The Rehearsal

of the curtain call he had been close as he could be to the center: by Hamlet’s side, holding Hamlet’s sweaty hand.
    At the end of seventh form Stanley had seen the ragged call for auditions stapled to the pin-board in Careers Advice and simply fished for a pen and written his name. He supposed that he had wanted to be an actor since he was a child. Acting was part of a child’s primary lexicon of adult jobs: teacher, doctor, actor, lawyer, fireman, vet. Choosing to become an actor did not require originality or forethought. It was not like choosing to be a jockey, or a greengrocer, or an events manager for a local trust, where part of the choosing meant seeking and creating the choice; it did not depend on opportunity or introspection. Choosing to become an actor was simply a matter of reaching for one of these discrete and packaged categories with both hands. Stanley did not think about this as he wrote his name. The auditions sheet was watermarked and heavy, and the emblem of the Institute was stamped in bronze.
    Later, wishing to amplify the memory of this unremarkable decision, he imagined that it was this moment, when he lifted his pen up to the paper and pressed hard to unstick the ink in the roller-ball tip so that for an instant his fingertips were white and bloodless and hard—this moment, he imagined, was the moment when he seized an opportunity to transform from a Horatio into something utterly new.
    October
    “Welcome to the first stage of the audition process,” said the Head of Acting, and he briefly smiled. “We believe here that an untrained actor is a liar merely.” He was standing behind the desk with all his fingertips splayed upon the green leather. “As you are now,” he said, “you are all liars, not calm persuasive liars but anxious blushing liars full of doubt. Some of you will not gain entrance to this Institute, and you will remain liars forever.”
    There was scattered laughter, mostly uncomprehending and from the ones who would not gain entrance. The Head of Acting smiled again, the smile passing over his face like a shadow.
    Stanley was sitting stiffly at the back. He knew some of the boys from high school, but sat apart from them just in case they betrayed or encouraged some aspect of him that he wished to leave behind. The room was tense with hope and wanting.
    “So,” the Head of Acting said. “What happens at this Institute? How do we carve up the strange convulsive epileptic rhythm of the days? What violence is inflicted here, and what can you do to minimize the damage?”
    He let the question settle like dust.
    “This weekend is a virtual simulation of the kind of learning environment that students at the Institute encounter daily,” he said. “Today we are holding classes in improvisation, mime, song, movement and theater history, and tomorrow you will extensively workshop and rehearse a text in collaboration with a small group of others. You are all expected to participate fully in these lessons and to try your hardest to demonstrate to us the level of commitment you are prepared to offer us should you be invited to study here.
    “We will be watching you over the course of the weekend, patroling the edges of the rooms and taking notes. If you are successful after this first audition weekend, we will invite you back for an interview and a more formal audition. Does anyone have any questions about how the weekend will be run?”
    They all had paper numbers pinned to their chests like marathon runners. Number 45 raised his hand.
    “Why don’t you just hold ordinary auditions like the other acting schools?” he said. “Like where you prepare two monologues, one modern and one classical.”
    “Because we do not want to attract that kind of student,” said the Head of Acting, “the kind of student who is good at self-advertisement, who will choose two contrasting monologues that perfectly demonstrate the range of their skill and the depth of their cunning. We do not care about the difference between modern and classical. We do not want students who color-code their notes and start their essays weeks in advance.”
    Number 45 blushed, feeling that he had been implicated as a student who color-coded his notes and started his essays weeks in advance. The other hopefuls looked at him with pity and privately resolved to keep their distance.
    “Acting is a profession which requires a kind of wholeness,” the Head of Acting said. “My advice to you today is this: