Look Again

31

JOEY

Six weeks seems like such a long time—plenty of time to design, cast, rehearse, and perform a show. But those six weeks fly. Dexter and I spend so many hours in the same room, but not exactly together. We are working with the kids in our own ways, but I feel him when he’s nearby. I listen to him talk to the kids. And when we do have moments alone, I feel myself settling into a sweet, slow newness. He is careful with me. And I scan my body for responses to his closeness. Slowly. Carefully. So far, so good. So very good.

Apparently, Dr. Moreau’s idea of “soon” is not related to mine. She says nothing about the chair assignment, and I don’t get invited to another board meeting.

I wait.

I watch Dexter do his work, and I do mine. And I am happy.

As Dexter handles the actor parts, helping the kids with blocking and character work, I hang out backstage and work with my crew on the set during breaks and when the actors are on the other side of the stage. Throughout the weeks, the kids get better, and the stage gets lovelier.

The middle act of the play has a jumble (probably not the technical term) of Shakespeare characters saying their actual lines from their own plays, but they’re all thrown onto the stage with random other characters, and the results are funny—even for someone who didn’t do much in the way of Shakespeare study. My favorite is Peaseblossom, this balletic looking girl who has no lines, but runs around with a squirt bottle, spritzing the faces of characters and causing them to fall in love with each other. Mostly with characters from the wrong plays. Romeo and Portia is my favorite combination, mostly because Portia keeps putting her hands on her hips and looking at Romeo like he’s a silly little boy. I mean . . . good point.

Benedick is moaning his line about preferring any impossible errand to having a conversation with this harpy. Ophelia looks confused, shakes her head and says a line about herbs. Hamlet, gazing in stupid adoration at Hermia, says all he can think of, “Words, words, words.”

Hermia hears him and rolls her eyes. She looks to the ceiling and says, “I frown upon him, yet he loves me still. I give him curses, yet he gives me love. The more I hate, the more he follows me.”

Peaseblossom slips in and squirts Hermia in the face, and Hermia leaps into Hamlet’s arms. He eyebrow-wiggles toward the audience and carries her off stage.

It's good. Funny. It’s going to be so much funnier when the audience fills the auditorium seats.

During a ten-minute break, I push through the groups of kids and gather the stage crew to fly in the screens. We’ve built up the stage in sections, and now we move the huge, heavy fly system into place. The kids are absolute pros, calling out their movements before they make them, avoiding accidents and, presumably, dismemberment. I had no idea how dangerous backstage theater could be.

As we move in the last of the screens, I notice it’s gotten very quiet both onstage and in the auditorium seats, which the kids keep asking me to call the “house,” but I can’t bring myself to do it. It’s not my house. It’s Dexter’s. I don’t hear Dexter giving the kids direction. In fact, I don’t hear anything. Maybe everyone left. Maybe someone had pizza delivered and they’re all in the lobby eating it, because they’d never dare bring a slice into this room. Dexter would have their heads.

I stare toward the back of the stage. From where I stand, there are two levels of stage and screen. Green, blue, and yellow lights shine down on the screens from above, and the Greek columns are lit from their bases. I feel like I’m standing in a gorgeous ruin that’s slowly being eaten by the forest. It’s magical.

From the quiet of the room, I hear someone start clapping, then others join in until the whole cast must be there, applauding something together.

I turn to figure out what everyone’s looking at, and I’m blinded by the spotlight. I can’t see anything but a blast of white light. Kind of a deer and headlights situation; I stand motionless on the stage.

The kids are now cheering, and I realize they’re calling my name. Raising my hands to shade my eyes from the spotlight, I can see them all out there throughout the room. I’m alone on stage, and everyone else, the actors, the stage crew, and the technical team, stands cheering and clapping.

For me.

Well, at least for my set design.

Dexter whistles his “listen-up,” and the room quiets to a low rumble. His voice cuts across the sound of the kids. “This is what your audience will see when you’re performing,” he says, and they start clapping again. “Miss Harker, can you give us a little spin?”

I shade my eyes again and try to find him in the dark room. I give a nervous giggle. “I sure can’t,” I say, my voice not carrying nearly as clearly as his.

“At least a bow, then.”

I shake my head, embarrassed, and force myself to walk, not run, off stage. I feel the white-hot spotlight following me until I cross the heavy side curtain and step into the cool dark of backstage. Dexter’s voice still rises over all the other sounds in the room as he tells the kids that we’ll start Act Three in five minutes. Seconds later, I feel his hand on my shoulder.

I wonder if he’s got notes for me, things he wants me to change about the set or the screens. I’ve listened to him deliver notes at the end of rehearsals. He’s good at giving the kids positive messages between every critique of their work, so I hope he’s going to tell me he likes it, either before or after he tells me in how many ways he needs me to change it.

“I can’t believe how great it looks,” he says, staring straight into my eyes. I casually grab hold of a rope hanging near me, so that intense gaze of his doesn’t knock me to the floor. The rope is attached to a curtain that begins to slide closed as I lean my weight on it.

He puts his hand over mine and stops the curtain from moving. He stops me from moving, practically from breathing.

“I mean it, Joey. It’s magical.” Why does a compliment weigh so much more when he uses my name?

I should say something, but I have no idea what.

I nod, not taking my eyes from his.