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Lovely Lights
It was 3:30 P.M, Wednesday afternoon. The first pre-production meeting finished half an hour ago, and I was certainly the only actor in the theatre. The door leading to the parking lot locks from the outside, so they generally let anybody stay here after meetings and such. It wasn't like they were paying us by the hour. I waited until I was sure every actor was gone until I walked backstage.
Two years I have been performing in this theatre, two years and I still marvel at it. Sure, it was aging, the acoustics aren't very sharp, the wood is starting to rot, and the fly rail system untangles itself in every way, but it has a certain old world charm to it. I have this theory that sound never really goes away, that when a note is hit or a line is said, it becomes fainter and fainter till your ear no longer catches it, but is still there. All words that have been said, yelled, or sung are still very much alive, bouncing from wall to wall so that they never forget it's impact on this theatre.
I emerge from stage left and walker to center. I walked head bowed as the producer told me, as to remain the mysterious atmosphere of the show. I hit my mark center, raise my head glossing over the empty velvet rows.
"Time to work, I suppose" I mumble aloud. Terrible habit, mumbling, makes your voice soft and words slur. Do it enough and you'll mumble on stage, and if you do that you might as well jump off stage, facebattle somebody in the audience, and burst through the front doors because you'll never work here again.
"Little by little, dusk from dawn" I begin, softy, "Whatever ailes the life of the common ma-"
I'm cut short as the house lights, my only source of illumination, vanish. I'm sure any other man would have handled this, well, manly. But all I could manage to do was gasp and duck on the stage. My knees drawn close to my chest, I closed my eyes.
"Crap, crap, what happened, did the circuit break or something?" I thought, "Oh no, what have I just done? That shriek of mine, a scared whimper from a frightened sophomore will resonate from these walls forever now."
"Hello? Is anybody here?" asked an unknown voice.
"Wha- who, whose there?"
The stage lights flickered on, I followed the voice to see a human outline in the shadows of the wing. Only the stage lights were on, the wings were pitch black. I couldn't see him, but he could easily see me.
"Who are you?" I asked
"Same to you" replied the stranger,"What are you doing here? You don't look like a trespasser, didn't the actors' meeting end, like, an hour ago?"
Actors' meeting? Oh yes, that's why he didn't look familiar. He was a techie, behind the scenes handling the lights and set. We were taught to leave never get in the way of techies, that they were always busy and if they needed to interact with us they would. I wonder if they were told the exact same thing.
"Yeah, it did, but I decided to stay a little bit after, rehearse lines a bit. Now who are you?"
He stepped from the shadows, he was a young man, no older than 20, white tee and jeans. Quite a contrast from my jacket and slacks.
"My name is Bryce, sorry for the scare. I was shutting down the lights getting ready to go home when I heard something from the stage, need a hand up?"
He walked towards me and extended his arm. He had a good grip on my hand when he hoisted me up, strong kid, maybe he moved set.
"I'm Carlisle, please to meet you" I shook his hand. Same strong grip. The man stood a head taller than me, blue eyes, black hair, some muscle on his frame.
"Pleasure. Sorry to seem forward, but you seemed kind of jumpy when I saw you, you okay?"
"Huh? Oh yeah, I'm fine, just a bit stressed. You know how it is in this city."
"New York man, if you don't have stress you're doing something wrong, or extremely right."
We both had good little laugh, and somehow just talked. Just sat down on stage and talked, and did I learn some stuff. His full name was Bryce Harper Leslie, born and raised in New York, got into theatre tech around high school. Was pretty good at it, got a couple scholarships and graduated college just a few months ago. This is his first professional job, as a matter of fact.
He learned a little about me: learned my full name is Carlisle Shay he found out that I'm from actually from Vegas and this is my first show in New York, how I always loved this place and been here multiple times as a kid when our vacations would allow it.
I told him about the stresses. The paltry check I'm pulling in is barely enough to cover the essentials, how much the traffic in New York sucks, how much I hate the director for doing this show. How I like to sit on stage alone and recite lines from past shows and experiences. You know, the annoyances.
"You know" he said, stopping my mid sentence ," It's almost 5:00."
"It is? Really, I'm sorry I had no idea, please don't let me hold you up-"
"Wanna finish the conversation at dinner Saturday?"
"I, uh, yeah... Yeah, that would be nice."
He gave me his phone number and walked back through the wings out the door. I just sat there for a minute, processing what just happened. It's crazy, you know, but at that moment I swore I heard... applause. Some ancient hands clapping at the scene they just witnessed on stage. I looked over the rows of seats, seeing nothing but pitch blackness, but I just stood and bowed. The applause grew louder as I walked off the stage towards the door.
Theatre, as much as I love it, has it's ups and downs. For the last two years I've fluctuated between those, but today, for whatever it may imply, is the first time in a while I have actually felt pop flyin'.
I, I think I might be okay.
Critique meeeeee
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