by M. L. Rio
Wren: “Could that be because you’ve got the part you wanted?”
James: “And half as many lines to learn as the rest of us?”
Richard: “Seems fair, after last year.”
Me: “I hate you.”
Richard: “Hatred is the sincerest form of flattery.”
Alexander: “That’s imitation, dickhead.”
A few of us snickered, still pleasantly buzzed. Our squabbling was good-natured and usually harmless. We had, like seven siblings, spent so much time together that we had seen the best and worst of one another and were unimpressed by either.
“Can you believe it’s our last year?” Wren said, when the lull after our laughter had lingered long enough.
“No,” I said. “Seems like just yesterday my dad was shouting at me for throwing my life away.”
Alexander snorted. “What was it he said to you?”
“‘You’re going to turn down a scholarship at Case Western and spend the next four years in makeup and panty hose, making love to some girl through a window?’”
“Art school” alone was enough to provoke my rigidly practical father, but more often than not Dellecher’s dangerous exclusivity was the cause of raised eyebrows. Why should intelligent, talented students risk forcible ejection from their school at the end of each year and graduate without even a traditional degree to show for their survival? What most people who lived outside the strange sphere of conservatory education didn’t realize was that a Dellecher certificate was like one of Willy Wonka’s golden tickets—guaranteed to grant the bearer admission to the elite artistic and philological sodalities that survived outside of academia.
My father, even more staunchly opposed than most, refused to accept my decision to waste my university years. Acting was bad, but something so niche and old-fashioned as Shakespeare (at Dellecher, we didn’t do anything else) was exponentially worse. Eighteen and vulnerable, I’d felt for the first time the extraordinary dread of wanting something desperately and watching it slip through my fingers, so I took the risk of telling him I would go to Dellecher or nowhere. My mother persuaded him to pay my tuition—after weeks of ultimatums and circular arguments—on the grounds that my elder sister was on her way to failing out of Ohio State and they were relying on me to be the one they bragged about at dinner parties. (Why they didn’t have higher hopes for Leah, the youngest and most promising of us, was a mystery.)
“I wish my mother had been so furious,” Alexander said. “She still thinks I’m at school in Indiana.” Alexander’s mother had given him up for foster care at an early age and made only the barest efforts to stay in touch. (All she’d deigned to tell him about his father was that the man was either from Puerto Rico or Costa Rica—she couldn’t remember which—and had no idea Alexander existed.) His tuition was paid by an extravagant scholarship and a small heap of money left to him by a dead grandfather, who had only done it to spite his own profligate offspring.
“My dad’s just disappointed I wasn’t a poet,” James added. Professor Farrow taught the Romantic poets at Berkeley, and his much younger wife (scandalously, a former student) was a poet herself until she suffered a Plath-like breakdown when James was in grade school. I’d met them two summers before when I visited him in California and had my suspicions that they were interesting people but disinterested parents unequivocally confirmed.
“My parents don’t give a damn,” Meredith said. “They’re busy with Botox and tax evasion and my brothers are taking good care of the family fortune.” The Dardennes split their time between Montreal and Manhattan, sold fantastically expensive wristwatches to politicians and celebrities, and treated their only daughter more like a novelty pet than a member of the family.
Filippa, who never spoke about her parents, said nothing.
“A little more than kin, and less than kind,” Alexander said. “My God, our families are miserable.”
“Well, not all of them,” Richard said. His and Wren’s parents were three seasoned actors and a director living in London, making frequent appearances in the West End theatres. He shrugged. “Our parents are thrilled.”
Alexander exhaled a stream of smoke and flicked his spliff away. “Lucky you,” he said, and shoved Richard off the dock.
He hit the water with a monstrous splash, which sent water crashing over all of us. The girls squealed and threw their arms over their heads, while James and I yelped in surprise. A moment later we were all sopping wet, laughing and applauding Alexander, too loud to hear Richard swearing when his head burst through the surface again.
We lingered by the water for another hour before, one by one, we began the slow climb back to the Castle. I was the last man standing on the dock. I didn’t believe in God, but I asked whoever was listening not to let Richard’s prediction jinx us. A good year was all I wanted.
SCENE 5
Eight in the morning was far too early for Gwendolyn.
We sat in a ragged circle, legs folded like storybook Indians, yawning and clutching mugs of coffee from the refectory. Studio Five—Gwendolyn’s lair, festooned with colorful tapestries and cluttered with scented candles—was on the second floor of the Hall. There was no furniture to speak of, but instead a generous collection of floor pillows, which only increased the temptation to stretch out and sleep.
Gwendolyn arrived her usual quarter after the hour (“fashionably late,” she always told us), swathed in a spangled shawl, gold rings thick as knuckle dusters gleaming on her fingers. She was brighter than the pale morning sun outside and almost painful to look at.
“Good morning, darlings,” she trilled. Alexander grunted half a greeting, but nobody else replied. She stopped, standing over us, hands on her bony hips. “Well, this is just shameful. It’s your first day of class—you ought to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.” We stared at her until she flung her hands up and said, “On your feet! Let’s go!”
The next half hour was devoted to a series of painful yoga positions. Gwendolyn, for a woman in her sixties, was disturbingly limber. As the minute hand inched toward the nine, she straightened up from her King Pigeon Pose with an ecstatic sigh that must have made someone besides me uncomfortable.
“Isn’t that better?” she said. Alexander grunted at her again. “I’m sure you’ve all missed me over the summer,” she continued, “but we’ll have plenty of time to catch up after convocation, so I’d like to dive right in and let you know that things are going to work a little differently this year.”
For the first time, the class (besides Alexander) showed signs of life. We shifted, sat up straighter, and began to really listen.
“So far, you’ve been in the safe zone,” Gwendolyn said. “And I feel it’s only fair to warn you that those days are no more.”
I looked sideways at James, who frowned. I couldn’t tell if she was being her usual dramatic self or if she really meant to make a change.
“You know me by now,” she said. “You know how I work. Frederick will coax and cajole you all day long, but I’m a pusher. I’ve pushed you and pushed you, but”—she held up one finger—“never too far.” I didn’t entirely agree. Gwendolyn’s teaching methods were merciless, and it wasn’t unusual for students to leave her class in tears. (Actors were like oysters, she explained when anyone wanted justification for this emotional brutality. You had to crack their shells and break them open to find the precious pearls inside.) She plowed ahead. “This is your last year and I’m going to push you as far as I have to. I know what you’re capable of, and I’ll be damned if I don’t drag it out of you by the time you leave this place.”
I shared another nervous look, this time with Filippa.
Gwendolyn adjusted her shawl, smoothed her hair, and said, “Now, who can tell me—what is our biggest impediment to good performance?”
“Fear,” Wren said. It was one of Gwendolyn’s many mantras: On the stage, you must be fearless.
“Yes. Fear of what?”
“Vulnerability,” Richard said.
“Precisely,” Gwendolyn said. “We’re only ever playing fifty percent of a character. The rest is us, and we’re afraid to show people who we really are. We’re afraid of looking foolish if we reveal the full force of our emotions. But in Shakespeare’s world, passion is irresistible, not embarrassing. So!” She clapped her hands and the sound made half of us jump. “We banish the fear, beginning today. You can’t do good work if you’re hiding, so we’re going to get all of the ugliness out in the open. Who’s first?”
We sat in surprised silence for a few seconds before Meredith said, “I’ll go.”
“Perfect,” Gwendolyn said. “Stand up.”
I eyed Meredith uneasily as she climbed to her feet. She stood in the middle of our little circle, shifting her weight from foot to foot until she found her balance, tucking her hair out of the way behind her ears—her usual method of centering herself. We all had one, but few of us could make it look so effortless.
“Meredith,” Gwendolyn said, smiling up at her. “Our guinea pig. Breathe.”
Meredith swayed on the spot, as if at the push and pull of a breeze, eyes closed, lips slightly parted. It was strangely relaxing to watch (and, at the same time, strangely sensual).
“There,” Gwendolyn said. “Are you ready?”
Meredith nodded and opened her eyes.
“Lovely. Let’s start with something easy. What is your greatest strength as a performer?”
Meredith, normally so confident, hesitated.
Gwendolyn: “Your greatest strength.”
Meredith: “I guess—”
Gwendolyn: “No guessing. What is your greatest strength?”
Meredith: “I think—”
Gwendolyn: “I don’t want to hear what you think, I want to hear what you know. I don’t care if you sound stuck up, I care what you’re good at, and as a performer you need to be able to tell me. What is your greatest strength?”
“I’m physical!” Meredith said. “I feel everything with my whole body and I’m not afraid to use it.”
“You’re not afraid to use it, but you’re afraid to say what you really mean!” Gwendolyn was nearly shouting. I glanced back and forth between them, alarmed at how quickly things had escalated. “You’re tiptoeing around it because we’re all sitting here staring at you,” Gwendolyn said. “Now, out with it. Out.”
Meredith’s easy elegance was gone, and instead she stood with her legs locked, arms held rigidly at her sides. “I have a great body,” she said. “Because I work fucking hard at it. I love looking this way and I love people looking at me. And that makes me magnetic.”
“You’re damn right, it does.” Gwendolyn leered at her like the Cheshire Cat. “You’re a beautiful girl. It sounds bitchy, but you know what? It’s true. More important than that, it’s honest.” She jabbed one finger at her. “That was honest. Good.”
Filippa and Alexander both fidgeted, avoiding Meredith’s eyes. Richard was looking at her like he wanted to rip her clothes off on the spot, and I had no idea where to look. She nodded and made to sit back down, but Gwendolyn said, “You’re not done.” Meredith froze. “We’ve established your strengths. Now I want to hear about your weaknesses. What are you most afraid of?”
Meredith stood glowering at Gwendolyn, who, to my surprise, didn’t interrupt the silence. The rest of us squirmed on the floor, eyes flicking up at Meredith with a mixture of sympathy, admiration, and embarrassment.
“Everyone has a weakness, Meredith,” Gwendolyn said. “Even you. The strongest thing you can do is admit it. We’re waiting.”
In the excruciating pause that followed, Meredith stood impossibly still, eyes burning acid green. She was so exposed that staring at her seemed invasive, voyeuristic, and I grappled with the impulse to yell at her to just fucking say something.
“I’m afraid,” she said, after what felt like a year, speaking very slowly, “that I’m prettier than I am talented or intelligent, and that because of that no one will ever take me seriously. As a performer or a person.”
Dead silence again. I forced my eyes down, glanced around at the others. Wren sat with one hand over her mouth. Richard’s expression was softer than I had ever seen it. Filippa looked slightly nauseous; Alexander was fighting back a nervous grin. On my right, James peered up at Meredith with keen, evaluative interest, as if she were a statue, a sculpture, something shaped a thousand years ago in the likeness of a pagan deity. Her unmasking was harsh, mesmeric, somehow dignified.
In a weird, bewildered way, I understood that this was exactly what Gwendolyn wanted.
She held Meredith’s gaze so long it seemed like time had stopped. Then she exhaled enormously and said, “Good. Sit. There.”
Meredith’s knees bent mechanically, and she sat in the center of the circle, spine straight and stiff as a fence post.
“All right,” Gwendolyn said. “Let’s talk.”
SCENE 6
After an hour of interrogating Meredith about her insecurities (of which there were more than I ever would have guessed), Gwendolyn dismissed us, with the promise that everyone else would be subjected to the same rigorous questioning over the next two weeks.
On our way up the stairs to the third floor, second-year art students bustling around us on their way down to the conservatory, James fell in step beside me.
“That was ruthless,” I said, sotto voce. Meredith walked a few steps ahead of us, Richard’s arm around her shoulders, though she didn’t seem to have noticed it. She moved determinedly forward, avoiding direct eye contact with anyone.
“Again,” James whispered, “that’s Gwendolyn.”
“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m looking forward to being shut in the gallery for two hours straight.”
While Gwendolyn taught the more visceral elements of acting—voice and body, heart over head—Frederick taught the intimate particulars of Shakespeare’s text, everything from meter to early modern history. Bookish and diffident as I was, I much preferred Frederick’s classes to Gwendolyn’s, but I was allergic to the chalk he used on his blackboard and spent most of my time in the gallery sneezing.
“Let’s go,” James said, quietly, “before Meredick steals our table.” (Filippa had coined that particular term at the end of our second year, when the two of them were newly in love and at their most obnoxious.) Meredith’s expression was still distracted as we edged past them on the stairs. Whatever Richard had said to soothe her, it wasn’t working.
Frederick preferred to conduct fourth-year classes in the gallery, rather than the classroom he was forced to use for the more numerous second- and third-years. It was a narrow, high-ceilinged room that had once stretched the entire length of the third floor but was unceremoniously divided into smaller rooms and studios when the school opened. The Long Gallery became the Short Gallery, barely twenty feet from end to end, walled on two sides with bookshelves and dotted with portraits of long-dead Dellecher cousins and offspring. A love seat and a low-slung sofa faced each other under the elaborate plasterwork ceiling, while a small round table and two chairs basked in the light of the diamond-paned window on the south side of the room. Whenever we had tea with Frederick (which we did twice a month as third-years and daily during class as fourth-years), James and I made a beeline for the table. It was farthest from the nefarious chalk dust and offered a sparkling view of the lake and surrounding woods, the conical Tower roof perched on top of the trees like a black party hat.
Frederick was already there when we arrived, wheeling the chalkboard out from an odd little spear closet wedged between a bookshelf and the noseless bust of Homer at the end of the room. I sneezed as James said, “Good morning, Frederick.”
He looked up from the blackboard. “James,” he said. “Oliver. Lovely to have you both back. Pleased with casting?”
“Absolutely,” James said, but there was a note of wistfulness in his voice that puzzled me. Who would be disappointed to be playing Brutus? Then I remembered his remark from two nights previous, ab
out wanting a little more variety on his résumé.
“When’s our first rehearsal?” he asked.
“Sunday.” Frederick winked. “We thought we’d give you a week to settle back in.”
Because of their unsupervised residence in the Castle and their infamous penchant for overindulgence, the fourth-year theatre students were generally expected to throw some kind of kickoff party at the beginning of the year. We had planned it for Friday. Frederick and Gwendolyn and probably even Dean Holinshed knew about it but gamely pretended not to.
Richard and Meredith finally came in from the hall, and James and I hurried to dump our things on the table. I sneezed again, wiped my nose on a tea napkin, and peered out the window. The grounds were soaked in sunlight, the lake rippling gently at the touch of a breeze. Richard and Meredith sat on the smaller sofa, leaving the other for Alexander and Filippa to share. They no longer bothered to leave room for Wren, who (endearingly, like a child excited for story time) preferred to sit on the floor.
Frederick poured tea at the sideboard, so the room smelled, as it always did, of chalk and lemon and Ceylon. When he had filled eight cups—tea drinking in Frederick’s class was mandatory; honey was encouraged, but milk and sugar were contraband—he turned around and said, “Welcome back.” He twinkled down at us like a bookish little Santa Claus. “I enjoyed your auditions yesterday, and I am eager to work with you again this semester.” He passed the first teacup to Meredith, who passed it to Richard, who passed it to James, and so on until it ended up in Wren’s hands.
“Fourth year. The year of the tragedy,” Frederick said, grandly, when the tea tray was empty and everyone had a cup and saucer. (Drinking tea from mugs, we were often reminded, was like drinking fine wine from a Solo cup.) “I will refrain from telling you to take the tragedies any more seriously than the comedies. In fact, one might argue that comedy must be deadly serious to the characters, or it is not funny for the audience. But that is a conversation for another time.” He took his own teacup off the tray, sipped delicately, and set it down again. Frederick had never had a desk or lectern, and instead paced slowly back and forth in front of the blackboard as he taught. “This year, we will devote our attention to Shakespeare’s tragic plays. What might that course of study encompass, do you think?”