Viola in Reel Life

by Adriana Trigiani

  I interrupt. Suddenly I get it! “And I could film you in black-and-white and we could do a voice-over about how the movie was going to change the course of her career and how May’s moment had finally arrived. She was just beginning to say something with her work, to dig deep.”

  “Right, right!” Grand sees what I see.

  “And then…,” I think aloud, “it wasn’t to be. Her dream died when she died. And then she was judged after her death for being young and beautiful, reduced in memory to a lush and a flapper.”

  “Absolutely. Had May McGlynn lived we’d be talking about her as an iconic actress of the thirties—not Bette Davis or Myrna Loy, but May McGlynn!”

  “Are you in, George?” I ask.

  “Sounds like fun.” He shrugs.

  “Okay. I’ll storyboard it and then we’ll film first thing in the morning.”

  There’s nothing an artist needs more—even more than excellent tools and stamina—than a deadline.

  So, I sit at my computer and, with words—not my chosen form of self-expression, but necessary in this instance—hammer out, moment by moment and scene by scene, what I see in my mind’s eye in the telling of May McGlynn’s story.

  Marisol watches me from her bed, as she listens to her iPod. It doesn’t even bug me when she occasionally sings a “whoo whoo” phrase aloud from Gwen Stefani. She catches herself, looks at me, mouths I’m sorry, and gets quiet.

  I’m comforted to have a witness as I figure this thing out. This movie is now driving me with an intensity I haven’t felt since September when my parents dropped me off here. Back then, all my energy went into finding my way back home, and now, everything I am, everything I know, everything I want to say is wrapped up in this movie, in getting this story just right. I am driven by the desire to make something worthwhile. And then, having made something worthwhile, I want to win the competition.

  “Are you okay?” Marisol asks.

  “Never better,” I promise.

  The theater in Hojo is used for assemblies, plays, and faculty meetings. It’s a simple auditorium with wooden seats that fold up, and a proscenium stage with black velvet drapes that create scrims on the upstage wall of the theater. It’s plain and cavernous, just what I need to fake an old Hollywood set.

  I set my Canon XH A1 video camera on a tripod. Grand and George are downstairs in makeup. We looked at some old photographs of Rudolph Valentino movies, and I told them to be creative. George is wearing a tux from the costume shop, and Grand chose a lacy black evening gown, elbow-length gloves, and a short flapper wig with thick bangs and spit curls. They laughed a lot when they were trying on the old costumes.

  I check my lighting. Grand and George will do voice-overs later, over the images on the Avid, so at least I don’t have to worry about sound when I’m filming.

  Marisol hollers from the wings. “The actors are ready.”

  “Places,” I tell them, adjusting the lens on my camera.

  George strides across the stage—he really comes alive in the lights; I can see why Grand fell for him. Then she enters. As Grand moves across the stage, she’s deft, smooth, and totally willowy. Grand and George have the same reverence for the stage that Father Time had for his altar in the Loretto Chapel on Christmas Day.

  Grand and George applied a pale yellow pancake makeup on their faces as a base, and then very deliberate black eyeliner and brownish lipstick. I look through the lens as I check their makeup in the light. They have the look of silent movie stars.

  I come from behind the camera because not only am I the director of photography on this movie, I’m the actual director and writer, so I have to do it all. “You look amazing,” I tell them. My actors sort of exhale, relieved that they’ve pleased me.

  I put my hands in my pockets and pace in the audience by the downstage lip.

  “Basically, you’re going to act out the day on the set when you got the news that May McGlynn has gone down in a plane. You’re to act directly into the camera and react to her death. Now, the backstory is: George, you’re her lover hearing the news for the first time and, Grand, you’re May’s mentor—the actress who helped her learn all about Hollywood, helped her find a place to live, all of that. Any questions?”

  They shake their heads no. We’ve been over this a few times, and we went through the storyboard before they went in to makeup. George and Grand are quick studies.

  “Now, I’ve only got the one camera so we’ll do the more stationary stuff first, and then I’ll pick it up and handhold it, which wasn’t something they did back then, but in telling the story it makes it more intimate and effective.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Marisol asks.

  “I’d like you to mark each of the bullet points on the storyboard as I film them, so we know we have what we need when we go over to the dorm to do the narration.”

  “No problem.” Marisol takes the script and a seat by the camera.

  Marisol has tears in her eyes as she watches the scene. I am moved too by the power of emotions without the aid of words. George and Grand communicate everything without talking, in that very delicate way that the great silent actors did.

  I do the scene several times, covering it from various angles—Grand’s point of view, then George’s. Then I do something that I didn’t plan. I take the camera off the tripod and head to the back of the darkened theater and I ask them to hold the position after they’ve heard the news about May’s plane crash.

  Something compels me to get this intimate scene in a wide shot. That the depth from the back of the theater just might give me scope, dramatizing the loneliness of their loss in the distance and the silence.

  The single beam of light from the follow spot bleeds into the work lights. George, prostrate with grief, bends so far forward he looks like a child. Grand has her hand on his back, and it’s almost as if she’s guiding him toward the truth. They hold the pose for a long while.

  “Cut!” I shout at long last.

  George comes up from his kneeling position and Grand shakes out her legs. “You trying to kill us, Viola?” Grand bellows.

  “Did we get it?” George asks.

  “Oh yeah,” I holler.

  I’m actually energized when I get back to my room after our day of filming. I’ve loaded the footage into the Avid. Marisol is already asleep, beat from the rigors of filmmaking. I text Jared.

  Me: Got my backstory shot today.

  JS: You’re amazing.

  Me: Looks good. I had two pros though. Grand and her BF, George.

  JS: You got a jump start on me.

  Me: Just glad I had something to do to fill the hours.

  JS: The new baby cries all night.

  Me: No rest?

  JS: None. But she’s cute.

  Me: Of course. She’s your sister.

  JS: LOL.

  I sit back in my desk chair. Maybe it’s the exhilaration I feel after a full day of filming, and maybe it’s residual Christmas spirit, but I miss my BF and I want him to know it.

  Me: I really miss you.

  The seconds it takes for the text response to appear seems to take, like, ten years. Finally:

  JS: I really miss you too. You’re beautiful.

  I look down at the word beautiful and wish for a second that it wasn’t 2009, but 1809, and that the word beautiful was written on parchment paper with a quill pen in fancy cursive letters in indelible ink. I want this text to last forever, not scroll into cyberspace where it disappears into technowhere. I want this word to last, and even more, the feelings behind it.

  JS: Are you there?

  Me: Oh yeah. And I always will be.

  JS: Good. Me too.

  What a perfect ending to a perfect day.

  Grand and George pack up his Prius and head off to Cincinnati to start rehearsals for Arsenic and Old Lace on Sunday as the girls return in droves to PA to start the new semester. Every girl on campus seems to be wearing a new sweater.

  Before she left, Grand met S
uzanne and Romy and Trish, who swears she saw Grand when she toured with the musical On the Twentieth Century in Chicago in 1995. Trish could find stardust in the bottom of a jar of pickles.

  “I just love Grand,” Marisol says wistfully. “And if I had to spend a Christmas away from my family, I’m glad it was with Grand.”

  “Hey…”

  “And you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So, Viola, I’m a little worried about your movie.”

  “Why?” I ask, suddenly nervous.

  “I don’t really understand the black-and-white footage and the voice-over. I don’t get it. Why do you need it?”

  “Well, Marisol. You know how a poem uses words in a spare way to describe a feeling?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When you make a movie, you have to take the audience to a place that they can only go in a movie. So, I needed to dramatize May’s 1920s life, and the best way was to show her workplace.”

  “But how is it all going to fit together?”

  “That’s the art part,” I tell her.

  Mrs. Carleton passes out instructions about our English lit project for second semester. She wants us to imagine a police officer comes to knock on our door after a robbery, and we are to describe to the officer how the crime transpired. It’s an interesting assignment, but I have other things on my mind.

  “Mrs. Carleton?” I ask her after class.

  “Yes, Viola?”

  “I read online that you were a theater major.”

  “I was. Undergrad,” she replies without even looking up from her laptop.

  “Did you ever do any acting?”

  Mrs. Carleton straightens her spine, and it’s almost as if her jeans fall into straight, pressed creases. “I was the lead in Andreyev’s He Who Gets Slapped.”

  “Wow. Well, I was wondering if you’d be in my movie. I’ve got every role cast except the fortune-teller, and I think you’d be great.”

  “This is for the Midwest film project?”

  “Yes, it is. I have Mrs. Zidar playing a role, my RA, Trish, is going to be Hedda Hopper in Hollywood, and my roommate Suzanne is going to be May McGlynn. We’re going to film this weekend here on campus.”

  “Do you have a script?” she asks.

  “Right here.” I pull the script out of my backpack. I’m sort of thrilled she asked for the script, as this is the sign of a true actress. That of course and, once reading the script, passing on the part. But I’m not worried.

  “You’re Mavis the fortune-teller who begs May not to get on the plane in South Bend, but to stay until the following morning. The plane crashes, so it turns out you were right,” I explain.

  “This sounds like fun. Count me in.”

  “Great!”

  “And, Viola?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Carleton?”

  “You still have to write the witness paper.”

  “Oh, I know. I wasn’t bogarting for extra credit. In fact, I’m getting pretty good with the writing part because I had to write this script.”

  Romy has turned out to be an excellent producer. She broke down my script over three days and organized the actors. Romy made sure they had their scripts in advance, and that they knew where we were filming and how long they were needed.

  Marisol pulled the most fabulous period costumes from the costume shop at Phyllis Hobson Jones Hall. Marisol found drop-waist dresses, silk stockings, cloche hats, and gloves for the actors to wear. The characters came alive as the actors put on the costumes.

  The biggest surprise of all was Suzanne, who never acted in her life and who stars as May McGlynn. She was so beautiful on video, her blond hair gleaming, her long torso perfect for the costumes of the period. She made the leap from coquettish actress to tragic victim with the grace and knowing of an old pro. I can’t wait for Grand to see what Suzanne did with the part.

  I believe Suzanne got the bug playing May McGlynn.

  The movie has definitely pulled Quad 11 together in a way that we had not counted on. It’s one thing to live together in harmony, but it’s something special to work together, get along, and help one another in a professional setting. I won’t ever forget how the girls rallied to pitch in on this just for me.

  Time has definitely flown by since everyone came back from the holidays. Class, and prepping for the movie, and then actually filming the movie—I can’t believe it’s already March! The snow has melted, leaving behind mud on the ground and a small river of slush in the gutters. Spring is trying to make its way to South Bend as purple and yellow crocuses push up through the tangled brambles of winter. The bare branches of the trees are turning the palest of green, ready to bud.

  I IM Andrew. I sent him the footage from the Grand and George shoot, and I want his feedback.

  Me: See my footage?

  AB: Creepy, but cool.

  Me: That’s Grand.

  AB: I know. Who’s the guy?

  Me: An actor.

  AB: I figured.

  Me: In real life, that’s her boyfriend.

  AB: Wow.

  Me: What did you think of Suzanne playing May?

  AB: Awesome.

  Me: Total goddess.

  AB: Total. She can act.

  Me: I know.

  AB: But that’s also due to your gift as a director.

  Me: Thanks.

  AB: You really made a great short.

  Me: Thanks. Why all the compliments?

  AB: They’re true.

  Me: You rock.

  AB: I know.

  Me: How’s Olivia?

  AB: She’s here right now. We teamed up on labs.

  Me: Great.

  I lean back and wait for Andrew to ask about Jared and me.

  AB: When do you go to Toledo for the competition?

  Me: Friday. Mrs. Zidar is driving me in the van. My roommates are all going too.

  AB: Cool. Do you think you can win?

  Me: I don’t think so.

  AB: How come?

  Me: People are doing movies about contour farming and nuclear energy as a viable alternative source to oil. And I’m doing, like, an old-fashioned mystery.

  AB: But it’s really good.

  Me: Thanks, Andrew.

  AB: It’s true.

  Me: I wish you could be there.

  AB: Olivia wants to know if Feldman gives a tough midterm in robotics.

  Why is he talking to Olivia when he’s supposed to be paying attention to me?

  Me: Yes.

  AB: I’ll tell her.

  Okay. I guess he’s not going to ask me about Jared.

  Me: Well, I’d better go.

  AB: Check ya later.

  Andrew signs off and I feel abandoned. “Huh,” I say aloud.

  “What’s the matter?” Suzanne looks up from her desk.

  “Andrew is getting weirder by the day.”

  “Is he still with Olivia?”

  “Yep.”

  “Is she still running his life?”

  “Now it’s even worse. She’s sitting right there—I don’t have any confidentiality with him anymore. It’s awful.”

  “Maybe he’ll break up with her.”

  “I think that will never happen. It’s like Andrew needed a boss. It’s like he likes it.”

  “Whipped.”

  “Totally.”

  “Thanks for giving me a copy of the movie to send to my parents.”

  “Are you kidding? You totally made the movie. You were great.”

  “I tried,” Suzanne says.

  “Tried? You triumphed. You’re a natural-born actress.”

  “Thanks to you. You told me what to do.”

  “Yeah, but you did it,” I assure her.

  Suzanne chews on the end of her pencil for a minute, then she puts it back in the cup on her desk. She looks sad. “My dad really wishes he could make the drive to Toledo.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s so hard.” Suzanne’s eyes fill with tears.

  “I
get it. It’s like PA is filled with girls who have most of what they need in this world, but somehow, there’s something missing, and it’s like we were sent here to find it.”

  “What am I supposed to find?” Suzanne asks.

  “Well…I think your parents understand that you needed to be away from home so that you could focus on your studies. I think your dad, most especially, wants you to be independent.”

  “But why?”

  “He doesn’t want you to need him. He loves you, but he wants you to make it on your own. Your parents are preparing you to get along without them. And the same is true for my parents. I had to come here because they needed to work, but I also had to come here because—you were right in the beginning—I’m sheltered and I needed to learn how to stand on my own two feet.”

  “You’re not anymore.”

  “I’m still pretty sheltered. But I’m not afraid anymore. I’m not afraid that I’ll never go home. I’m just going to try and do my best where I am, wherever that is, and not worry about it too much.”

  “That’s really smart.”

  I hear a bell ding and check my instant messages. Did Andrew realize he was being weird and come back? No, but it’s even better. “It’s Jared,” I announce.

  Me: Can’t wait to see you this weekend.

  JS: Me too.

  Me: I think my RA, who smiles 24/7 like Mr. Sardonicus, is coming to Toledo.

  JS: I remember her. Trish.

  Me: Right. I have a whole bunch of support. Do you?

  JS: Yeah.

  Me: Are your parents coming?

  JS: Not sure.

  Me: Do you want them to?

  JS: Either way is okay. How did the footage of your grandmother cut with the rest?

  Me: Fine. Can’t wait to see your movie.

  JS: Fingers crossed.

  Me: Okay. Well, talk to you later.

  JS: Later.

  I sit back in my chair. Maybe it’s me, but Andrew is acting strange and now Jared is acting just as weird. He didn’t email that he was excited, or even interested to see my movie. It’s like I had to pull the support out of him. Maybe he’s nervous. Or maybe, like me, he wants to win and he doesn’t want to say that to me, since I’m also in the competition. But he told me about the contest—it’s not like I found out about it on my own. Isn’t that a form of support for me?