Max gives me a crooked smile. I’m glad she’s here.
“I called everyone in,” Petra says, with an exaggerated patience that lets you know she’s reaching the end of her supply, “so you could all accustom yourself to the different rhythms of a new actor, and so we could all of us help Willem ensure that the transition between him and Jeroen is as seamless as possible. Ideally, you won’t even be able to tell the difference.”
Max rolls her eyes at this and once again I’m glad she’s here.
“Now from the top, please,” Linus says, tapping his clipboard. “There’s no set and no marks so just do your best.”
As soon as I step onto the stage, I feel relieved. This is where I’m meant to be. In Orlando’s head. As we move through the play, I discover more things about Orlando. I discover how key that first scene when he and Rosalind meet is. It’s just for a few moments, but they see something in each other, recognize something. And that the spark sustains the passion, for both of them, for the rest of the play. They don’t see each other—knowingly see each other—again until the very end.
Such a dance that Shakespeare wrote into a handful of pages of text. Orlando’s about to fight a man far stronger than he is, but he peacocks in front of Rosalind and Celia to impress them. He’s scared, he must be, but instead of showing it, he bluffs. He flirts. “Let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my trial,” he says.
The world pivots on moments. And in this play, it’s the moment when Rosalind says, “The little strength that I have, I would it were with you.”
>“We have the cast on standby for a full run-through later,” Linus answers. “Right now, we’d like to run your scenes with Marina. See how those go.”
Petra stubs out her cigarette. “We’ll skip ahead to Act One, Scene Two with Rosalind. I will read Celia. Linus will read Le Beau and the Duke. Let’s start just before the fight with Le Beau’s line.”
“‘Monsieur the challenger, the princesses call for you?’” Linus asks. Petra nods.
“I attend them with all respect and duty,” I say, jumping right in with Orlando’s next line.
There’s a moment of surprise as they all look at me
“Young man, have you challenged Charles the wrestler?” Marina asks as Rosalind.
“No, fair princess; he is the general challenger: I come but in, as others do, to try with him the strength of my youth,” I reply, not boastfully, as Jeroen does, but tempering the bravado with a little uncertainty, which I somehow now know is what Orlando must feel.
I’ve said these words hundreds of times in readings with Max, but they were just lines in a script, and I never stopped to figure out what it all meant because I never really had to. But just as Sebastian’s monologue came alive during my audition months ago, the words seem charged with meaning all of a sudden. They become a language I know.
We go back and forth and then I get to Orlando’s line: “I shall do my friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me, the world no injury, for in it I have nothing. ” As I say the words, I feel a tiny catch of emotion in the back of my throat. Because I know what he means. For a minute, I think to swallow the emotion down, but I don’t. I breathe into it, letting it carry me through the scene.
I’m feeling loose and good as we move onto the fight scene, in which I pantomime fighting an invisible opponent. I know this part well. Orlando wins the fight, but he loses anyway. He is cast out of the duke’s kingdom and warned that his brother wants to kill him.
We reach the end of the scene. Petra, Linus, even Marina, they all stare at me, not saying a thing.
“Shall we continue?” I ask. “On to Act Two?” They nod. I run that scene with Linus reading the part of Adam, and when I finish that, Petra clears her throat and asks me to take it from the beginning, Orlando’s opening monologue, the one I flubbed so badly during my callback.
I don’t flub it this time. When I finish, there is more silence. “So you’re off book, that is clear,” Linus says finally. “And the blocking?”
“Yes, that too,” I say.
They look so incredulous. What do they think I’ve been doing all this time?
Warming a seat, comes my own answer. And maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised by their surprise. Because isn’t that exactly what I’d thought I’d been doing, too?
Petra and Linus excuse Marina and me. They have some things to discuss. If they decide to proceed with tonight’s performance, there will be an all-cast rehearsal at the theater at noon, and I’ll have to do an additional tech run-through at the amphitheater later in the day with just Linus.
“Sit tight. Keep your phone on,” Linus says and he pats my back and gives me a look that’s almost fatherly. “We’ll speak soon.”
Marina and I head to a nearby café for coffee. It’s raining, and inside the windows are fogged up. We sit down at a table. I rub a circle of condensation off the window. Across the canal is the bookstore where I first found the copy of Twelfth Night. It’s just opening up for the day. I tell Marina about the flat tire and stopping at the shop, the strange chain of events that led to me being Jeroen’s understudy, and now possibly, playing Orlando.
“None of that has anything to do with that performance you just gave.” She shakes her head and smiles, a private smile, and it’s this, more than anything else, that makes me stop feeling like a member of the shadow cast. “You were holding out on us.”
I don’t know how to answer. Maybe I’ve been holding out on myself, too.
“You should tell him,” she says, gesturing to the bookstore. “The guy who sold you the book and told you about the play. If you go on, you should tell him it’s partly because of him.”
If I go on, there are lots of people I’ll have to tell.