Dramarama (13 page)

I
N ACTING
one day, Morales separated us into four groups and gave each group a physical state we had to work with. “Abdominal pain” he said to one. “Alcohol stupor” to another. And “extreme exhaustion” to a third. But to my group of three girls, he said “pregnant.”

Now, I’ve had abdominal pain. I’ve been exhausted, though maybe not extremely. And I’m sad to say I’ve been in an alcohol stupor, thanks to Demi’s parents’ open wine cabinet and our dumb attempt to be cosmopolitan while watching
Damn Yankees
. But I have never been pregnant, or known anyone pregnant, and it seemed to me a bit unfair.

But hey, actors have to portray emotions and situations they’ve never experienced, right? And the point of the exercise must be (I said to myself as I tried to walk around the room eight months pregnant) that afterward, Morales is going to give us techniques for pushing ourselves into mental and physical spaces we’ve never experienced.

But he didn’t. Instead, he stopped us and made a few quick comments. “Demi, great commitment, but when we go next I’m going to ask you to pull it back a bit. A softer touch. Veronica, you’re acting with your face but not your body. I want you to bring the body into it. And. Let me see.” He walked over to me and snapped his fingers in my face. “What’s your name, again, what is it? Quickly.”

“Sadye,” I told him. “I was in your show. And I’m not Marlon Brando. Remember?”

“You are supposed to be what? What are you supposed to be?”

“Pregnant.”

“Then what are you giving me, this waddley thing you’re doing? Show everyone what you were doing.”

I did my pregnant lady walk as well as I could.

“Stop! Stop!” Morales cringed as if my acting were causing him physical pain. “Think about it from your feet. From your torso. Through your shoulders. Because right now, no one knows you are pregnant. The audience
does not know
she is pregnant!” he shouted. “Listen. Everyone, give me your complete attention, because this is important. When I am directing a play— when anyone is directing a play—it is your job as actors to give the director what he wants. You may not do it well, not yet. You may even do it badly, or he may want you to do it a different way than what you try at first. But you absolutely must deliver what he asks for. That is the skill of acting. If he wants you to be pregnant, give it to him. Then he can modify it, or ask you to go further, or ask you to take it in a new direction. But do not, do not, do not, give him a nothing little waddle. Because then, you know what you will be? You will be out of a job.”

He returned to his stool and held up his hands. “Okay, again. Same physical states, but deliver them. Deliver them up for your audience.”

After class I went up to Morales. “I don’t know anything about pregnancy,” I told him. “I mean, I know the basics, but I don’t know how it feels or what people go through. So I was wondering—”

“Yes?” He looked at me but his eyes were hard.

“I was wondering how you’re supposed to get to that point where you can deliver, like you said. How you get some place when you’ve never been there.”

“What you do is you fake it,” he answered. “And then as soon as you’re out of rehearsal, you run to the bookstore. And you read. And you talk to pregnant women. And you make sure you know every detail there is to know about pregnancy before it’s time to go to work again. Because one day of weakness is understandable. But a second—that’s just irresponsible.”

“Isn’t there a craft involved?” I asked. “A way of doing it that you can teach us?”

Morales shouldered his bag. “I
am
teaching it to you. It seems to me you are making it more difficult than it has to be.”

“But how did you learn to do what you do?” I wanted to know. “I mean, the shifting actors on stage, seeing how to make scenes better—how did you learn it?”

He looked at his watch. “I’m a busy person,” Morales said. “Just come to class and listen, all right? I know you’re enthusiastic, but this isn’t a private tutorial.”

E
VER SINCE
Reanne’s scolding, I behaved myself in
Midsummer
rehearsals: I was off-book early, communed seriously with the forest spirits whenever I was on tree duty, and developed a macho walk and a nasal tone of voice for Peter Quince. I even tried to explain to the lamentable girl playing Titania that her character was in love with the donkey because of its prodigious male equipment. But it was all in vain.
Midsummer
established itself fully and probably permanently as a denizen of Suckville. A perfect sequel to
Bedsheet Oedipus
.

But here is something important to understand about Wildewood: even when I was feeling indignant, humiliated, talentless, dismayed about unitards, whatever—I wasn’t miserable. Far from it. I was
alive
there, not stuck in the razzle-dazzle–deprived silence of Ohio. Conversations mattered at Wildewood, people felt strongly, and the moments of despair or embarrassment were followed, always, by times of palpable excitement.

There was the day Nanette and I went to a gospel concert for evening rec—one of the few nights she wasn’t in
Show Boat
rehearsal, and we loved that big Jesus-y sound so much we stood up on our red velvet chairs, clapping and dancing and waving our hands in the air as the choir sang “When the Saints Go Marching In.” When we turned around (we were near the front) we saw that the whole audience was on their seats behind us, and we all sang with the choir on “Loves Me Like a Rock.”

Or when Iz and I went to dinner several nights in full Restoration Squash-your-boobs-up regalia— white powdered wigs, corsets, fake beauty marks, and all. Or when Jade and I grabbed brooms from a supply closet and reenacted the “Bushel and a Peck” dance, impromptu in the hall, while Demi and Lyle harmonized the song, Demi in full falsetto.

Or when I dared Candie, Iz, and Nanette to sing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” at top volume in the hallways at seven in the morning, banging on everyone’s doors, and they did it, and I had to buy them each a chocolate bar every day for five days. Or when we lay on the grass by the path, speaking in French accents to the boys who walked by.

Or this: one day, I took a bathroom break during Singing. Walking down the hall of the rehearsal building, I passed three other classes. Piano music thumped through the closed doors, and as I got closer I heard one group doing scales, one stumbling through harmonies to “What a Piece of Work Is Man,” and the other in gleeful chorus, soaring through the syncopations of “One” from
A Chorus Line
. Inside the next room, which had an open door, Tamar and her assistant were marking out steps for
Cats
, which would rehearse there in the afternoon. Just before the bathroom, the hall was clogged with a rack of
Show Boat
costumes: frilly gowns with huge skirts, brown sackcloth jackets, and a row of pink parasols hanging by their handles. I stopped and fingered the polyester sleeve of one of the dresses, touched the rhinestones on their necklines, listened to the rustle of fabrics, barely audible over the “Five, six, seven, eight” coming from the choreographer’s practice and the music from the classrooms. Even an ordinary hallway in need of a paint job was alive with glitter and sweat. Every single day at Wildewood was music, dance, comedy,
drama
.

So despite what happened later, remember this: I never, ever wanted to go home.

(click, shuffle, bang)

Sadye:
Demi! Don’t drop it.

Demi:
Darling, I already dropped it.

Sadye:
You lose your microcassette
privileges. I’m holding it.

Demi:
Okay, but I’m in the middle.
We’ll get better sound if I
hold it.

Sadye:
Okay, take it. But don’t
drop it again.
(shuffle, muffle)

Demi:
It’s July eighteenth, we
think, and we’re documenting the
late-night stargazing ritual.
Sadye, Lyle, Theo, Nanette, and
I are currently on the roof of
the boys’ dorm--

Lyle:
As we are most nights--

Demi:
--until Farrell comes up and
kicks the girls out.

Theo:
Well, Theo is new.

Sadye:
It’s only his second
night.

Lyle:
We’re corrupting him. We
expect it to be an easy task,
however.

Nanette:
Pounce!

Sadye:
Shut up, Nanette!

Theo:
What?

Nanette:
Never mind. Theo, tell me
something. Are you going with
Bec?

Theo:
What?

Lyle:
Ooh, I didn’t know he might
be attached when I invited him
up here. Am I out of the loop?

Theo:
No.

Nanette:
I’ve seen you with her a
lot, that’s all. I like to know
things about people I share this
roof with. And now that it
looks like you’re going to be a
regular, I need to find out your
status. Will you be bringing
your girl up?

Sadye:
Nanette!

Theo:
She’s not my girl. We--um.
We’ve hung around together a
couple times. She’s got a
boyfriend back home.

Demi:
If you’re having trouble
with the ladies, Theo--Lyle and

I have some advice for you.

Lyle:
(giggling)

Theo:
What?

Demi:
You need to wear some
tighter pants.

Theo:
Ha!

Demi:
I’m serious! You have got to
show your shape more.

Sadye:
Ignore them, darling. They
just want to see your buns for
their own gay purposes.

Nanette:
Okay, Theo. One more
question. What’s your favorite
kind of ice cream?

Sadye:
Nanette!

Theo:
Um--

Demi:
I love all ice cream. I am
an equal opportunity ice-cream
lover.

Lyle:
An ice-cream slut, that’s
what you are.

Demi:
It’s true. Peanut butter,
coconut, rum raisin--even the
nasty flavors, I still like
them.

Lyle:
I have a favorite flavor.

Demi:
You do?

Lyle:
Chocolate. Like you, baby.

Demi:
Aw, that’s so sweet. Isn’t
he sweet?

Nanette:
Lover boys, I was asking
Theo. Not you.

Sadye:
Yeah, I want to hear what
Theo says, actually.

Theo:
I’m gonna go with mint
chocolate chip.

Nanette:
Ooh! I knew it!

Sadye:
Shut up!

Demi:
Oh, I get it now! He likes
mint chocolate chip!

Sadye:
Sorry, Theo. They’re being
ridiculous. Do you want a beer?

Theo:
Yeah, actually. Sure.

Demi:
Me too.

Lyle:
Me three.

(the sound of clinking bottles)

Theo:
I’ve been meaning to ask you
guys. Does Farrell turn a blind
eye to the beer, or what?

Lyle:
Exactly. A blind eye.

Theo:
Do you pay him off?

Demi:
(shocked)
No!

Lyle:
Ooh, maybe we should.

Demi:
So far, he’s been cool.

Lyle:
We could pay him off in
beer.

Demi:
He hasn’t seen the beer,
Theo. Lyle is teasing you.

Lyle:
It’s true. We hide the beer.
But I doubt he’d do anything if
he saw it.

Sadye:
Where’s Iz? For documentation
purposes, Iz and Candie are
sometimes here as well.

Nanette:
Iz was taking a shower
and going to bed.

Demi:
Morales is working her
crazy hard in
Birdie
. She
showed the “Spanish Rose”
number tonight and he’s got
her dancing on the tables and
doing counterpoint rhythms
with those little clickety--what are they?

Sadye:
Castanets.

Demi:
Castanets. Yeah. It’s gonna
be good.

Nanette:
Candie’s not even out of
rehearsal yet.
Little Shop
is
having technical problems with
the man-eating plant.

Sadye:
Back to documenting.

Lyle:
Do we have to document?

Sadye:
It’s for posterity.

Theo:
Why are you documenting? I
mean it’s cool, obviously, but
why?

Demi:
We’re all gonna be famous
some day.

Sadye:
Well, speak for yourself.

Demi:
We are, all of us. Isn’t it
obvious?

Sadye:
I’m just saying, the odds
are against every single one of
us being famous.

Demi:
Not true. Look at John
Cusack and Jeremy Piven and Joan
Cusack. They all went to drama
school together.

Theo:
They did?

Demi:
Absolute fact. And Steve
Pink, too, who wrote
High
Fidelity
and
Grosse Pointe
Blank
.

Lyle:
I never heard of Steve
Pink.

Demi:
That’s because you’re an
ignoramus.

Lyle:
You call me an ignoramus
because you’re jealous of my
superior theater history
knowledge.

Demi:
If you haven’t heard of

Steve Pink, you’re at least a
little bit of an ignoramus.

Lyle:
That’s it. I’m going to the
computer lab and Googling him
tomorrow. I don’t think Steve
Pink even exists. I think you
made him up.

Demi:
I did not!

Sadye:
Okay, enough, you two.
Everyone lie down on your
backs and I’m going to make you
serenade me in harmony.

Nanette:
Excellent. What are we
singing this time?

Sadye:
“The Telephone Hour.” Does
everyone know it?

Theo:
Of course.

Nanette:
Of course.

Lyle:
Of course. Anyone who
doesn’t know “The Telephone Hour” is an ignoramus.