Free The Confessions of Edward Day by Valerie Martin

Margate had a part and we did not.
    W hen an actor has a part, he has a life, and a full one. When he doesn’t have a part, his life is looking for one. Parts are few, the competition is stiff, and even if one succeeds in being hired there are still a variety of avenues that lead directly to failure. The backers can go broke before a play goes into rehearsal; the play can close after a tryout; the director may be incompetent, lack nerve, or just lose control (as evidently happened inthe profitable but unnerving production of
Hamlet
in which Richard Burton, directed by John Gielgud, delivered a mind-numbing impersonation of Burton saying Shakespeare’s lines very fast); the play can be difficult, unwieldy, or just banal; the actors may be miscast; illness, divorce, or lawsuits may hamstring the production; critics may hate the play and say so; audiences may fail to show up.
    Or the leading lady may go mad onstage.
    But without a part, an actor can’t even fail, so when a play is cast the thespian community recoils and regroups, simultaneously discouraged and reinvigorated, for if that miserable actor Joe Blow can land a juicy part, anything is possible.
    I’d been in the city a year and had appeared in two productions, one an Equity-waiver workshop at the Wooster Open Space and one a two-week run of one acts at a tiny theater in the West Village. The plays were new and forgettable and my parts were negligible, though I did have a nice bit of comic business in the one act, in which I got tangled up in my trousers while trying to seduce my female employer. I went to my classes, gossiped at the right bars, circled the roles I thought might be suitable in the casting-call pages of
Back Stage
and
Show Business
, and lined up at the doors with the rest of the cattle, but I wasn’t getting anywhere and I knew it. The news that Guy, an obscure bookstore clerk, new to the scene and not connected to any school that I knew of, had a part in an Equity production was like an injection of iron into my resolve.
    On Monday, I went to class with an edge of self-loathing that felt new and dangerous to me. Madeleine was eager to tell me about Guy’s success, but I shut her down with a grimace.“Teddy told me,” I said. She studied me a moment, her head cocked to one side, thoughtful, interested, the way adults look at a child who has revealed in some completely transparent and inappropriate fashion that he is in pain.
    “Look,” I said, “I’m wondering if I’m just lazy, if I’m not hungry enough, if I’m just kidding myself.”
    “This amazes me,” she said.
    “I don’t lack confidence; I know I’m good, but maybe I’m too comfortable hanging out at Phebe’s pretending to be an actor.”
    She nodded. “I’ve been having the same thoughts all day. It’s eerie.” Our eyes met and held. I think some elemental bond was struck in that look, a passion to further each other’s interests.
    “What should we do?” I asked.
    “After class, we’ll talk,” she said, for the inimitable Sandy Meisner had arrived, his ogling eyes behind the thick spectacles that allowed him to see, to which was attached the microphone that allowed him to speak, sweeping the room for the girl with the most revealing top.
    We went to the Cedar because it was quiet, and over beers and fries worked out our plan. We would take time off work as much as possible for three weeks and concentrate on nothing but the pursuit of parts. We would try out for everything, suitable or not, wild stretches and stuff we thought beneath us, even musical revues. We would drop our head shots off at agencies, take our meals at diners, prepare our pieces at night in my apartment. We would be relentless, we would urge each other to the limit, we would succeed.
    And we did. In two weeks I had two callbacks and Madeleine had three. We stayed up late refining our readings, drinking coffee until we were revved past endurance. Then we got into my bed and blasted ourselves into