sense of justice.
