The Scottish Play

Worrying about being killed during a performance might have been a whole new level of stage fright. I wouldn’t know firsthand about the stage part, but there definitely was a palpable fright leading up to the performance last summer. The troubles began well over a year ago when the drama teacher held a little get together of all prospective drama students. It was my senior year and I needed extra credit somewhere, so decided to sign up. There were a few others like me – no acting experience, and not the slightest inclination to change that in their last year of high school. He was quite upfront about how we would likely be put to use.

           “Don’t think you guys will be used in any acting roles,” he said. “But if anything changes, I’ll let you know.”

           He went on the clarify that meant that if there was a shortage of actors to fill the secondary and tertiary roles – you know, like servant number one, servant number two, random old man – then we might get the role. But given the huge turnout I imagined he only mentioned it for posterity. He also didn’t want us to give up and quit just yet. We were still very crucial to the whole operation.

           “For a performance to function properly, there need to be many moving parts. Good actors, good costumes, good props and good funding as well.” He made sure to emphasize the word funding. “Lastly, there needs to be an equally sized cast behind the scenes.”

           And that would be us. We were his actors behind the curtain as he referred to us. Some of the actors-to-be were quite disappointed at this straightforward rebuke at their potential, and did in fact quit after being told that they would be relegated to non-acting roles. I didn’t care either way and was assigned as a lighting assistant, but eventually moved up to lighting coordinator, then supervisor and finally manager. I was never sure if those titles had any real meaning behind them. He did, however, heap praise on my ability to maneuver the stage lights perfectly, which I think had more to do with the fact that I was the only one who showed any initiative. Those under me were mostly disgruntled wanna-be actors who hoped this would be their first big role. The rest were like me and simply needed extra credit to graduate.

           The actors chosen for the main roles were all seniors who started acting well before high school. They all fit the part, too. I don’t just mean the skills and abilities. I’m not sure if arrogance and conceit came as perquisites, or something they acquired along the way, but this group had it in spades. After a week of auditioning everyone knew their roles – both in the performance and socially – as if someone had dropped each of us down a Plinko hierarchy board. The first month did not contain anything out of the ordinary. The actors practiced their lines amongst themselves, while the actors behind the curtain begrudgingly learned their new trade.

           In those early stages it seemed as if the only one intending for it to all work out was the drama teacher himself. He wasn’t a big believer in luck, fate, fortune or any other form of otherworldly influence. He would repeat to us how in the past, performances would succeed or fail not just based on who was involved. It also largely depended on how much time and money were invested.

“Money’s a big one. Everyone has time, not everyone has money.”

“I think it’s a lot to do with luck,” one of the actors said.

Being high schoolers, and with their heads in the clouds and eyes on Broadway or Hollywood, all of the actors wholeheartedly agreed that it was luck and fate rather than time or money. They were sure they were going to make it on the big stage. The acting ability came secondary. You had to be there at the right time, or the right place and find the right person. They made sure to wear their lucky trinkets, accessories or even undergarments. They swore it had helped them in the past. If they could align the stars just right.

           “It hasn’t let me down yet.”

           “I feel better and luckier while I have it with me.”

           “Helps me act better.”

           “They’re comfortable on stage, so I give off better vibes.”

          And so on, and so forth. I wondered if that’s why I and the other stagehands were shoved in the back. The actors would trade lucky rituals amongst themselves and – much to our chagrin – to the behind the curtain crowd, including myself. I mostly ignored it, but saw that it infuriated some of the others.

           “You don’t think I don’t already know that?” One of the stagehands said to an actor after a rehearsal. An actor thought it necessary to give unwanted advice that the stagehand clearly did not know but pretended he did.

           “If you’d known that you wouldn’t be standing in the back wheeling around props, now would you?”

           The drama teacher somehow held together this motley crew while reminding us that for most of us it meant graduating or not.

           “Listen,” he began. “This is a team effort, if you want to get the credit at the end of the year then we’re just gonna have to cool our egos.” He walked in between the brash actor and the fuming stagehand. “It’s not gonna be easy to correctly pull off the Scottish Play even with all hands-on deck, so let’s try to avoid this, okay?”

           “The what?”

           “Oh, he doesn’t know. What do you expect from someone like him?”

           “Don’t even start,” said the drama teacher. He turned back towards the stagehand.

           “We don’t refer to this play by name… it’s a luck thing. Try to keep that mind.”

           The next day I was going through some of the lighting arrangements we would use during a particular scene. My crew at this point at least knew what they were supposed to do in their respective roles, even if they didn’t quite grasp the bigger picture. The actors rehearsed their lines; we rehearsed our movements. After the rehearsals the stagehands usually cleaned up and left quickly while the actors stood around gossiping. On this particular day their exact location on the stage mattered more than they could have possibly known. As soon as I walked off the stage, I heard a whipping snap, followed by metal-on-metal screeching and finally a loud crashing sound. Before I had time to really turn around and see what had happened, one of the actors collapsed as others rushed around to help her. I didn’t find out what truly happened until the following day. It was supposed to be another rehearsal but was postponed. Instead, the drama teacher had a meeting with all of us. We had to sit, actor or stagehand – it didn’t matter, in the theatre’s first three rows of seats while he paced up and down the stage.

           “We’re lucky no one got seriously hurt,” he began. “A few inches to one side and we would’ve had our first casualty of the performance.”

           One of the actors tried to speak up but was immediately shut down by the drama teacher.

         “I’m not here to assign blame onto anyone.”

           He stopped and looked behind him where the light fixture fell.

          “She should be fine within the week, having narrowly avoided getting crushed, then fainting and almost hitting her head on a prop.”

           He took a deep breath.

           “She’s understandably shaken after this accident.”

           “It ain’t no accident,” came a reply from one of the actors.

           “Yeah, we know who’s responsible.”

           “Oh really? And who might that be?” asked the drama teacher.

           “The idiots-behind-the curtain.”

           There was a loud symphony of agreement from all the actors. The stagehands chimed in opposition. We had a drama within a drama, and the drama teacher tried his best to keep each side under control.

           “Now, let’s not assign blame,” he said shouting overtop of them.

           But the meeting broke out into open hostilities. The seating arrangement was probably the only thing keeping either side from coming to blows. The actors eventually got up and left the theatre despite the drama teacher’s urging not to.

           “The meeting is not done, please stay put.”

           “We will come when it’s time for actual rehearsals, not this waste of time.”

           “That’s right, drama queens, go run along and cry about your precious Scottish Play.”

           It must’ve taken more than just a week for the actress to recover and even more time for the rift between the stagehands and actors to be mended. But somehow the drama teacher accomplished it. A month later we were operating like nothing had happened. Neither side was friendly, but there also wasn’t any open hostility, either. The drama teacher put in a request with the school to supply us with food and drink. He had hoped that would calm our nerves. Or in the case of the large coffee machine, make us wide awake during rehearsals and less prone to near-fatal accidents. Somehow the request, despite the school’s budget constraints, got approved. The school board knew about the student nearly getting crushed and felt they had to go out of their way to calm parents’ fears about theatre safety.

The snacks were fine and lifted our morale somewhat. That is, until they didn’t. Eventually someone got food poisoning. No one knew who it was, just whispers and rumors. This time it was much harder to pin it on incompetence. Again, we had a meeting and again, nothing came of it. The drama teacher spoke again to the school board and got them to sign off on renting out a large theatre for the rest of the school year. He said something about bad luck and that we needed a new place. It worked. The board agreed and we moved our production to a real theatre, almost three times as big.

           “I think this change of environment will do us well,” he said. “We brought in a professional catering service, so you guys can feel confident grabbing a snack or a coffee or two before rehearsal.”

The worse our luck was, the more the board approved the drama teacher’s requests. At one of the final rehearsals before our performance we invited some of the faculty and board to sit in the audience. True to form nothing went according to plan. Although thankfully not near-fatal. Lights wouldn’t work properly; props broke seemingly randomly, and one of the actresses had her entire costume fall off of her on stage. She ran off in her underwear screaming. I later overheard the drama teacher do his best trying to explain why the school should continue to fund this play with a larger chunk of their budget. The costumes were too old, he argued. New props needed to be bought. He said we could sell some tickets to the general public to offset the cost. The board once again agreed.

           “Despite all the misfortunates that have taken place, I think it’ll all work out in the end” the drama teacher said at one of our last meetings. “If the rehearsals are bad, that means the play will go off without a hitch.”

His confidence didn’t seem to rub off on anyone else. We were concerned and admittedly scared.

           The big day came. It finally came, we would all be free men and women after this horror show of a year. Tickets for the general public were in fact put on sale a month before, and sold out completely by performance day. Teachers, students, parents, and the general public were all in the crowd. It would have to be perfect. And it was. At least up until the final fight scene. The actors tried their best to fight in a way that would sell it as real – at the drama teacher’s last-minute urging. During the performance, one of my lighting stagehands leaned over to me and said how the blood and actor screaming were a nice touch. I didn’t remember either during rehearsals. Only after the curtain closed on that scene did we realize neither was planned. But at least the audience approved of it. We got a standing ovation by the end. The impaled actor was later rushed to hospital and the ‘fake sword’ which punctured his abdomen only just missed several vital organs.

           He was noticeably absent during curtain call. Which confused some of the audience for the whole of 30 seconds until another actor slipped on something oily on stage, got immediately knocked out unconscious and caused raucous laughter among the attendees. The way he fell with flailing limbs gave the audience the impression that it was some final comedic stunt. The rest of the actors bowed and nervously smiled. Aside from us the only ones who found out were his parents when they came backstage and found him lying on the couch with an icepack on his head.

           And so that’s it. That’s my first and last time working in theatre. If I had known it would be this chaotic and dangerous, I would have never signed up. At least I graduated high school and will never have to deal with this again. As for the drama department, they are now well-funded and going strong. But last I heard the drama teacher got replaced with a new guy. Apparently, the previous one was caught deliberately damaging some of the equipment.