1982 (30 page)

And honestly, the pedestal upon which engineers are placed feels a little out of whack with contemporary society. The doctor thing might be understandable. Doctors make a fine salary and save other humans. They are important enough that they wear white lab coats. But I never quite got the engineer thing. Not that there’s anything wrong with engineers. There isn’t. But they don’t wear lab coats. Or save humans. Or make good music that kids can be inspired by. Still, the real rock stars in Iran have not been movie stars or footballers or politicians, they’ve been engineers.

I have made a short list (or shortlist) of occupations that most middle-class Iranians would like their kids to pursue:

doctor

civil engineer

businessman

mechanical engineer

general engineer

As you can see, three of the top five occupations that Iranian parents seek for their kids are related to engineering. My father was an engineer. But it really wasn’t for me.

As I got older, the windows gradually closed on all of these occupational possibilities for me. I just wasn’t interested in the maths and sciences as much, even though I did pretty well in those areas. And to their credit, my parents were ultimately liberal enough to allow me to pursue my passion. They gave me their blessing to enter Theatre Troupe in the final part of Grade 9. This was a significant turning point for me. To tell you the truth, notwithstanding some silly moments, it was in Theatre Troupe that I got much of my greatest high school education. It was in Troupe that I truly learned to question everything. The news. History. Ideas. Traditions. Laws. And this questioning came in very handy. I would later learn that questioning everything is called “critical thinking.” It helped me get top marks in political science and history courses in university. My father probably would not have guessed that in 1982.

I was the youngest in Theatre Troupe and one of only a few Grade 9 students enrolled. I remember it being hard to get into. I’m not exactly sure that it was, but that’s how I always thought of it. Maybe it was because other students would say things like, “No way! You got into Theatre Troupe?” In reality,
getting into Theatre Troupe largely required signing up to be in Theatre Troupe. That was mostly it. Mind you, hardly any Grade 9 students were accepted. My sister’s status as a theatre star helped my position.

At the end of May 1982, it was announced that some of the members of Troupe would be doing a run of performances of Shakespeare’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
at an outdoor gazebo stage in Markham. The shows were scheduled for the end of June and early July. The news quickly became a hot topic amongst the Thornlea artsy crowd. Many of the cool older 213 students who were regularly clad in black and smoked were to be cast in the main roles. I auditioned and was proud to earn a part as one of the “mechanicals.” The mechanicals are the amateur players in
Pyramus and Thisbe
, a play within the play in
Dream
. It wasn’t much. But I was in. I was to perform the role of Tom Snout, the tinker.

My casting as Snout paid immediate dividends. It led me to new levels of access within the elite circles of 213. At rehearsals after school as well as in class, I was now in regular proximity to the likes of Alexa Fotheringham and Mary Daniel and Mike Farnell. They were all three or four years older than me. They were all friends with my sister. And they were all real-like actors who smoked and wore black. I’m not actually sure that Alexa smoked, but she probably did. She had long dark hair and she was serious and she was a good actor. That meant she probably smoked.

Most important, it was easier to meet my New Wave aspirations once my days were occupied in the theatre room. I no longer had gym class, where I might have to endure teasing from that Lacoste-wearing preppy Joel Price. He had beaten
me at wrestling. And I didn’t have to hang out near the rockers in science classes or the yearbook types in the second-floor hallway. Bowie would have been out of place in phys. ed. or math class, too. I was gradually marching closer to my Bowietinted goal.

Being the youngest and having a small role in the big Theatre Troupe show meant I was often at rehearsals but not paid much attention to. This suited me well, given that I was quite intimidated by all the thespian talent around me. In
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, Snout has very few lines, and his most significant contribution is to transform into the wall that separates the gardens of Pyramus and Thisbe. The two lovers whisper to each other through Snout’s fingers, which are meant to represent a chink in the wall. My scenes added up to about five minutes of stage time. I think. Maybe seven minutes. There was no way to sugar-coat the limited nature of the gig. I was playing a tinker playing a wall. I know. It’s not the type of experience that self-esteem is supposed to be built on. But then, it wasn’t the limited nature of the role that would become an issue for my confidence, but the outfit I would be asked to wear.

Since Thornlea Theatre Troupe’s outdoor staging of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
was a “professional” production, everyone had cool Shakespeare-like costumes. The actors wore boots and brown mesh and scarves and belts over the kind of pirate-type shirts Wendy’s brother wore. Paul wore pirate-type shirts because he was older and an emerging professional actor. I’m still not sure why theatre people were supposed to wear boots and baggy trousers tucked into the boots and pirate shirts onstage. I suppose that’s what Shakespeare himself wore,
and serious actors were supposed to look like him. The more you looked like Shakespeare, the better an actor you were. That must be it. It’s like how an aspiring classical musician must benefit by looking a bit like Mozart. Or how an aspiring prophet would be wise to look like Moses. And so, everyone had these very fine costumes, including all the guys playing the mechanicals. Everyone, that is, except me.

It seems the production team of Theatre Troupe’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
were one outfit short when it came to the mechanicals. While the other guys wore the pirate tops with big belts and boots and theatre pants, the only piece the costume people had for me was a giant mauve-coloured collarless shirt. To be fair, I really did have the smallest role in the play. Anyone else with a limited role was multi-tasking and playing other parts in the show as well. Not me. I was a natural to be the guy who ended up without a real costume. The mauve shirt I was given was procured in a dramatic frenzy backstage. It was on the day of the dress rehearsal that the slight dearth of costumes was discovered, and the costume people were improvising.

My mauve shirt had no buttons, just a V-neck, and it was quite billowy and wide. I was very aware of being the youngest in the cast and, given the limited nature of my role, had the least leverage to launch any sartorial complaints. The shirt I was to wear was also very long. It was far too large for my body. And it had no collar. It came down to my mid-thighs. I really don’t know why a tinker would wear this outfit. But this was Shakespeare. And I assumed it was important for me to wear this frock rather than a New Wave T-shirt and jeans. Besides, I was in no position to decline the “costume.”
But it got a bit worse: there really was no appropriate belt for my mauve shirt, so it just flowed down over my body with my skinny legs peeking out. I had been given black “theatre tights” to wear underneath (there were no proper trousers left, either) and a pair of black slip-ons that everyone called Chinese slippers. The reality was, it looked like I was wearing a dress. But not a fancy dress like a girl wears to the prom. Not one with bows and nice stitching. More of a dress like Jesus used to wear. Or the old Greek guys when they were thinking up excellent philosophies. Or what those traditional Saudi men might sport when they were on their way to pray. But actually, not even like that. It didn’t look as cool and acceptable as any of those. This wasn’t like a robe or an Arab
thobe
. It was more of a long-sleeved maternity dress. Except, no, it was really more of a minidress. I was performing in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
with the cool 213 crowd wearing an unbelted mauve minidress. On the night before our first performance, I asked Nancy, the nice costume girl—also a student at Thornlea—if she thought my outfit was a bit odd. She replied, “Don’t worry, this is theatre!” She was trying to help me out. She assured me that no one would really notice. I would soon learn that Nancy was wrong.

Each evening, when I came out to deliver my lines as Tom Snout playing the wall, I would hear the audience snicker. I tried to convince myself they were snickering because of my comedic turn as Snout, but I had a good sense that it was also due to my inexplicable mauve minidress. To accompany the costume, I was wearing quite heavily applied theatre makeup. In sum, along with my gelled and dyed hair, I probably appeared much less like a tinker and more like an innocent
young drag queen. I don’t think being a drag queen was in the original script for Snout the tinker. I did my lines as Snout with an English accent. This was comfortable, because it was what I’d grown up with. But the accent just made me stand out even more. My exit line as the wall was the zenith of my performance.

Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;