The Third Cesario

When I wanted inspiration for my Shakespearean illustration assignment, being mistaken for an actor and shoved onto the stage was not what I had in mind. The incident sounds absurd even to me, and I wish it were a bad dream, but I think the bruise on my knee, where I scraped the stage floor, will serve as a painful reminder of that freakish situation, the most mortifying moment of my life.

I was already irritated that day. The deadline for my art project was creeping closer, and here I was, working another weekend shift at the Shipwreck Bar, having to earn money to sustain myself and cover the rent during my studies at the Academy. No wonder I never had any energy to draw when I had to serve drinks to grumpy old couples and rude construction workers all Saturday long.

When evening fell and the shift was over, I already knew I’d be too tired to be in the mood for drawing that night. Punching open the squeaky door, I mounted the cracked stairway from the bar’s half-basement spot in the squalid alleyway and stepped onto the pavement. Of course, it had to start raining at that very moment, and I didn’t have an umbrella. Still, I didn’t bother running as a mixture of exhaustion and irritation tensed up my every move, so I merely pulled up the hood of my loose jacket, buried my hands in my pockets and proceeded down the street.

As I navigated my way among other pedestrians, some of the comments from earlier that day swam across my mind. After I’d messed up three consecutive orders, the last of these customers – a burly mechanic from the nearby auto repair shop – had gotten so upset at my forgetting to add an extra teaspoon of cocoa powder over his Vanilla Latte that he’d ended up roasting my very appearance. Throwing remarks at my long hair that ‘made me look like a girl’ and my baggy clothes that ‘didn’t belong in professional staff’, he’d spent twenty minutes shouting over the counter at me while I’d pretended not to hear him. If only he knew the things I wished I could have said back but had bitten my tongue because I needed this job.

           I was soaked to the skin by the time I made it to the bus stop, kicking an empty beer can on my way under the roof. All I could think about were the three steps when I got to my dorm room: taking a hot shower, curling up in my bed with headphones on, and listening to my favourite band, Nightphobia, until I fell asleep.

           Perhaps thinking about my art homework would magically generate half the work, and I would only need to finish a few touches before handing it in. Obviously not. The blank paper was still waiting on my desk. To be clear, I was totally in love with the assignment given to us by Professor Dupler; he’d been inspired by The Twelfth Night by Shakespeare, which was being played at the city theatre this month. He’d told us to watch the play and paint an illustration for it, but with an unexpected twist.

           He hadn’t offered explicit directives on what the twist should be, and he certainly hadn’t insinuated that we should disrupt the play and create the twist ourselves, but yeah, I would soon kind of do that. Without really wanting to, I swear.

           Stationed at the stop, I glanced up at the screen displaying bus arrivals, noticing that bus number 14 would arrive in one minute. Relief washed over me at the thought that I wouldn’t have to wait long for my ride home. One thing would go right that day.

Or so I thought.

Indeed, the bus pulled to a stop in front of me without delay, and I hurried inside with a group of other passengers whose wet umbrellas brushed uncomfortably against me. Feeling even wetter, I stomped through the bus and settled in a seat at the very back, away from other people. Leaning the side of my head against the window, I closed my eyes for a few minutes.

But then I realised something wasn’t quite right.

The bus was supposed to turn left at the Globe Hotel. Usually, when a bus turns, you feel the pressure of the movement in your seat, but that sensation never came. I peered one eye open and looked around. Why hadn’t the bus taken its usual route? Where were we headed?

I began craning my neck around, trying to work out why we were going the wrong way until I finally realised that the mistake was mine. I was on the wrong bus. Again. Why I so often mistook bus 11 for bus 14, I do not know, but it usually happened when my eyes were bleary. When the bus pulled over at the next stop, I hastily pressed the button on the pole and darted out, landing in a puddle that splashed water straight into my sneakers.

‘Great,’ I groaned.

The bus sprung into motion, splashing more water over me. After aiming a rude finger gesture its way, I glared up at the flashy facade of the Cultural House, the city theatre across the road from me. How convenient that I had landed here by mistake now when the broad screen displayed the title, TWELFTH NIGHT, OR WHAT YOU WILL, the very play that had inspired Professor Dupler. It was another reminder that I ought to work on my illustration tonight.

For a moment, I actually pondered whether I should go and see the play. Maybe this was a sign. Even though I’d read Twelve Nights in high school, seeing it on stage could have opened up an entire realm of inspiration for me, and the illustration would flow onto the blank paper like a melody.

Or maybe not.

Checking my phone, I was almost relieved to see that I’d missed more than half of the performance already. I was also tired anyway, so if Mother Destiny had brought me here, she should have calculated her timing a bit better.

Looking left and right down the length of the busy road, I hurried across it, aiming for the Cultural Centre to bypass it and take the shortcut to the nearest bus stop, where I would wait for the correct bus. The path between the theatre’s side wall and the row of trees was very dark at nighttime, so I always ran down that part. I’m not particularly scared of the dark, but when I’m outdoors, I never know what – or who – I’ll run into in the shadows.

My shoes smacked and rubbed wetly against my heels as I hurried through the darkness, and I could already tell I’d have a few painful blisters later on. I kept close to the wall for orientation (and a bit of shelter from the rain) and bent down mid-walk to readjust my right sock—

‘Oof!’ – ‘Waah!’

I bumped into someone who lost their balance and stumbled away, hitting the wet concrete with an audible splat in the puddle. The instant shock rooted me in place, but the person on the ground sounded even more scandalised. Horrified. Outraged.

‘What the— Who’s there? What do you want? What is this!’

‘Sorry, I’m so sorry,’ I muttered with a shaky voice. ‘Let me help you up.’

Unsticking my phone from the inside of my wet jacket, I pulled it out and switched on the torch. With some light shed on the scene, I noticed the person I’d collided with was a young man around my age who also had long hair and wore a baggy brown coat similar to my shabby old jacket. The only difference was that his outfit looked more like a costume, whereas mine was just how I always dressed.

‘Look what you’ve done!’ he growled at me through his teeth while holding a wet cigarette between them. ‘I’m soaking wet now! How am I supposed to go back on stage! I need to be in my place in five!’

‘Sorry.’

‘You blockhead! Who’s going to get me a dry costume now!’

I grabbed him by the armpits and hoisted him to his feet, the shock inside me slowly transitioning into annoyance. It was yet another inconvenience today, and another person was shouting at me. Could I do anything right anymore? Could this day drag on any longer? All I wanted was to get home, listen to my music and get some sleep already.

Bang!

A door from the wall beside us burst open, hitting the young man in the costume straight in the face and throwing him back into the puddle. Sharp light spilt over me from the space beyond the open door, and a frame of a short woman in a puffy scarf and a makeup brush in her hand stood there silhouetted against it.

‘There you are!’ she rasped, pointing with the brush as if holding a weapon. ‘Get over here!’

I stepped aside to allow her to help the rude actor to his feet – I wasn’t going to do it for the second time after he’d called me a blockhead – but the woman did not touch him. It seemed she didn’t even notice him. Leaning forward, she grabbed me by the upper arm and pulled me inside the theatre’s corridor into the backstage.

‘Whoa!’ I stumbled through my words. ‘Excuse me. What are you doing?’

‘How many times do I have to tell you not to take cigarette breaks during a show?’ she barked without looking back at me, her grip incredibly firm as she pulled me along a bright corridor with passing security guards and sound technicians. ‘Instead of touching up your makeup, I need to spend seven minutes looking for you! And look at you! You made the costume wet in all that rain! What are you thinking?’

‘W-wait!’ I stammered. ‘I’m not who you think I am!’

‘Oh, shush!’ the woman grunted. ‘You’ll get into your role in two minutes. Now stop squirming and hurry! Hey, Franny!’ she called out to another woman who was peering out a nearby door. ‘Get Sebastian a towel, now!’

Before I could turn around, a towel was thrown at my face, and the temperamental makeup artist began scrubbing my head dry, nearly suffocating me.

‘Where is he?’ roared a commanding man’s voice, the sound reverberating through the walls.

‘Director, I’m so sorry,’ the makeup artist said sheepishly while forcefully wiping my head and pulling my hood off my head to attack the back of my neck. ‘I didn’t keep him! He went for a break! Here, he’s all yours!’

‘Disaster!’ the man’s phoney voice exclaimed, and another harsh hand – a masculine one – pulled me up a steep staircase, where I lost balance and bumped my knees several times before managing to follow him. ‘You’re a disgrace! You know how many esteemed actors want to be in your position?’

‘I’m not sure,’ I said through the towel wrapped around my head.

‘Move it.’

Through the thick fabric, I could see darkness swallowing me when somebody finally grabbed the towel and yanked it off me, leaving my hair dishevelled before my face. I stood at the side of the Cultural Centre’s stage, hidden behind the curtain. On stage were eight actors in old-fashioned, Elizabethan costumes. One of them dramatically shouted their lines.

‘Will you help?’ he yelled. ‘An ass-head, and a coxcomb, and a knave, a thin-faced knave, a gull?’

‘Get him to bed!’ spoke a blonde lady on stage who wore a flowy dress. ‘And let his hurt be looked to.’

The loud man was dragged off stage on the opposite end from where I stood, and then, five people remained in the spotlight, waiting to proceed. Nobody else spoke their lines; they stood like mannequins, waiting for the next cue.

‘What are you doing?’ the director’s voice hissed in my ear. ‘You’re up! Go!’

‘Huh?’ I responded, feeling the blood drain from my face. ‘Oh no, no, no, no, no! This is a mistake.’

The man didn’t listen to me. His hands forcefully placed a hat over my head to conceal all my hair, then pushed me forward, causing me to stumble to my knees in the centre of the stage, right among the actors. I looked up and to the side. Blinding lights shone down from above, and a large audience sat silently in their chairs. The actors remained in their places, none of them looking at me. I noticed another actress on stage dressed as a man and wearing the same hat as me. It was apparent I was supposed to walk onstage and deliver Sebastian’s lines.

But I wasn’t Sebastian. I had no idea what to do. I crouched on the floor, petrified.

A pen could have been dropped, and it would have echoed throughout the entire massive hall. Slowly and stiffly, I struggled to my feet, trembling from head to toe. Whispers floated from my left. Someone kept repeating something I couldn’t make out. It was only when I realised that the words were coming from a prompter hidden by the curtain that I understood. He kept repeating, ‘I am sorry, madam! … I am sorry, madam!’

‘I …’ I spoke into the echoing silence. ‘I’m sorry … madam? I … I really shouldn’t be here. I think I need to leave.’

The actors around me finally broke character, casting nervous glances my way. The blonde lady in the dress, her eyes on me now, spun around, her skirts swirling, and placed her hands on her hips.

‘Who the hell is this?’ she demanded.

Her question wasn’t aimed at me; she was staring over my shoulder at the director behind the curtain. All eyes onstage were now fixed on me. The director, who realised I wasn’t the actor he’d thought, looked like his face was about to explode. His thin moustache curled upwards as if singed by fire.

‘Get that idiot off the stage!’ he snapped, only barely managing to keep his voice on a whispering level.

Pushing past him, the true actor portraying Sebastian shuffled forward, appearing the most furious of them all. His wet hair clung to the side of his face, and he stomped onstage, looking ready to murder me.

‘He’s an impostor!’ he declared melodramatically. ‘I am the true Sebastian!’

I stood in a state of shock and a hint of amazement. Was he improvising the situation to make it a part of the performance?

The blonde girl also regained her composure, standing straighter and adding, ‘What is this? So many similar faces!’ She gestured at the girl beside me, who was dressed as a man, ‘One Cesario!’ She pointed at me. ‘Two Cesarios!’ Then, she set her blazing eyes on the real actor. ‘And now, a third Cesario!’

‘None of us is named Cesario, madam,’ announced the girl in a man’s suit, taking her hat off and revealing long hair cascading down her shoulders. ‘I am Viola, and I disguised myself as Cesario! This is my brother Sebastian, whose appearance I mimicked when dressing as a man. And this,’ she said, looking at me. ‘This is our other brother who is also pretending to be Sebastian! He should be gone! And Cesario – well, none of us is actually Cesario. That was a person I invented.’

‘Cesario – the man I fell in love with – does not exist?’ the blonde lady stammered dramatically and dropped to her knees.

Murmurs spread among the audience as everyone puzzled over whether this was supposed to be a part of the play. A child’s voice rang out from the back of the hall, ‘This is so confusing! You all suck!’

I gathered myself and put on a haughty tone. ‘I had better leave, then, to make this easier. I am neither Sebastian nor Cesario. Good day!’

With that, I darted offstage, dodged the director’s hand that was reaching out to grab me, and sprinted down the hallway all the way back to the backstage door. I burst out into the rain and kept running until I reached the building with my dorm room.

For three more days, I was in a state of trauma, unable to eat and startled by a simple greeting. I kept the incident to myself, even chuckling along with my friends when they read on the news about a random guy who had taken the stage during a Shakespearean play.

I never plan to reveal the truth to anyone.

However, one good thing came out of this: I never lacked inspiration again. When I run out of ideas, I simply choose a classical scene in a timeless literary work, drop a random and disruptive character in it, and enjoy the chaos that unfolds.