After giving what I thought to be a rather good audition (for an amateur), I was cast in the role of Paris. Not one of Shakespeare’s finest creations, but then again, they can’t all be Falstaff. I intended to make the character as three-dimensional as possible (given my limited skills), and was excited for the challenge.
However, once rehearsals started, I saw I was the only person present who held even the slightest bit of enthusiasm for the project. The boys, a collection of clutched scripts and shuffling feet, inspected each other from the corners of their eyes with suspicion and delivered their lines with all the relish of particularly stale crackers. The bard’s words fell from their mouths like lead: cold, empty, metallic.
In my naïveté, I thought our director, Professor Roberts, might be able to awaken something from his wooden players, but after getting us onstage and telling us what page to start from, Professor Roberts would, without fail, fall into a chronic sleep, loudly dreaming while we butchered our way through a masterpiece.
One afternoon, the students playing the titular characters announced that, even though it was integral to the plot, they refused to kiss one another (these Willington boys are the most prudish pack of virgins I’ve ever associated with. A brothel would do them a world of good). I understandably exploded. Using the support of an extended rib cage, an activated diaphragm, and the full range of my larynx, I cursed the production, the cast, and our director. Had the boys onstage cared to improve their talents, they might’ve taken note of my technique and learned a thing or two. Alas, they didn’t care. They didn’t care at all.
My shouting did manage to stir Roberts from his coma. I thought: Finally! Some direction! Instead, all we got was, “Well done, lads. Take five. Or ten. Actually, we’re done for the day.” Then he slipped back into slumber, obviously proud of his quick thinking. I stormed out.
Burning the theater down and salting the scorched earth would be far too lenient a solution. I fear for the souls of all involved.
To: Professor Roberts
From: Headmaster Richmond
As of today I’m removing you from your position as director of Romeo and Juliet. Going forward, you will act as an academic supervisor. The production will now be overseen by a student, August March. I understand he suddenly quit the play, and I’ve decided to employ a rather unconventional disciplinary approach. Finish what you started, et cetera. To be honest, I’m looking for an activity that might occupy the boy and keep him out of trouble, and it seems he feels quite passionately about the arts.
When I told August of his punishment, he accepted on one condition: that he be allowed to choose a new show. I told him he was in no position to make demands, but he insisted that the boys were too immature to play a romance, and something with a bit of blood and guts (his words) would excite them more. He suggested King Lear, and though I think a piece whose central theme focuses on aging and senility might be a touch inappropriate for school-age boys, August seems enthusiastic. I trust you have no objections? As rehearsals have only just begun, I hardly think it will be an issue.
Check in every now and again, but the extra time is now yours to do with as you please. Might I suggest a midafternoon nap? Several countries in the Mediterranean have apparently been employing the practice for years.
To: Headmaster Richmond
From: Professor Roberts
Sounds splendid!
Infirmary Report
Patient Name: Gregory Ashford
Injury: Gash on cheek
Cause of Injury: “Sword fighting”
Patient Statement: March comes from backstage with a giant bag. Tells us that King Lear is not a lot of sentimental drivel but a play steeped in violence, storms, and swords. Then, right when he said the word swords, he emptied the bag and it was full of . . . swords. Swords! The blades were pretty harmless, they’re meant for the stage, but I still got nicked when we were using them. Can I go now? I don’t want to miss any more of rehearsal.
Treatment: Disinfectant and a small bandage
To: Headmaster Richmond
From: Alan Grange, Head of Custodial Staff
The leak in the Southern Dormitory has been fixed.
There are hundreds of cigarette butts in the theater every evening. Hundreds. I went in this afternoon to see who the hell was leaving them around, and all the kids doing the play were smoking. I yelled at them but they told me someone named March said it was okay. I gave them a bucket full of sand and told them to ash in there. I’m fine with the rules changing but a fire hazard is a fire hazard.
The mural still won’t come off the church. Ordered some industrial bleach.
Archie,
“Boy is good”? “Boy is good”? Never in our many years of correspondence have you sent me such a letter. I feel as if I’m trying to decipher the guttural utterances of a cave dweller. Really, Archie, these boorish grammatical bastardizations are hardly in your vein. Give me some answers! Your monosyllabic replies bring far more discomfort than August’s lack of response—after all, he is a teenager and can hardly be counted on to behave with even an iota of courtesy. I demand a thorough reply or I will be forced to storm the gates of Willington shouting the Crispin’s Day speech. And you know I’m far too old to play Hal! Don’t make me do this!
Desperately,
Reggie
My dearest Reggie,
How are you, old chap? Things are well at Willington other than an unseasonable amount of rain, but as you’re in London, I’m sure I’ve no cause to complain when it comes to overzealous precipitation.
I suppose I should cut to the chase, as we say here in the States, and let you know that August is directing a production of King Lear here at Willington. I’m giving him rather a free hand with the whole thing, and though it seems to be going well, I admit I’m hesitant to see the outcome. As I’m sure you’re no doubt aware, August tends to eschew all rules and regulations when they don’t coincide with his unique worldview. But after all, it’s Shakespeare. How much harm can he do? Actually, I shudder to think. Dear god, what have I done?
With love,
Archie
Archie,
When is it opening? I’ll book a ticket immediately.
Reggie
P.S.
Don’t tell August I’m coming.
Faculty Announcements
Greetings, Gentlemen,
The semester draws to a close. Please have all your marks in before the holiday break, though I’m sure the students would much prefer you didn’t.
This year’s play, King Lear, is on Friday night. Attendance, as always, is mandatory. In a Willington first, the production is student-directed. Perhaps if you relay this fact to the boys, they might show a bit more mercy than they have in the past. Before entering the theater, please check the students’ bags for any fruit or other projectiles. We cannot have a repeat of last year’s The Winter’s Tale fiasco. Those poor boys in the bear costume never stood a chance.
See you all there (attendance, as always, is mandatory for the professors as well).
Until next week,
Headmaster Richmond
Dear August,
I’m sure you won’t respond to this letter and you’ve every right not to, but I felt I had to write and let you know: I saw your production of Lear. Headmaster Richmond told me you were directing and I simply couldn’t miss it. Please don’t be upset. Or rather, feel free to be upset, but do me a favor and read this through to the end before you toss it into a fire?
First off, let me say that I thought the whole thing was utterly brilliant. Honestly! I haven’t seen a production of Lear that lively in years. True, great chunks of integral text were slashed and the acting was unfocused at best, but better broad than banal, I always say. You really brought it to life!
Right from the start, you showed a real eye for design. When Lear divided up the kingdom among his daughters, dragging a brush covered in red paint across the large map? So effective! The bleeding red lines raked acros
s the map like gashes, a clever dab of foreshadowing.
Though you made judicious cuts (quite wisely, in my opinion. The poor chap playing Kent was in over his head, wasn’t he?), I thought the swordfights you added were quite a good spot of showmanship. I lost count after twenty-two bladed altercations, but the thing had punch!
The plucking of the eyes was legitimately chilling. Sincerely: I was (and still am) disturbed.
You had the audience in the palm of your hand long before you got to the storm (Oh, the storm! Fabulous! Just how on earth did you achieve the effect of Lear being lifted off the ground? I didn’t see any rigging), but the crowd was positively frothing by the final duel between Edgar and Edmund. This encounter was truly your pièce de résistance (pardon my French). Where was the actor playing Edmund concealing the false arm he hurled into the audience? (I also appreciated the gallons of stage blood he sprayed on the first few rows. Again, where was he hiding everything? False pockets?)
I know you’re probably angry with me for coming. But I just had to see it. I had to. I didn’t congratulate you afterward because I couldn’t risk spoiling your triumphant night but please know that I’ve never been more proud in the entirety of my life, and that’s coming from one of the most selfish bastards the world has ever known.
I hope to hear from you soon, August. Be well.
Love,
Reginald
* * *
August responded immediately. From that time forward, Sir Reginald and August March enjoyed much written correspondence, each piece of mail earning a prompt and thorough reply.
* * *
The next two years of August’s education passed with many an outlandish instance, but most are anecdotal in nature. Needless to say, August never fully conformed as the ideal Willington student, though he did settle down enough to pass all his classes and managed to stifle the nature of his rebellions from felonious to misdemeanorish.
At the graduation ceremony, which Sir Reginald proudly attended, August was one of the few boys singled out afterward to receive a few words and personal handshake from Headmaster Archibald Haven Ferdinand St. Christopher Richmond IX.
“Well done, August,” said Richmond, smiling.
“Thank you, Headmaster.”
“Not the easiest of students, but certainly one of the most interesting. And your production of Agamemnon will haunt me until my dying day.” After the success of King Lear, August had been given full rein over Willington’s theatrical endeavors. Never had the drama department been so popular, or so drenched in spectacular displays of bloodshed. The grisly machinations of Titus Andronicus, Ajax slaughtering the sheep; August even managed to make Hedda Gabler’s suicide, scripted to be played offstage, an elaborate show of gory carnage. Archibald was pleased with what the boy had done in regard to getting the student populace excited about theatre, but he often worried about the sanctity of the plays being butchered, and for the safety of the boys involved in the productions as well.
“Did you enjoy the ceremony?” the headmaster asked, gesturing politely at the lawn currently filled with chattering students and parents.
“I found it trite and overwrought. A tired ritual celebrating mediocrity and wealth.”
The headmaster sighed. “Oh, for god’s sakes, August, do lighten up. Such ostentatious idealism grows wearisome.” He turned to Percyfoot. “Will you be in New York long?”
“Long enough to get August settled.”
“I’m thinking of popping into the city for a week or so in July.”
“Well, do please call on me.”
“What was that about?” August asked as he and Percyfoot walked toward the car.
“What?” Percyfoot replied.
“Are you friends with the headmaster?” August actually quite liked Headmaster Richmond, but he honestly couldn’t see him running in the same circles as the famous actor Sir Reginald Percyfoot. He was nothing but an old schoolteacher, after all.
Percyfoot laughed. “You may know more than most boys your age, but you don’t know everything.”
They settled into the Chrysler or Chevrolet or whatever the hell it was called and started puttering to New York. August was delighted as Willington disappeared behind them and felt not even the slightest tinge of nostalgic loss.
“So what’s next?” Percyfoot asked after they’d been traveling for some time. “University?”
August laughed so hard at this that tears actually sprang from his eyes. Eventually he said, “No, I think I’m done with the educational system, thank you.”
Percyfoot, who had no love for institutions of learning himself, was unoffended by the reply, but was still curious as to what August had in mind for his future. “All right, no school then. But what will you do?”
August watched the lush green landscape blur by through the window of the car, eager for it to be replaced by the muted gray terrain of the city he loved so dearly. “I don’t know,” he finally answered. “But I’m sure I’ll figure it out.”
Part Four
New York’s Greenwich Village was a thrilling place in the 1960s, if you went in for that sort of thing. No matter what door one opened, it seemed, a rapturous bohemian diversion awaited. Poetry, cabarets, the off-off-Broadway movement, folk music, rock music, the beats, coffeehouses, drugs; the neighborhood was a veritable paradise for the nonconformist.
Simon Helmer, a mustachioed man with overlarge ears, was not taken with the enchantments of the Village. Though he was settled comfortably in his mid-thirties, he still considered himself young, yet whenever he was forced to slog downtown, he found that not only was he the oldest person in any given room, he was the oldest by nearly a decade. Insufferable.
Yet it wasn’t just the neighborhood’s youth that irked Simon so. Draped in ill-fitting tweeds, Village locals loped about like languid Irish wolfhounds, battered copies of Kerouac in their back pockets. Simon tittered in disapproval as he straightened his exquisitely cut jacket; long had he held an inherent distrust of anyone clothed in a slouchy blazer. As he dodged a passing man whose nose was buried in a predominately displayed Faulkner, Simon sighed; never had he known that it was possible to read with ostentation until the Village. Ah, well. Better this breed of showy scholar than the detestable strain so obsessed with shawls and constellations. One doubted if this type could read, let alone ostentatiously.
The Village wasn’t all moony-eyed twentysomethings deluding themselves into believing they were changing the world for the better, however. Carefully hidden amid the pretentious poetry readings and shaggy-haired guitarists, a small sect of society that wanted nothing to do with all this affected bohemia could be located: the grotesquely rich. One of these families, the Kingsleys, had invited Simon to a dinner party, and as he hurried through the streets, worried that his suit might become besmirched by a well-meaning dropout offering him a wreath of flowers, Simon checked his reflection in every shop window he passed, preening and primping as he went, his robust mustache receiving particular attention.
After Simon rang the bell, a butler led him into the sitting room, where Mrs. Kingsley, a tall woman with a distracting feather headpiece in her hair, rushed to greet him.
“Mr. Helmer, so good of you to come. Honestly, it’s so nice to have some young people in the house for a change.” Simon thought that given her way, Mrs. Kingsley, who was rapidly approaching sixty, would gladly drown every young person alive with her own two hands, but of course that wouldn’t be polite conversation. “Now you simply must meet Miss Bayer.”
And thus the night began. It was the usual set that appears at these sorts of things, a mixture of young and old, male and female, rich and very rich. No one would be offended; no feelings would be provoked. It was the perfect cocktail for a joyless evening of social obligation. Though Simon would’ve normally gotten quite tight to face such a tedious affair, he sipped his martini thoughtfully, careful to avoid drunkenness. For Simon had his own personal reasons for attending the party, and inebriation would d
o nothing but encumber his agenda.
The dinner bell was finally sounded, and the guests were shuttled through the townhouse by the butler. Most continued their previous conversations, but Simon stayed back at the rear of the group, admiring the grand staircase that swept up to the second floor and the beautiful paned windows that climbed with the steps.
He must have been gaping most preposterously, because he was completely surprised when a voice interrupted his admiring stare.
“Keen on architecture?” The voice belonged to Mr. Kingsley, who had also hung back to secretly refill his tumbler of scotch.
“Not really.” Simon blushed. “It’s just a hobby of sorts.”
“Rather peculiar hobby,” said Kingsley, taking a swig. “How does one muddle about in architecture? Seems like a subject you have to go whole hog on.”
“Not architecture, sir. Sketching. I draw. Just for leisure, of course, nothing serious.”
Kingsley brightened. “Why, that’s wonderful! The missus and I absolutely love art. Crazy for it. Do you write?”
“No, sir, just draw. And not well—”
But Kingsley interrupted, listing the artists and writers who’d been guests at a dinner he hosted just last week. Simon had heard that in Los Angeles, name-dropping was a sort of sport. In New York, however, one was supposed to pretend not to care about such things, pretend being the key word. If name-dropping was a sport in LA, then in New York, it was an art—delicate, refined, and far more pretentious. Simon had no idea what to add to this conversation. Luckily, Mr. Kingsley was of the class that could converse without the aid of a partner, and peppered his one-sided discourse with a few more celebrity names before he finally seemed to remember that Simon was present.
The Astonishing Life of August March Page 13