Look Both Ways (9 page)

My first rehearsal for
Señor Hidalgo’s Circus of Wonders
is the next evening, and just walking into the Slice is a little disorienting. It’s a regular black-box theater, except that if it were an actual box, it would be the kind two-dollar-pizza places give out to hold a single greasy slice. I can’t even tell where the audience is supposed to sit. Pandora and Natasha are chatting with a couple of other apprentices in the corner, but I have no desire to talk to them, so I head over to the circle of folding chairs at the other end of the room. There’s an upright piano pushed against one of the walls, and part of me wants to go over and play something to calm me down, but I don’t want to be that girl who starts showing off before rehearsal even starts. I’m trying to stay positive—maybe
this
will finally be the Allerdale experience that clicks for me and makes me love performing. But after what my mom said about the quality of the side projects here, it’s hard to be too optimistic.

“Hey,” says a voice behind me, and when I turn around, there’s Russell. “Brooklyn, right?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Wait, you’re not
in
this, are you?”

“Oh God, no,” he says. “Nobody wants to see me perform, trust me. I’m doing the set.”

I’m about to tell him I’m pretty sure nobody wants to see me perform, either, but I swallow the words down. “Cool,” I say. “Do you know anything about the show?”

Russell sits next to me and stretches out his legs. “Nope. I haven’t even met the director or anything. I hope he doesn’t want anything crazy, ’cause my budget’s only fifty dollars.”

“Hey, thanks for helping me with the lighting stuff the other day,” I say. “I would’ve been totally lost without you.”

“No problem. You feeling more comfortable now?”

“Maybe a little.” I haven’t done anything too stupid during a crew call in the last couple of days, but I’m pretty sure that’s because Solomon has stopped giving me jobs that require actual thought. Mostly I’ve been steadying other people’s ladders like a human sandbag. At least the other actors who are on lighting crew first rotation show up every afternoon after their rehearsals, so I’m not the only one who’s completely clueless.

“It takes a while, but you’ll get it,” Russell says.

I’m about to tell him I’ll probably be assigned to another department by the time I feel comfortable, but before I can say anything, the door bangs open, and a guy in his twenties strides in. His square glasses are askew, and his dark hair is sticking up in a giant poof like he’s been running his hands through it over and over. He looks so stressed out that if I saw him on the street, I’d assume he’d been in court all day, trying to get innocent people off death row. He plunks down in one of the folding chairs in a showily exhausted way.

“Gather round,” he calls, his hands making weary sweeps through the air, and everyone sits. “My name is Clark, and I’ll be your director for”—he pulls out a piece of paper and reads off it—
“Señor Hidalgo’s Circus of Wonders.”

Russell shoots me an incredulous look, and I raise an eyebrow back. If the director doesn’t even know what’s supposed to be happening in this room, that doesn’t bode well for the rest of us.

“This play is a work in progress,” Clark continues. “We’re lucky enough to have our playwright, Alberto Muñoz, here to work with us and develop the play to suit this particular cast. Alberto, raise your hand.” A skinny guy in blindingly white sneakers and slightly too-short jeans raises his hand across the circle, but he keeps his face tipped toward the floor. “Alberto will be here observing as we work together as an ensemble, and then he’ll start developing some pages for the next time we meet.”

“So…there’s no script?” asks a guy with chin-length hair.

“We’re going to develop the script
together,
” Clark tells him, obviously frustrated.

“But, is there, like, anything? What’s the play about?”

“It’s about a circus of wonders,” Clark snaps. He sounds bizarrely angry about it.

“But what are we working on, exactly, if there’s nothing—”

Clark cuts him off. “I need everyone to go around and say your names and your special skills.”

Nobody seems clear on what a “special skill” entails, but nobody seems to want to ask, either. Natasha says she can sing opera, tap-dance, or do both at the same time. One of the guys can do a back handspring, and another guy can bench-press a hundred and fifty pounds. The guy with the long hair says he can burp the alphabet. Pandora announces that she took a pole-dancing class last year, and I file that information away to tell Zoe later. I have a feeling she’ll appreciate it.

When my turn comes, I say, “I’m Brooklyn, and I can play the piano.”

Clark nods and makes a note on his pad. “Anything else?”

If the last couple of days have proven anything, it’s that I’m not very special or skilled. I shake my head.

“Fine.” Clark looks at Russell.

“Oh, I’m not in the show,” he says. “I’m Russell. I’m your set designer.”

“But there’s not going to be a set.”

“Well, there could be one, if you want. I could make you one.”

Clark sighs heavily. “Using set pieces is insulting to the audience. If they can’t use their imaginations, they don’t deserve to be in the room. We’ll do it all with lighting.”

The girl sitting on Russell’s other side says, “We really don’t have that much lighting equipment to work with. I can try to—”

“I’m not
asking
you; I’m
telling
you,” Clark snaps, and she goes silent. He turns back to Russell. “What are your special skills? I’m sure we can use you for something.”

“Um. I also play the piano? And I’m pretty good at AutoCAD and basketball. I don’t know if those are special skills. It seems like maybe they’re regular skills?”

“Everyone, on your feet,” Clark says. “Let’s see what you guys can do.”

We scoot our chairs back against the wall and stand in a circle. Russell and the lighting designer stay against the part of the pizza slice where the crust would be and talk quietly to each other, and I kind of wish I could join them. Alberto settles himself in the point of the slice, the bite Zoe would save for last, and starts scribbling madly in his notebook even though we’re not doing anything yet.

“Let’s take some time to explore the space,” Clark says. “Touch it, notice it, pay attention to how your body feels moving through it. There’s no wrong reaction. Go.”

It’s so different from our master class yesterday that I actually snort. How is anyone supposed to learn to act here when we’re getting such conflicting instructions?

“Is there something amusing, Brooklyn?” Clark asks.

“I, um. I’m just reacting to the space?” I catch Russell’s eye, and he puts his hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh.

“Fine,” Clark says. “Come on, people. I want to see some motion.”

I start wandering around the perimeter of the room, dragging my fingers over the walls. They come away fuzzy and gray with dust; I doubt anyone has cleaned in here since the end of last summer. “Play with levels,” Clark calls. “Nobody wants to watch you people
walk
all day.” Bench-press guy gets down on the floor and rolls slowly in my direction, accumulating a film of grit and dust bunnies on his black T-shirt. I hop over him a couple of times, and he reacts by changing direction. Pandora rubs her body against the walls, making what she must think is a sexy face. In the corner, the blond guy swings on the rails of the low balcony that lines one edge of the triangle. One of the wooden rails breaks loose, and the guy is left clutching it like a club while he dangles by one hand. Three long nails protrude from the end like the spikes on a stegosaurus’s tail.

“Oops,” he says. Then he starts whacking the other rails like some kind of deranged percussion player.

“Destruction is creation,” Clark shouts over the racket. “That was very organic. Are you getting this, Alberto? I’m giving you gold, man.”

From his corner, Alberto nods furiously.

“The floor is made of tar!” Clark shouts so loudly, I jump. “You’re wading through a lake of molasses!”

“Wait, tar or molasses, which one?” asks Natasha.

“I don’t care! Make it happen! Make me see it!”

I try my best to move like I’m slogging through a lake of tar, but this whole thing is starting to feel more and more absurd. I’m all for theater being a collaborative effort, but it works a lot better when
someone
in the room seems to know what’s going on. I tell myself this is only the first day, but there’s no way walking around like my feet are sticking to the floor is going to help Alberto write a play.

Over the course of the next hour, we bounce like we’re on the moon, run like we’re being attacked by swarms of bees, tiptoe like we’re on hot coals, and walk like various animals—peacocks, elephants, cats, kangaroos. All of Pandora’s animals involve making the same sexy face. Then Clark has us close our eyes and create a “soundscape.” I think he’s aiming for something like the time we created a rainstorm in elementary school by snapping and clapping and drumming on our thighs. But since he doesn’t lead us at all, it ends up sounding like a lot of random humming and howling and popping that doesn’t go together. When I open one eye and glance at Russell, he’s got both hands buried in his curls like he might rip them out by the roots.

It’s after eleven when “rehearsal” finally ends. Instead of giving us a pep talk about how well we’re starting to bond as an ensemble, Clark picks up his clipboard, says, “That’s enough,” and walks out the door. Alberto gathers his notebook and pens and scurries after him, like he’s afraid to be left alone in the room with us. I realize I haven’t heard him say one word the entire evening.

The other six cast members and I look at each other for a minute, but nobody has anything to say. After a second, people shrug and start heading out. Nobody bothers to say good night.

Russell comes up next to me. “Well, that was…something.”

“That’s one way to describe it,” I say. “Your lighting designer friend looked like she was about ready to puncture her eardrums with a fork. I can’t say I really blame her.”

“Did you know it takes only seven pounds of pressure to rip your ears completely off?”

“Eew,
no.
And I wish I still didn’t know that,” I say, but at least I’m laughing. “This has seriously been the weirdest week of my life. Marcus Spooner threw eggs at me yesterday.”

“What?
Why?
”

“It was at our master class; he was trying to teach us how to focus through distractions or something. He told us if we weren’t willing to stab ourselves in the leg for art, we didn’t deserve to be here.”

Russell’s eyes widen. “I’m sorry, I know the guy is supposed to be brilliant, but that is all kinds of messed up.”

“I know, right? Thank you!” My voice comes out louder than I expected, but it’s so reassuring that someone else has noticed that the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes. “When I complained about it to a bunch of the apprentices yesterday, they were like, ‘But Marcus is a genius, the whole thing was a metaphor, blah, blah.’ I don’t care if it’s a metaphor! He threw
eggs
at me!”

“Did he actually teach you anything?”

I want so badly to be able to say yes, that even though it was difficult and humiliating, it also taught me lessons I’ll carry with me for the rest of my career. I want yesterday’s class to have proven that I made the right decision by coming to Allerdale. But it didn’t, and I know I don’t have to lie to Russell about it. He doesn’t expect anything from me.

“Honestly?” I say. “No. Not at all.”

“At least egg is good for your hair, right?”

I laugh. “How do you know that?”

“Olivier told me. He says his hair is so thick and soft because he uses these egg yolk treatments on it. I mean, it sounds weird, but it’s definitely working for him. You think I should try it?”

I want to laugh at his intimate knowledge of his boss’s hair texture, but it seems too early in our friendship to tease him about his crush. So I say, “I can’t say I recommend it, after yesterday. Your hair looks nice as it is.”

“Thanks.” Russell holds the door for me, and we head across the lawn toward the dorms.

“So, are you going to stop coming to rehearsals, since Clark doesn’t want a set?” I ask.

“No, he’ll probably change his mind. Plus, watching you all pretend to walk through a lake of tar was pretty glorious.”

I shove his shoulder. “Ugh, shut up.”

“Don’t blame
me,
” Russell says. “If you weren’t so good at strutting like a peacock, I wouldn’t be forced to keep showing up.”

He flounces down the path in a ridiculous imitation of my peacock walk, twitching his butt from side to side, and I burst out laughing. “You’re a terrible person,” I say.

“But you’re glad I’m not leaving, right?” He elbows me in the arm. “Admit it. You’d be supersad if I weren’t around.”

“I would. I don’t think I could face this insanity without you.”

Russell smiles and pats my shoulder, and the unexpected force makes me stumble forward. He’s a lot stronger than he thinks. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I wouldn’t leave you alone in there. I’ve got your back.”