The Juliet Spell

by Rees, Douglas

  It was bad. Some of us acted like we hadn’t cracked open our scripts since Friday. There were a lot of mistakes, and every mistake needed its do-overs. It was nearly an hour be.fore Edmund had his first entrance.

  Enter Edmund. Head down. Sad face. Dragging his feet. The picture of sorrow.

  Benvolio, a nice guy named Joey Romero whose love of theater didn’t translate into acting talent, said to him,

  “Good morrow, cousin.”

  Edmund answered,

  “Is the day so young?”

  He sounded like he was groaning a velvet groan. I could see Joey turn toward it trying to respond with a feeling, not just a line.

  Joey said,

  “But new struck nine.”

  Edmund said,

  “Ay me, sad hours seem long. Was that my father that went hence so fast?”

  And he gestured offstage like he was hailing a cab. It was elegant, but too much.

  Joey said,

  “It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours?”

  Edmund sighed.

  “Not having that which, having, makes them short.”

  Then he waved his arm around and touched his forehead.

  It was beautiful, but it was corny.

  Phil Hormel laughed.

  Vivian giggled.

  The scene went on, with Edmund’s beautiful voice flow.ing like dark water and his body dancing a sort of over.the-top ballet. What was he doing? For a second I didn’t believe Edmund had ever acted before. But I couldn’t quite, because as stupid as what he was doing looked, he did it so well.

  Gillinger let Edmund go on the way he was going until just before the end of the scene. Then he stood up. “Shake-shaft, what are you doing?”

  “I am entering the scene,” Edmund said. “I am imperson.ating sorrow.”

  “Don’t impersonate anything. Don’t try to act. It’s only blocking. Just read the lines. And for God’s sake, don’t ever act that way again. You’ll get laughed off the stage.”

  “I will? Why?”

  “Because you’re ridiculous,” Gillinger snapped. “And I will not have a ridiculous production. You’re carrying on like the worst kind of regional theater ham. Now for God’s sake, just read your lines and walk through your blocking and don’t try to act. And especially don’t act in that phony fake Elizabethan style again. I’ve seen grade school kids do it better. Jesus.”

  That really threw Edmund off. He went through the rest of the scene speaking in monotones, hardly holding his head up. He almost stumbled once or twice when Gillinger told him where he wanted him to move. When it was over, he came back and sat down beside me, but he didn’t really know I was there. He had turned his laserlike concentration on the play.

  There was one more scene before my first entrance. It’s an easy scene to block, with only two characters who are both sitting down, but the two scenes before it, which include the first sword fight and fill up the first half of act one, had taken almost two hours.

  “Break!” Tanya called. “Fifteen minutes, everybody.”

  As soon as she said it, Edmund grabbed my wrist and jerked his head toward the wings.

  I followed him into the darkness.

  There, with the fly ropes hanging over our heads, and the smell of dust all around us, he whispered, “Miri, what did I do wrong? I swear I did nothing out there that Burbage himself would not have done. ’Tis where I got most of the business. What does Gillinger want of me?”

  “It’s okay, Edmund,” I said. “You were just overacting. Tone it down and everything’ll be fine.” I took his hand and squeezed it. “You’ll be fine.”

  “Tone it down? D’ye mean, pull into myself like a Puri.tan at his prayers? What kind of acting is this? How are the people at the back of the theater to know what we are do.ing?” Edmund looked scared and angry.

  “Just be more naturalistic,” I said. “I know it’s different, but you can do it.”

  “Naturalistic, is it?” he repeated. “And what is that?”

  I thought of something Gillinger had told us in class last year.

  “Edmund, pretend there’s a fourth wall between you and the audience. They can see us, but we can’t see them. Then just act the way you would if you were really in that situa.tion. What would you say to Benvolio if you didn’t know people were watching you say it? How would you act? That’s the whole secret.”

  “Act as if the audience is not there,” Edmund said. “Who thought of that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But that’s the way we do it. It’s called the fourth-wall convention. What you’re doing is too artificial.”

  “Artificial?” Edmund said. “What could be more artifi.cial than pretending there’s an invisible wall between us and the persons who’ve paid to see us? A wall in the middle of a street, forsooth. ’Tis nonsense. The audience is there. ’Tis true, they have come to forget, for a little, that they are so. ’Tis our task to transport them to Verona while they stand or sit crowded hip and shoulder together, and make them see fine houses, a moonlit garden, a monk’s cell. But how can we do that if we do not act?”

  “It’s what Gillinger calls a stage convention,” I said.

  Edmund threw his hands up. “Of course it is. All acting is ‘stage convention’ as you call it. ’Tis all craft and artifice. What could be less natural than to pretend otherwise?”

  “Edmund, calm down! It’s just the style now. Something new to learn. That’s all. You’ve dealt with all the rest of the world’s changes pretty well so far. This is just another small one.”

  Edmund sighed. “Very well. I will convene. Now where is this wall supposed to be?”

  “The edge of the stage,” I said.

  Edmund walked down to the footlights. I followed.

  “’Tis not a stage, but a cage,” he said quietly to me. “But I will learn to live in it.”

  And then, like lint on a black skirt, there was Vivian. “Hey, Eddie, you okay? Gillinger was pretty rough on you.”

  “Oh, ’twas—it was—nothing,” Edmund said. “I did not understand about the fourth wall. Now I do.”

  “Gee, I thought everybody knew about the fourth wall,” Vivian said. “Don’t they have that in England?”

  “It’s all one. Gillinger has much to teach me,” Edmund said.

  “That’s really brave of you to say,” Vivian said, and gave him a dazzling smile.

  “Oh, I am a very fox for valor,” Edmund said, and gave her a sad little ironic grin that should have been for me.

  “He’s so cute,” Vivian said directly to me. She put her hand on his arm, the one with the tape on it. “So cute!”

  Grrrrrrrr.

  Tanya Blair was rounding everyone up. Break was over.

  “If you’re not in this scene, clear the stage,” Gillinger de.manded.

  I was up.

  Juliet’s mother and the nurse have been talking about her for what seems like a very long time before she finally comes on. Then they spring a little surprise on her: Count Paris, this guy she doesn’t even know, has asked her father if he can marry her, and he’s said yes. Her mom’s good with it, and the nurse is throwing out all this daffy stuff about how cute Juliet was when she was a baby, as if that had anything to do with anything, and I walk in on all this.

  “’Tis an honour I dream not of,” is what Juliet says when they tell her. I said it the way I thought it should be said. Surprised.

  “Try that again, Hoberman,” Gillinger said. “Think. This is your first entrance. With Shakespeare, that’s always sig.nificant. It’s our first look at the character. Your first chance to define yourself for the audience. Now, you’re a thirteen.year-old girl who’s just been told she’s getting married to some guy she doesn’t know. Give us some depth, for God’s sake.”

  So I came in again, and this time when they told me, I said,

  “’Tis an honour I dream not of.”

  Like I was scared to death.

  “Better,” Gillinger said.
>
  But Edmund said, “I beg your pardon, Mister Gillinger, but I believe Miri had it right. After all, Juliet’s but thirteen, but, as our poet says, girls so young are often wed in Verona. ’Tis not as if she had no idea such a thing could happen to her. It’s a joyful thing to her as much as an unexpected one.”

  Gillinger turned around on his throne. He stared at Ed.mund for a long moment. Then he said, “Shakeshaft, you claim to be a professional. Act like one.”

  “How do you mean, sir?” Edmund said, giving Gillinger look for look.

  “I mean, shut up. I’m directing this show, not you. I know things are different in the British theater. The director isn’t as important there. Well, you’re in the colonies, now, sire, and if I say she comes in naked on a Shetland pony, then that’s how she’s going to do her first entrance. If I tell you to stuff bananas in your ears, and paint your face blue, then that’s the way it’s going to be. Got it?”

  “I understand. You do not want us to try to help you to a better play.”

  “You can help me by doing what you’re damned well told.”

  Edmund hesitated, then bowed. “Milord,” he said.

  “Now, could we possibly continue with the first act?” Gillinger said, looking around.

  And we did. And I did my first line Gillinger’s way. And all my lines after that.

  And actor by actor, Gillinger told us why what we were doing was wrong. We never finished the first act that night. We got as far as the beginning of the balcony scene and had to quit. It was after eleven o’clock.

  We all left quietly, which was funny. Usually at the end of a rehearsal people got louder, letting off steam, shouting good-nights and setting up plans to get together. But the fight between Gillinger and Edmund had set everyone on edge. It was like being in Verona, everyone waiting for the next brawl to break out between the Capulets and Mon.tagues and hoping that nobody would get killed. Edmund’s ironic bow had ended the fight with Gillinger. But every.one knew it wasn’t really over. And nobody could figure out why it had happened at all.

  Except, of course, Drew.

  “What’s up with Gillinger?” I said as the four of us drove home in Drew’s little car. “Has he been taking ego steroids?”

  “Verily,” Drew said. “That line about coming in naked on a Shetland pony was a bit much, methinks.”

  “So what’s up with that?” I said.

  “Perhaps he felt threatened,” Drew said.

  “Threatened?” I said. “Why?”

  “Maybe he feels challenged by Edmund.”

  “I did not mean to offer him challenge,” Edmund pro.tested.

  “That just makes it worse,” Drew said.

  “I get it,” I said. “Cuz, here is the real thing.”

  “Yep. Our Gillinger is a wannabe big-time director. Be.ing stuck here in Guadalupe gives him a stage to play the role of unappreciated artist. But in Edmund he senses something unpleasant. Someone that he suspects knows more about act.

  ing, and about Elizabethan theater, than he does. Worst of all, he senses a real artist.”

  “And so…” I said. I left it unfinished. There were too many unpleasant possibilities.

  “Like a dog pissing on a rock to show the world he owns it,” Edmund said.

  I laughed suddenly.

  “Concisely put,” Drew said. “And guess who the biggest rock is?”

  “What must I do, d’ye think?” Edmund asked.

  “I don’t think there’s a good answer,” Drew said.

  “Wonder if Gillinger wishes he’d cast me yet?” Bobby said.

  I realized it was the first time Bobby had said anything.

  We rode the rest of the way in silence. Touchy silence.

  When Bobby got out of the car, he didn’t say “Break it” or even “See you.” He just went into his house.

  Chapter Eighteen

  By Friday, we were all pretty well blocked, and pretty well scared. Gillinger went off on us for the smallest things, things we all knew he shouldn’t have worried about at this point. Even Phil Hormel got the edge of his tongue a few times.

  But it was Edmund he focused on, like a sniper. To hear Gillinger tell it, there was nothing he could do right. First it would be “Stop waving your arms like a gay banshee in heat,” and then it was “For God’s sake, stop holding your.self in like that. The audience is paying to see live actors, not dead ones.”

  Me he left pretty much alone, except in the scenes I had with Edmund. Then, nothing I did was right, either.

  “Damn it, Hoberman, try to act like you’re falling in love,” he said the first time we did the balcony scene. When we re-did it, it was “Could you possibly act like you’re glad to see him, at least? Jesus Christ.”

  Bobby got told off for being too aggressive, then for be.ing a pansy who acted like he didn’t want to fight anybody, let alone a big, tough guy like Romeo. Drew was too cute, then too formal. Once Gillinger even noticed Vivian and told her to act sexier, even though she was only walking in the party scene. She came on again swinging her hips, and he shouted at her to stop trying to call attention to herself.

  By the end of the week, it felt like we were in prison camp. But, unlike prison camp, we at least had a cast party to look forward to.

  This week’s party was at Phil Hormel’s place, an old Spanish-style home in what had been a nice neighborhood back when the house was new. Now the street wasn’t so great. There were bail bondsmen and halfway houses on the corners, and some of the houses, including Phil’s, had bars on the windows. The neighborhood was bad enough that some kids had been told they couldn’t come. I was hoping Vivian would be among them. But no such luck. Her Mom was coming, so her daughter would be there.

  My mom had been okay with it, just. “I don’t like what little I know about Phil, and that part of town isn’t good,” she’d said. “But Edmund will go no matter what. So I guess you’d better tag along and try to protect him from any more piano-size mistakes.”

  Ah, yes. Protect Edmund from mistakes. If only.

  Phil’s house was huge. The living room was almost the size of an Olympic swimming pool, and the arched passage into the dining room made it look even bigger. There were at least five bedrooms, including the one that had been for a maid, once upon a time. There was even a basement, which was where the party was. Phil had turned it into a wine cellar, with two floor-to-ceiling racks for bottles running along the walls. Red-and-blue flashing Christmas lights were strung along the tops of the wine racks. Overhead hung a piñata shaped like a devil’s head and painted red.

  The ceiling was so low, and the head was so big that peo.ple kept bumping into it. Whenever they did, the devil gig.gled. Phil had installed some kind of electric thingie that was pressure-sensitive or something. As the place filled up, the devil made more and more sounds until it was like he was chatting along with everybody else.

  There were six half-barrels filled with ice and drinks. There were little signs on sticks poking up from the ice that said either NICE or NAUGHTY. NICE meant non.alcoholic and NAUGHTY meant beer.

  The room went on filling up, and pretty soon there wasn’t room to move. The devil kept giggling and giggling.

  At the back of the cellar, Phil and Gillinger stood side by side sipping a bottle of wine. They were the only ones drink.ing it, and everyone knew that they were the only ones who would be. Even in the crowded cellar, they stood a little apart from the rest of us.

  Edmund was leaning against one of the wine racks with a can of NICE in one hand and an arm around Vivian. Bobby was kissing Stacy, one of the servant/citizens.

  I was across the room, next to Drew, trying to keep Ed.mund in sight and wondering why I was bothering. The air was thick and heavy and made me slightly sick.

  Edmund and Vivian threw a lip-lock on each other that looked like a permanent condition.

  It made me feel like I was being stabbed in the stomach. I had to get out of there before I threw up.

  “Are you okay, Mi
ri?” Drew asked.

  “Juliet’s asphyxiating,” I said. “Gotta get some air.”

  “I’ll go with you,” he said.

  “I also have to pee.”

  “Okayyy—you’re on your own.”

  I pushed and “excuse me’d” my way to the stairs and up them. Just getting out of that cellar was a big help.

  I looked around for the bathroom—like a lot of old houses, Phil’s only had one—and finally found it down a long hall, stuck between two of the bedrooms. On the way, I got a better look at the décor. On most of the walls hung pictures of Phil in various costumes. There he was, much younger and thinner in Cats, so that story was true.

  There were also pictures of him in productions of Our Town, Inherit the Wind, The Man Who Came to Dinner and portraits of him all in black as Hamlet, and all in white as Jesus. He’d grown a beard for that one. It had hidden his un.derslung chin, but he still looked exactly like Phil Hormel. I doubted if anybody who’d ever played Jesus had looked less like what Jesus was supposed to look like.

  But the bathroom, thank God, was empty. I sat down gratefully on the toilet seat.

  Slowly, I got control of my stomach. By the time some.body knocked on the door, I was almost better.

  But no matter what Mom had said about sticking near Ed.mund in case he needed interference run, I couldn’t go back in that basement. At least not right away. I went out onto the front porch.

  Maria Brandstedt was there, sitting on the steps and smok.ing a thin brown cigarette in a black holder. I caught a whiff of the tobacco smoke—not the thing I needed in my lungs at the moment, thanks—and twisted to go back in. But Maria heard me and turned around.

  “My smoking annoys you? I’ll put it out.”

  “Oh, you don’t—” I began, but she had already crushed the cigarette against the concrete.

  “Thanks,” I said, and sat down beside her.

  “You are not well?” she said.

  “Just a little woozy all of a sudden. Guess there’s not enough air down there for me.”

  “It’s not surprising. There is hardly enough oxygen for Gillinger and Hormel to keep their egos alive, let alone enough for thirty other people to breathe.” She hunched forward and wrapped her arms around her legs. “I hate par.ties.”