The Audition

The hallway is full of people and mind-numbing, pointless chatter. My hands tremble, my face burns, and my heart is pounding so fast I fear it will break its way through my chest, cracking my ribs into fragments on its way out the window. The glass is cold against my cheek as I mutter schizophrenically to myself: words to my upcoming monologues. How can everyone be so calm? I am petrified of forgetting a word or making a mistake in my iambic pentameter. Shakespeare can roll from the tongue as easily as saliva or it can become as jumbled as a hiccup. Praying for the former, I wait among the other hopefuls. They call us in.

There are twenty people standing in the giant, echoing room. The numbers run through my head. Twenty bodies auditioning during this one timeslot for the sixteen spots available in Concordia’s Theatre Performance program, half of them for males and half for females. There are only four boys in the room. I have never wished to be a man more than I do right now. We must all be insane.

We do exercises: rolling around on the ground, fighting the left hand that is separate from the body, slithering as snakes on the smooth, hardwood floors. Some become absorbed, or pretend to do so, while others take small steps, confining themselves to a space and protecting themselves from this absurdity. I toss and turn and crawl and jump and hiss with the best of them. They watch; their eyes are without humour at our ridiculous antics. They are judging.

The time soon comes for us all to perform our monologues; my face is scarlet from my hyperactive blood-pumping machine. My hands begin to feel damp, the air in the room becomes thinner and thinner and it is hard to breathe. My mind barely notes that I am standing in front of this large group of eyes before I am performing; the words flow from my mouth, dancing in the air. My feet move me from point A to point B. I am Portia. It is as I practiced—or is it better? I cannot tell. All I know is that it could not have been good enough.

The girl after me is small. She has come all the way from Venezuela to audition. It was not worth the trip. She, like me, is not terrible, but by no means a star. Her stance is firm, confident and her voice does not shake, though her English is flawed. The rest is a blur, my eyes are almost swimming in the unshed tears that have welled there. There are thirty-two callbacks the next day; we will receive an email tonight at ten. So many have auditioned: so many more than thirty-two.                 

~*~

My stomach is twisting; my head is spinning; I have not had anything to eat since the audition, but my mother and I hover over the laptop in our hotel. It is ten o’clock, and I see the small red circle with the white “1” appear over my postage stamp on my MacBook, and all the air disappears from the room.

There are thirty-two numbers on the list and mine is not included. My heart does not comprehend this failure and I scan it seven times to be sure. This was my dream, and it is gone. I curl into a ball on my bed in defeat; I allow the tears to flood freely, my nose drips, and I cannot seem to breathe deeply enough. I see the visions of my future selves— Viola, Juliet, Helena—all disappear. My mother puts her arm around me and lets me cry and reminds me that there were hundreds of people auditioning for eight spots. I shiver and shake, anger pulses through me. How could I have been stupid enough to believe my number would be on that list?

~*~

On my black couch back in Ontario, I sit with my laptop open in front of me, searching through the OUAC site. I have three pending applications, useless now—that future is gone. Two more stare me in the face; my finger hovers over the track pad… Should I? Have I given it my all? Is it time to give in? It feels like failure to change my mind this late in the game. My chest aches, but my finger becomes certain. I tell myself that it is not over—I will find time. I can feel this newfound sanity clearing the delusions from my brain; a haze lifts from my eyes. I click and send in the new applications.

I take a deep breath and smile. Shakespeare can still speak to me—so, maybe there is some madness left.

Samarra Goldglas enjoys reading, writing, and theatre. She has just completed her first year at Western and is pursuing a degree that includes English, French, and Creative Writing.