Sweet Sorrow(47)

‘In the face of fresh talent.’

‘In the face of fresh, unspoilt talent.’

‘Yeah, it’s like when people saw Brando for the first time.’

‘Exactly. It’s not bad, it’s just new, and he can’t handle it.’

‘You’re raw.’

‘That’s it. I’m too raw.’

‘Dangerous.’

‘Too dangerous.’

Ahead of us, the crowd had stopped and turned to look, and we slowed so as not to catch up.

‘So,’ I said, ‘given how raw I am …’

‘Go on.’

‘Can I stop now?’

She punched me hard on the shoulder. ‘No! You’ve got to keep coming!’

‘There’s no point!’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I can’t do it!’

‘You can learn, you’ll get better, you’re just reading for the first time.’

‘It’s not that. I don’t understand what I’m saying. To be honest I don’t even like plays.’

She laughed. ‘Oh, really. So why did you come back?’

‘You know why! You bribed me!’

We walked a while in silence, eyes fixed forward. After a while she nudged me and then, when I turned to her, looked away, though not so quickly that I couldn’t see her smile.

‘Not a bribe, an incentive.’

‘Whatever.’

‘And also I didn’t say I would.’

‘You did.’

‘I said I’d think about it. And I will do so, during the course of this week’s rehearsals.’ I threw my head back and groaned. ‘Okay, how about this – every lunchtime for an hour, we’ll find somewhere quiet, the two of us and we’ll go through the play together, line by line.’

‘You’re going to teach me?’ I said.

‘Yep. It’s going to be really uncomfortable.’

I groaned again. I didn’t want to be taught any more, least of all by someone my own age, someone I liked, but …

‘Trust me, I’m an excellent teacher. Strict but fair. Come on. It’ll be fun. Besides, who else can play the part the way you do?’

‘Well, that is true.’

‘We need you. Which is a mark of how truly desperate we are.’

We’d reached the bottom of the lane now. At the bus stop the rest of the company waited and watched. ‘Sorry, I feel like I’ve just talked about myself. Tomorrow it’s your turn.’

‘Well, we’ll see.’

‘Tomorrow then,’ she said.

‘See you tomorrow,’ shouted Helen.

‘Tomorrow!’ said Alex.

‘See you, Charlie,’ said George. ‘Tomorrow,’ said Keith and Colin and Lucy, and I cycled away with their eyes on my back and thought, well, no choice now.

I’ll give it to the end of the week.





Swords


At this point in my life, I had seen exactly one half of a play.

Miss Rice, our fresh-faced English teacher, had arranged a coach trip to the National Theatre to see a matinee of The Way of the World. With its witty wordplay and sly, satirical jabs at the social mores of Restoration society, it was a bold choice for a coach-load of fifteen-year-olds, but we loved the concrete staircases and runways of the South Bank, whooping through tunnels and cheering the skateboarders. It was a great venue for a game of Laser Tag and by the time we took our seats in the auditorium, hopped up on Lucozade and wine gums, we were in full-on Lord of the Flies mode. Irresponsibly, the box office had placed us in the first row of the stalls and it didn’t take long for war to break out, Class 4F on one side, actors and audience on the other. We were outnumbered but with the actors constrained by their lines and professionalism, it was a desperately uneven match and soon a number of Maltesers had found their way through the fourth wall, so that the cast were unwittingly engaged in a football match with hissed cheers whenever the chocolate was kicked off stage right. As Congreve’s jokes sailed high over our heads, we laughed at the fop, not with glee but derision, so that the actor began to visibly doubt his performance, fixing his eyes elsewhere like someone trying to avoid a fight in a pub. Other actors were not so easily intimidated, delivering their lines with barely suppressed fury, even in the love scenes.

And oh, the battle was long, so long, the interval like one of those desert mirages that moves further away the closer you get, the actors getting louder as their frustration grew, our running commentary losing it’s humour. There were complaints, and in the interval Miss Rice, close to tears, called us all together and told us how embarrassed she was, what a disgrace we were, and the fun had stopped abruptly. Most of us did not return for the second half – Miss Rice no longer cared what we did, couldn’t bear the sight of us – and instead we wandered the South Bank and threw gravel into the Thames. On the way home, the back of the coach felt like the rear seat of a police car, and we never found out what happened to the witty young lovers.

If there was such a thing as a theatre bug, then I was immune. The problem wasn’t acting. I was happy to watch people pretending to be other people in the films and TV that I sucked up indiscriminately. But all the elements that were supposed to make theatre unique and special – the proximity, the high emotion, the potential for disaster – made it seem mortifying to me. It was too much, too bare and artificial.