Practice Your Look

 Practice Your Look

It was very much an experimental play, called “Long Ago and Far Away”. But Hal needed the work, and it had been too long a time since his last acting gig. He had no lines to rehearse, no words to remember.  And he spent almost all of the play standing in one spot, which was in a circle painted black, so he didn’t have to worry about where he should be at any time.  So it should have been an easy part for him to play. But it wasn’t. The director kept saying to him, “Practice your look. You do not have it the way I want it yet. Practice your look.”

Hal was supposed to look far into the audience, never at the other actors. He was to keep giving that look, a faraway look, until the final scene, in which, at a verbal prompting from the two actors on the stage with him, he would step down from the stage, and walk to where he was staring, and point at one particular person. Then the leading actors were to say their final lines, and after which he was to walk back to the stage taking the designated person with him. That was the “audience participation” that had been advertised in the flyers. That would bring to an end the final scene. Hopefully, it would also be the beginning of thunderous applause.

Hal practiced ‘the look’ in his apartment standing in front of a wall mirror: ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, why am I not doing this right at all.’ He would sometimes even trying it on while waiting for a bus. Once he weirded out the bus driver. But still the director was quite critical of ‘the look’  Over and over again he told him to ‘practice your look’. It seemed to Hal that he might never be able to get it quite right. But then one of the other actors gave him a useful tip. 

           “What you need to do Hal is put something that you can clearly see on the seat that you are to look at. I think that such a trick will make it work for you.”

           Hal loved the idea. So the day of the next rehearsal, he took with him to the theatre a red sweater that one of his aunts, Barb, had given him, a sweater that he had never worn except when his aunt came to visit, which fortunately was not very often. This would be making good use of it, and he could tell the story to his aunt, so she would feel that he appreciated her heretofore rarely worn birthday gift to him five years ago.

           So, before the rehearsal, he folded the red sweater over a seat in the back row, and began practicing the look from his black spot before the other actors got on the stage. To his great delight, it seemed to work. Not only did the director not criticize, but he actually complimented him – a first.

           There was another rehearsal before the first performance. Hal met with the same success, even getting a wink from the director – another first.

The First Performance

It was the night of the first performance. Hal hoped that he would do well, despite the fact that he would not have the red sweater as his guide. When the crowd came in, and the place was packed, he looked at the location of his look, and was glad to see that the seat was occupied by a woman he wouldn’t mind staring at for the duration of the play. Beside her was a big man with a gruff-looking face. Hal was glad that he wouldn’t be looking directly at that fellow.

As he followed her facial expressions during Act One, Scene One, he could see that the woman did not look particularly happy. He hoped it wasn’t because she didn’t like the play, or worse, that she did not like being stared at by him.

By the end of Act One, Scene Three, Hal had figured out why she had the unhappy look on her face. It had to do with the gruff man sitting beside her. He looked angry, and not at the play or at his staring, but for some reason unknown to Hal, angry with her. Several times it seemed that he actually hit her on the shoulder. Then the man got up and left his seat. Hal could see what looked like some kind of bottle the left pocket of his suit jacket.

After the End of the First Act

The First Act was over, and the crowd left for the hallways outside the theatre proper. Hal wondered whether, and certainly hoped that he would again be given the pleasure (for he knew that he had been charmed by her) of staring at the young woman. He also hoped that the gruff man who had been sitting beside her had left and would not return. It was with mixed feelings that he saw both of them return to the seats, the man holding her left arm tightly, like he thought that she might try to escape.

It was fortunate for Hal that he had no lines in the play, nor did he have to interact with any of the other actors on the stage. For his entire attention, both in his seeing and in his thinking, was directed to the woman and the man who continued to treat her badly in ways not seen by anyone other than Hal. 

The Closing Scene

It was the closing scene, the only one in which Hal would have all eyes on him. The two other actors on stage said their lines that prompted him to climb down from the stage (there were steps that he would use), and go to the person he would bring back with him. He walked slowly but deliberately, enjoying being in the crowd’s focus for once, with the spotlight being literally on him. He wanted to make the time last.

Finally he arrived at the seat where she was, the one he had been looking at for so long.

He reached down and took her hand in his. She stood up with no other prompting from him.

They walked toward the front. Just before they reached the steps, he spoke to her, saying with a boldness he didn’t know he had, “I saw your husband treating you shabbily. You have my complete sympathy.”

           Her reply startled him, “He is not my husband, just the worst boy friend that I have ever had. This will be our last date. I can’t stand him….and…by the way…I liked how you looked at me all the way throughout the play.

           Hal’s boldness grew, as they walked up the steps to the stage, and they stood side by side, hand in hand. One of the two actors said her last line, “I feel a presence here that I’ve not felt before.” The other actor replied, “That’s what happens when you travel to a place that is long ago and far away.” The curtain was then drawn shut, to the applause of the audience.

           And after the bows and courtesies, the actors left for the party that was to follow. And, at the party, Hal felt a presence beside him in the here and now that he had not felt in a very long time. And the gruff man drove home alone.