Actor: A Novel in Three Acts

The heat off the stage lights—hot pink, beige, orange, and red—pressed onto my face, forcing me to blush. All those years underneath of them, they still burned. Embarrassing, but true. Different kinda' heat, my mind recited to itself. Out there, it's clean. Cools off at night. There's a nice little breeze. There was always one more run through, one more line read, to make myself feel secure. It was a lie, but the whole thing was a lie.

In the audience, I heard the rustling of papers, the high-pitched sound of the seats in the audience readjusting. I felt like a specimen on a doctor's table about to be operated on. Instead of focusing on everyone, I imagined Lee standing with me as the world of Shepard's play—the table, the typewriter, the beer cans, the wolves and the endless desert outside and all that vast loneliness—materialized.

Lee's shoulders hunched forward like a vulture. I watched him as lumbered around the stage, awkward but mean—dangerous; he seemed he wanted out. Then he started to full transform into that wretched bird: half human, half buzzard. I felt my breath drop into the pit of my stomach while everything slowly started to talk on the weight of life and time; of trying and failing but not wanting to give up because we knew what that meant. Then Lee kicked over a chair and got his foot stuck in the legs of it and fell down... screaming and chattering. In the background, on the couch smoking a cigarette silently watching, was his brother Austin, black out drunk or near to it.

AUSTIN: Help yourself to whatever's--(motions to refrigerator)

LEE: I will. (he got himself up) Don't worry about me. I'm not the one to worry about.

Slowly, whispers of Lee's thoughts started to mix with mine... his desires and fears; his resentments. Lee's before came to be. He was human again and wandering in the desert alone as the the sky, moon, and stars gazed down at him, indifferent. I put myself in his ragged clothes, his tired body, and his lost mind... step by burdened step, head like an anvil on my bent spine as my breath sunk lower and feet and legs—wide apart—became so firmly planted on the ground stopping to look at the cold universe, they felt like stone. My lips began to move and speak on their own.

“And that was when,” I heard myself mutter. "Out there. Desert.”

Whispers snaked through the audience. Their faceless voices were already judging, observing, and critiquing every little thing about me. The good, the bad, and the irrelevant.

What was I doing? Lee's graveled voice asked me. Why was I there? Who was I to think I belonged in this world?

I forced a professional, maintained, smile. The audiences faint chatter rose again, peaked, and fell away. They were probably talking about how my hair looked wrong or how I was standing weird or all the sweat I was leaking onto the stage. I spread the tiny puddle around with the tip of my boot, trying to thin it out. Now what the hell is he doing? they were probably thinking. Maybe the stage manager had told them about the phone call. I stopped and held up one hand in a modest hello.

“How’s everyone doing?” I asked.

"We're good," a placid, but cheery enough voice said from the darkness.

“I’m Ave," I added, suddenly and weirdly anxious that my overtly friendly tone was coming across as someone who needed saving. "I’ll be reading for the part of Lee tonight. Thank you for seeing me.”

"Ave what?" another younger, metallic and slick voice asked. 

Giving them my last name felt like a betrayal. But, if I didn't, the admission would look weird. I wasn't Cher. I wasn't Prince. I did what I was told.

"Gardener," I said.

This reveal ended up being nothing at all because instead of bringing up Edie, they asked about what I had forgotten.

“No headshot?"

"Ha," I managed. "Miscommunication with my agent, but I can get you one as soon as I can."

"How are we supposed to remember you if you get the job!" This voice was all it's own: playful, carefree... Peter? No, it was a woman's voice.

"I'll get it to you," I laughed, desperately. "Promise."

There was a few beats of silence followed up by a muted, "Sure."

It was the younger voice again. I assumed they were an assistant or intern or something like that... trying their best to insert themselves into the process to show their worth to someone above them. Their semi-serious and concerned affectation didn't feel connected to the play or the audition, but to themselves. I understood this. Everyone else was a pawn when they were the king in their own game of chess, but I didn’t need to be used for someone else's gain right then. Later, sure.

They weren’t the director. They didn't give a shit about a glossy piece of paper with my face on it. Edie told me that since day one. What mattered was what I could do in the present with everything I had prepared, what I was willing to be, and what I was able to sacrifice. Being Steppenwolf, being a partner to the playwright also would help. Living the part between the beginning and the end was all that I wanted.

I smiled again. I pulled my shoulders back. I felt the bottom of my feet in my socks in my boots on the cold, raw black wood of the stage. I am here, I heard myself say. I pictured my side with all of my notes, scribbles, intonations, and guides... then wiped them away. They no longer mattered. They were gone.

This was a performance, like all performances, for a few people. People who ate, slept, and pooped; people who were once freshmen and had been bullied and fallen in and out of love; who had argued with their parents about what they wanted to do with lives and wasn't sure who was staring back at them in the mirror some mornings, some nights. People who would have to get in their car or the L train after all of this to go home to do it all over again to also contribute. Maybe their dreams had only been recently realized or maybe they had and they weren't what they thought they would.

“I am here,” I murmured. "You are here."

They are just like you, Edie reminded me.

“You are here!” a resonant voice shouted. “I’m Lisa Yanz, director."

I spotted her first as some globular shadow in the center of the other blob people. They were fixed at a makeshift plywood desk fitted on a row of seats in front of them, a small lamp to the left of them and a pile of headshots, papers, and other seemingly important things. Lisa, in all that darkness and space and flashes of light, seemed to expand and retract in harmony with my breath as she came forward.

"Thank you for coming out so short notice," she said. "Tim told me you're new here. Welcome."

I didn't know what to make of this airy acceptance... this fond warmth. Much later, I realized how lucky I was to meet Lisa given how genuine she was and how disingenuous most people were in the industry. If I had known that then, I wouldn't have been so... of putting and, well, quirked.

"Thank you," I replied. "Great place you have here."

"Appreciate that." She looked up and then around at the space, her eyes illuminated by each light along the surrounding wall. "It gets the job done." Then, back to me. “Tim speaks highly of you.”

“I try," I said with another smile as my dread spiked.

Here it comes, I thought.

“Coming out here all on your own from sunny LA is no small feat. Some people would call that...crazy."

I waited for her to say something about Edie.

"But here you are, all by your lonesome."

"Some people say living in LA is crazy," I said.

"That's true," Lisa laughed, nodding.

In that space between informalities, awkward pauses, and why we were there at all, I tried something off-script.

“I love your work."

I looked Lisa up after Tim let me know about the audition... a little trick Edie told me about in the final years of conservatory, meant to show I wasn't there merely to take orders, but to collaborate.

"Lie for a truth...truth for a lie," Edie always said.

Lisa could have hated it: a cheap trick to massage her ego and maybe make her remember me, if I wasn't exactly what she was thinking in terms of the role, but it was worth seeing again. I hated it too, but the scheme—it really was a dirty trick—had worked before. Maybe it could work again?

“Thank you,” Lisa replied, shifting her weight from side to side. Her head tilted in modest interest, probably wondering what I was getting at. “I hope to love yours.”

The crew around her peppered her with agreements.

“Especially your production last year,” I continued.

There was a hushed wave of snickers and murmurs, but no one afterward told me to get off the stage. That was good. I looked back at the wings. Peter was there, watching me, face stony, but appearing entertained by his grin. That was also good.

Lisa turned with her eyes still on me and whispered something to one of her assistants. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, so I told myself it was positive. I felt... in control, while also unsure who this new-Ave was. This Ave something else... a mimic outside of some earlier, anxious form. Lisa looked back at me after a single, assertive nod to the person they were talking to.

"What exactly did you like about it?”

"I guess...

"Don't hedge," Lisa said. "I'm the director. We've got the space all night. The other actors can wait. They're trained, some of them. We've got time."

"I liked that you took a risk," I said. "Even though the risk, from another angle, looked more like a flight to safety."

She let my answer hang in the air for a pause.

"A risk on what exactly?"

"Casting famous people like Michael Cera and Kieran Culkin in This is Your Youth.

"Ha!" Lisa blurted out. "And why's that?"

"Why do you think?" I asked.

Another round of murmurs percolated through Lisa's ensemble.

"No," she said. "I'd rather hear what you have to think. You started this."

"I think casting young-ish Hollywood types mostly known for movies—given this is Steppenwolf theatre—could have been seen as a little offensive... even a little gauche."

Lisa scoffed. I had taken it too far, I thought. There was always a line. I crossed it. My career was over. Time to pack it up forever.

Then Edie's voice whispered, Better to be remembered than forgotten.

"I would disagree with gauche," Lisa replied. She didn't appear mad. Her tone was light and still playful. "Desperate, maybe? Gauche in the sense that it was definitely a little awkward given the theatre's history and their background in movies."

At least she agreed with me.

"Culkin was doing a lot of theatre before 2014... and even played Warren Straub in the West End production in through 2002 and 2003. "Pre-2002 he was a movie actor though, so... sure, I could see how you could get there. This feels a little more about privilege though... or maybe airs of cronyism given his network?"

Partially.

"Maybe something like that," I answered. "Seemed like he had a lot of options to only do the jobs that he really wanted to where others... don't."

"That's the business," Lisa reminded me.

"That it is."

"I'll say," Lisa continued. "It was a subtle betrayal, really, to the days of Jessica Reaves at The Times... but we're a theatre for actors!" She wasn't actually angry. "We're an actors' theatre for actors, so all are welcome... no matter the medium. Now, are we going to have Carrot Top doing Mamet here anytime soon? No. Definitely not, but I get where you're coming from. I can see how it looked." She looked square at me. "Being younger than both those guys... was that how you felt about it?"

I started to say the first thing that came into my mind, paused, then went another direction.

"It wasn't a matter of feeling anything, just something I noticed."

"A sign of the times?" Lisa expounded. "Gone are the days of stalwart artists? I will tell you we're still feeling the sting of what happened with “A Steady Rain" around here."

"Like you said—a sign of the times."

"In your opinion..." Lisa mused. "Does economics follow culture or does culture follow economics?"

I looked down briefly at my feet, then the stage, and then back up at everything, everything, everything surrounding us and how far back it all went.

"Who follows who?"

I shrugged.

"The director wants to hear what you think," she said. "Because if I know how you think I'll get it a glimpse into your system and how you make your choices."

"Steppenwolf knows that better than anybody, actually."

Lisa raised her arm and pointed at me, making a little gun with her thumb and pointer finger. She let it hover there. Then, slowly, she dropped her thumb-hammer, smiling.

"Good to know."

Lisa was about to sit back down when I thought of something else.

"I also thought the story itself, given how broke everyone was—me—was... timely."

"You are an actor," Lisa said. "Actor's are broke."

"Which stood out to me given your casting."

She stopped, paused, and faced me.

"Hmm?"

"I can stop."

"Continue."

“The story, set in 82', mirrors struggling millennials and the general desperate youth today. It's believable that one of the characters would steal $15,000 from someone better off than they are. They won't miss it. But then... they don't know what to do with it. Sell some coke? Sure, but the play becomes all about desperation for me because they both seem to know it's going to run out one day... one day soon." I paused to catch my breath. "I definitely relate to being so broke I’d be willing to do anything to either make more or keep it. This was ironic to me, and gauche considering the production cast two famous and assumedly rich Hollywood types."

Lisa didn't say anything, and I didn't think to stop.

"And they weren't even from Chicago, but they were part of the Sydney production, so I get it."

"Culkin, as far as I know, isn't all that rich," Lisa said, justifying herself. "And Gevinson was born in Chicago."

The crew around Lisa was completely quiet. The other actors in the wings were as well. Our banter had gone on far too long.

"Economics follows culture," I answered. "Until the culture's economics can no longer sustain itself because people, like time, move on."

Lisa nodded, her face calm and contemplative. I could have been making that up, but it's what I told myself as my entire body hummed to the point of falling numb. Finally, she went back to her seat.

"Given your access," Lisa said. "You have a lot of opinions. That's good. Tells me you have a whole toolkit of choices. But you're here now... away from all of that. Now it's time to make some because, by your own will, you're here for many of the same reasons."

I agreed with her.

"One of the benefits of being within the network, my network."

"All is on the rout..." I whispered under my breath.

"Don't worry," Lisa said. "That's not why I'm seeing you. This isn't special treatment. I say no all the time. I'm seeing you because you're good. I've seen you before. You didn't see me, but you didn't even know I existed at that point."

"I didn't mean anything by it," I tried to say.

She held up her hand in one swift movement with her palm facing me.

"Enough talking. Let's start."