My First Taste of Theatre
I performed in my first play in seventh grade. I remember it distinctly;
it was Alice in Wonderland and I was playing the white rabbit.
Our tiny drama club was under the auspices of Annette
Percival, a very well-intentioned woman who was clearly an artist struggling to
give a bunch of inner-city kids a chance to discover the same world she had. The
selection of Alice was a diplomatic choice that she hoped would cause a greater
than expected turnout for auditions in light of the Disney connection and universal
name recognition. If this ploy worked, then her expectations must have been dismal
indeed. The only kids who showed up were members of the tiny drama club that
Mrs. Percival had set up, of which I was a member.
There are two reasons I counted myself among the membership. The
first was this: I had been watching my dad do plays at various university and
community theatres since the age of seven, and was completely in love with the
idea of plays. The soft amber lights of the U of M Flint Mainstage or the Bower
theatre’s more austere, but welcoming atmosphere, were treasured parts of my
memories, and I wanted to experience performing for myself. The second, and
*far* more important reason was called Stephanie Webster. She
had long, reddish hair tightly pulled back into a ponytail, pale, irresistibly
freckled skin, and crystal blue eyes that flashed fire into my soul when she
peered at me from behind a pair of librarian glasses. She was glorious, and made
all the more so by the drab and gray uniforms imposed upon us by the school
administration. Besides, she was a year above me, and outranked me in our
school’s elaborate system of prefects (which served to prepare us for the real
world by introducing us to utterly arbitrary chains of authority) and she
therefore had the allure of the forbidden. I, at the tender age of
thirteen, am in love, and I simply *must* impress her by being the best white
rabbit ever to grace the stage. The moment I knew she was scheduled to be the
student director (Mrs. Percival’s avatar for the duration of the production), I
vowed to move storms, to cajole in some measure.
Our rehearsal process, such as it was, was barely adequate for
the fundamental blocking needs of each scene. Due to extremely low turnout, I
was double-cast as Tweedledum, and probably would have been upset about that had
I considered it my primary role, but no. I had status. I had distinction.
I was the white rabbit, and my performance would split the sky open and rain
down transcendental theatrical truth down upon the teeming masses until they
cried for sheer joy. Nothing could bring me down, I was certain of that. At
least until we discussed the subject of costumes, on the night before our
performance before the entire school.
This was a small charter school in Flint, Michigan, so naturally
there was no budget to speak of for the production. There was no vast stage with
amber lighting, there was the modestly-sized gymnasium and a few stock platforms
for standing on. Even more worrisome: I would not be wearing the sporting tuxedo
that the italicized stage directions called for, nor would any sort of
perfunctory rabbit costume be procured for me. The best that anyone could do was
to hand me a pair of rabbit ears and tell me that I was on my own for the rest
of it. Naturally, I was distressed at the thought; my own wardrobe and skill in
the manufacture of clothing being sorely deficient, even for a thirteen
year-old. However, I came up with a brilliant plan upon seeing a collection of
art supplies left unattended. A roll of black construction paper: tuxedo. A few
tiny studs for keeping pieces of paper together: brass buttons. Top it off with
some rabbit ears and my gray slacks and dress shirt: White Rabbit costume.
And so did I perform the White Rabbit in front of the entire
school: with my rabbit-eared head poking out of a makeshift tube of construction
paper, which (in addition to looking comically absurd) lasted all of twelve
seconds before tearing at the waist and being abandoned after my first scene (I
appeared in two). Appearing in my Tweedledum scene was mortifying, as my scene
partner had completely forgot her lines. This was the first time I felt a fear
that only those who perform for others ever feel. When something goes wrong,
when you know you’re off the script, there is a potent sensation of absolute
terror. The script is, in many ways, the gateway into fantasy for an actor. As
long as you’re reciting these lines, you’re invulnerable. But when you’re off
the script, something curious happens: it’s no longer the White Rabbit, or
Tweedledum, or Hamlet standing in front of people. It’s you, the actor. It’s
you, your partner, and everyone who might be watching. And when you grasp that,
you’re afraid. Time dialates and every breath you draw feels like some
complicated task you are failing at while others look on in passionless disdain.
We managed to fight though the silence and sloppily get back to the script, but
the audience had grasped our situation (they always do), and I felt deeply
shaken by the experience. It haunted me as I took my bow and accepted the
smattering of polite applause from the sixteen remaining students in the
audience (the end-of-day bell had rang during our first act, and the vast
majority of the school had risen from their seats and gone home).
And so my first outing on the stage came to an end. My cunning
plan had clearly not worked, and surely Stephanie Webster would remain utterly
indifferent to my existence. I had discovered an unexpected fear behind all the
lights and posturing. I had gone on stage wearing a paper tube and bunny ears.
By all logic a quiet, deeply sensitive, and self-conscious 13-year old should
have been mortified and never shown his face in the drama club again. I should
have thrown a small fit and vowed never again to perform on stage, as I had with
sports and other hobbies in my youth (my promising career as a pro-league t-ball
player having been ended by a softball to the face two summers prior).
Fortunately for me, however, the expected tantrum never came. Standing in that
empty gymnasium in my dress shirt and rabbit ears, I was on top of the world. I
had done something that a shy, chronically fearful thirteen year-old had no real
business doing. I had performed. I had been on stage; I’d said words, and people
had listened. Groggily and disinterestedly to be sure, but they had still
listened. More than this, I had …fun. I had a *lot* of fun, actually.
I had so much fun it didn’t matter if anyone remembered me, or
if Stephanie Webster had been moved by my talent and professionalism (I was
never late to rehearsal!). It didn’t matter because I had performed on stage,
and I had enjoyed myself, and I had to do it again. It didn’t matter that no-one
had seen it, or that not even the other cast members had cared about it as much
as I did in the first place. It didn’t matter that my ingenious solution to the
costume problem was a bust. I had to do it again. That’s what I told my mother
when she asked if I would still need to be picked up later in the day because of
drama club meetings. That’s what I told Mrs. Percival when she asked how my
experience had been (perhaps out of courtesy to a quiet kid, perhaps in
recognition of someone who’d caught a glimpse of that world she tried so hard to
show us). That’s what I told my father when he told me that theatre was going to
break my heart, even if I was good at it.
A lot has changed since then, and not so much. I’m older, more
experienced, trained in the art of acting and making proper theatre. I know all
about objectives and compositions and immediacy and raising the stakes and
what-if-we-tried-it-this-way and Nick-stop-flipping-your-damn-hands and various
other things grown-up actors are supposed to know about. And I prefer
dark-haired women now. I know what my father meant, for this thing called
theatre has broken my heart a few times. Broken my heart, made me feel dumb and
inept at times, and forced me to work harder on *myself* than anything else I
could have done with my life. I tried being something else, doing another thing
with my life that’d let me just use my brain all the time and keep my heart well
away from the roughness of honest critique and the seductive glow of amber
lighting. It didn’t work, because I’d had fun doing that play and I had to do it
again.
No matter how many times my passion pushes me outside my comfort
zone; I’ll have to do it again. Part of me is still that thirteen-year-old boy
who made a tuxedo out of construction paper to impress a blue-eyed girl and his
dad only to discover it wasn’t ever really about them in the first place. Being
on stage, even in that primitive, no-budget way made me believe that what I had
to say was worth listening to. It’s been over a decade since then, and my
relationship with the stage has lasted longer than some marriages. I’ve risen
and fallen, and learned enough to know there’s always more to learn. I’ve had
fun doing this theatre thing, and have to do it again.