Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Post-Dance Depression and Stage Therapy

New to JA? Welcome! If you're feeling a bit lost, you should start from the beginning. Or if you want more general information, read What the heck is this?

Chapter 9

Kate recoiled at the sight of herself in the mirror. The once impeccably applied eyeliner had now made a clone of itself in the crease of her eyelid and flecks of mascara had rained down across her face. The ghost of red lipstick past had wraithed itself seemingly around the entire bottom third of her face. And  it felt like she had worn holes in the balls of her feet with her bones. She wanted a hug. More specifically, she wanted a broad shouldered body to pull her tight against its chest and a low voice to tell her she looked wonderful tonight. But she had to settle with hugging her own knees and listening to her iPod. She was too underwhelmed with her evening to bother removing the horde of bobby pins trying to invade her skull. Kate fell asleep smearing the remains of her makeup against her flannel pajama pants. Fortunately at that moment, Kate was unaware that her paper that would be returned to her on Monday was a just barely acceptable to her B-, she would imminently be reassigned to the Soprano section, and her  16-year-old Collie would die by the end of the month. 

Unfortunately, Kate was also unaware that although not actually magic, the Hat had definitely improved Kate's standing the sight of someone who at that very moment was feeling a similar feeling of romance-loneliness. However, being a guy, it didn't surface as a desire to listen to Eric Clapton songs but rather a 3am solo fight as Master Chief against The Covenant.   




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Julian waited between the folds of liquid black that were the curtains,breathing deliberately. She schooled her eyes to look anywhere but the stage manager's podium, and rubbed her thumbs slowly around the tips of her index fingers in concentration.

She was haunted by the ghost of Victor Hugo--driving her to embody his tragic heroine, to pay tribute to human suffering. She was trying to hone in on every feeling of desperation that she had ever felt in her short life. The lights went black and the microphone swap went smoothly, but Julian was like a spectator inside her own body. 

The electric energy of the audience flowed across the stage and jolted Fantine into existence like a flame taking to kindling.

And for the first time in her life, Julian was utterly uninterested in the future. The present line, the reaction, and the actors on stage completely encompassed all of her mental energy. The bright lights created an abyss beyond the edge of the stage, and in that moment those few hundred square feet between the curtains was the entire surface of the world. 


The opening chords of her song floated up from the pit, and Julian reached into her well of bleakness and sorrow that she had spent last night digging. In Flander's fields the poppies blow, between the crosses row on row. In her mind she could see the nightmare of mud, an endless line of trench packed with bodies both living and dead. Men once-boys that would never be able to dream of pleasant things. Youth squandered for nothing. A war that changed nothing. Julian took a deep breath and began to sing. The sorrow welling up seeped into her voice "I was young and unafraid and dreams were made and used and wasted." 


Then unbidden, long-pushed down childhood memories climbed into her mind. Christmas without her mom. Birthdays without her dad. The muffled slam of the car door from her bedroom the first night of her parent's separation. "And then the tigers come at night." Julian's eyes began to sting "with their voices soft as thunder."  She covered her ears at the memory of too many angry curses said by one parent to the other. And real tears rolled down for the fictional mother with the fictional daughter who was utterly alone in the world. 


When she exited the stage, it was a weird schizophrenic feeling. The real, biting sadness of her parent's divorce was left behind between the set pieces, compartmentalized and quarantined to the world where people spoke with scripted speech. Back in the dressing room, she was just a teenage girl in a funny dress wearing lots of makeup.


And the curtain call came, and Julian Agacelli took her bows to explosive applause. In the foyer of the theater complete strangers told her that she had been amazing, and when the cast and crew gathered for post-production notes Mr. Todd started by saying, "Ms. Agacelli, I would have loved to have seen that two weeks ago...but while your timing could've been better, your performance was spectacular." He reached out to shake her hand, but before he let her hand drop be pulled it towards him and looked her sternly in the eyes.  In a mocking but somewhat seriously threatening voice he continued, "You better do that tomorrow as well."


After the cast and crew had eaten a super-late celebratory dinner at IHOP, Julian noticed that Walt dropped everyone else off first, although he had passed through her subdivision once already. Alone in the car Julian was suddenly extremely nervous about the stupid eclipse coin. Walt hadn't seemed offish during the after-play hubub, but he hadn't seemed as friendly as usual either. 


"You did really great tonight Julian....it's kind of cathartic isn't it? Theater is like therapy. You meet your demons..."


Julian didn't want to talk about her demons. "Yeah..." The wound through the alternating light and dark patches created by the streetlights in silence. 


Walt took a deep breath. "...Julian?"

"Yeah" Julian was waiting for the let down with the sort of macabre anticipation one feels when walking by a run-over animal. Walt was a nice guy and Julian figured he didn't know how to tell her he wasn't really interested. 
"...uh..." He fiddled with the A/C. "...I" Julian sighed silently to herself. 
Walt started again as he pulled onto her street. "um...don't psych yourself out for tomorrow. It's hard to repeat a really good performance when you focus too much on other people's expectations instead of...whatever it was--that made it seem real. You'll be incredible, like you always are."

Julian opened the door guessing correctly that that wasn't what Walt had intended to say. She couldn't even stop herself from feeling giddy at his last compliment even though she believed she knew that he had given it out of pity. 

As Julian walked into her front room, Walt slapped the steering wheel punishing the poor Corolla for his own hesitancy. 


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