Free Illyria by Elizabeth Hand Page B

voice?
    "Did you--did you practice that?" I finally asked him.
    "Practice? Yeah, some." He reached into his pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes, glanced around, then lit one. "I read it in front of the mirror in my room. Isn't that what you did?"
    "Yeah," I said. But I was lying.
    I looked at him again and thought of what Aunt Kate had said about glamour. That it could be taught, and learned. That it wasn't a matter of magic or luck.
    "You were better than me," I said at last. "A lot better."
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    ***
    ON MONDAY I WENT TO SCHOOL EARLY. ROGAN
    liked to sleep until the last possible second, so I walked up by myself. None of the buses had arrived yet, and only a few of the teachers. I looked for Mr. Sullivan's Dodge Dart but didn't see it in the parking lot. Inside I dumped my stuff in my locker, then with feigned nonchalance strolled to the English Department. The bulletin board was empty, save for an outdated announcement about the school poetry magazine.
    I killed time as best I could, drifting around the library where I read old magazines. When I went back to the English Department, a knot of people was crowded around the bulletin board. One of them was Rogan.
    "Maddy." He gave me a strained look. "You got your part."
    "Really?"
    He pointed at the cast list. I slipped through the crowd to stand beside him, and scanned the names on the typesheet.
    TWELFTH NIGHT CAST
    ORSINO, Duke of Illyria
    VIOLA, a shipwrecked lady
    SEBASTIAN, twin brother of Viola
    Kevin Hayes
    Madeline Tierney
    Duncan Moss
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    My mouth went dry. Duncan Moss was a nondescript sophomore with longish brown hair and glasses. He was standing in the crowd, too, and flashed me a happy grin.
    Short, I thought with a sick feeling; he was short and had hair the same color as mine. Onstage, without makeup or wigs, we'd look alike.
    "Oh. Jeez." I turned to Rogan. "Did you--?" He gave me a twisted, I-told-you-so smile, then jabbed his thumb at the final name on the list.
    FESTE, a clown also called FOOL, Olivia's jester
    Rogan Tierney
    "Typecasting," he said. He turned and walked away.
    Our first rehearsal was that afternoon. We sat in chairs onstage, where Mr. Sullivan handed each of us a new Penguin paperback edition of the play.
    "You can make whatever notes you like in these," he said.
    "You mean, like, we can write in the book?" asked Duncan Moss.
    "I think it would be a very good idea," said Mr. Sullivan.
    We all smiled tentatively. Rogan took out a pen and made a big X on the cover of his paperback. Mr. Sullivan shot him an admonitory look.
    "Hey, I'm the fool," said Rogan guilelessly, and everyone laughed.
    "The zanies have their own little world, outside the mundane one that we live in, that Olivia and Orsino live in," said Mr. Sullivan later. It was too soon to start any blocking, but he stood and paced the
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    stage, tracing an invisible boundary. "It's not governed by our laws-- that's what the holiday of Twelfth Night is all about, a time when the Lord of Misrule takes over and our world is turned upside down. For the play to work, the audience has to completely believe in that other world. They have to look at Viola disguised as a boy named Cesario, and see a boy there, the same boy Olivia is in love with. But they also have to see Viola."
    Abruptly he stopped and looked at me expectantly. I gazed at my script, flustered.
    "Methinks she is speechless," said Rogan, and everyone laughed again.
    "It's a balancing act," said Mr. Sullivan. "Acting is a matter of balance. Method actors, they say they lose themselves in a part--but you don't really want to lose yourself, do you?"
    I looked up. Mr. Sullivan was still staring at me.
    "Because if you really lost yourself," he said in a low voice, "you might not come back."
    We finished the read-through, and Mr. Sullivan slapped his book against his knee. "Good job, everyone. We'll meet every day right after school, this week and next. After that we'll start going into night rehearsals."
    We all stood to go.