Things I Never Told My Wife
True confessions of a Shakespearean actor
Chapter 17
I HAD TWO SHORT GIGS that summer. I agreed to a guest appearance in Measure for Measure for the Rainier Youth Theatre where Traci had learned clowning. My age difference compared to the rest of the actors let me carry off Duke Vincentio when it would normally be played by an older actor. I had an ulterior motive or two in taking the role for a modest honorarium. I wanted to learn more about the program that had turned out such a fine comic actress and see if there was a way that I could encourage more to come to PCAD. I also wanted to meet the director and brains of the program, Tressa Bridal. There was a good possibility I’d want to send my kids to this theatre.
I was impressed, all the way around, by the program, the talent, the kids, the director, and the manager. And I got recruited. The first thing Tressa asked me was if I was interested in helping with the summer camp. I agreed to consider it for next year.
I was finished with my commitments by the first of August and Daphne and I boarded the Coast Starlight from Seattle to Los Angeles with the kids. Shelly was both fascinated and horrified by the automatic flushing toilets on the train, which she called ‘automatickers.’ We’d planned ahead with lots of games and crafts to keep the kids busy on the journey and they were very good, even if a little hyper about going to see Mickey Mouse. The train was like a rocking cradle for both of them, though. We tucked them in an hour after dinner and they were out cold.
The rocking of the train was pretty good for Daphne and me, too, though not in the same way. Once I was tucked into her pussy, we let the swaying of the train provide the rest of the motion. It was long, gentle, and extremely satisfying. Then we slept soundly for the rest of the night.
Disneyland was pretty overwhelming for the kids. They liked the kiddie rides and characters. We decided against the more frightening roller coasters. And I admit to glancing at every princess character we passed to see if Abby had transferred from Florida to California.
“We’ve been married seven years, Terry. They say that’s when most marriages break up. Do you have any unfulfilled fantasies?” Daphne and I were lying in our berth on the train back to Seattle. I think the kids were going to sleep for a few days. We were both a bit exhausted, too.
“Fantasies? You mean like covering you in whipped cream and licking it all off?”
“Ooh! We could do that. I was thinking of any sexual things you’ve wanted to try that we haven’t done. I don’t want our life to become routine and boring.”
“Give me an example from one of your fantasies,” I suggested.
“Hmm. I sometimes have dreams about making love on horseback. I doubt it would be very comfortable, but I dream about it anyway. Making love on a train was one of my fantasies until right before you stuck your penis in me and we rocked our way to fulfillment.”
“Maybe I’m just boring. I should see if I can write some creative fantasies. Oh! Here’s one. I used to imagine that Billy and I were facing off to arm wrestle to see which of us got to suck on your nipples.” We laughed.
“He was just a baby!”
“You wouldn’t believe how strong he was in my imagination. I only started winning once he was weaned.”
“Your TA,” Daphne said. I froze. I had fantasized about her all year last year until I fucked her. Daphne just continued on. “I used to fantasize that I was bringing you lunch at your office but you weren’t there. Instead, your TA closed the door behind me and bent me over your desk to have his way with me. He was so strong and handsome and young! I always came in gushes when I masturbated to that fantasy.”
“Richard. You thought Richard was sexy?” He was a decent looking guy but I never thought he’d appeal to Daphne.
“Oh, yes. Right up to the moment I met him. You remember. I didn’t meet him until opening night of your show this spring. From the time you mentioned him bringing you coffee in the morning and scheduling your meetings, I envisioned a slave who rebelled against his master by fucking his wife. Meeting him really killed the buzz. He was nothing like I imagined. Well, maybe a little like. Not as good a fantasy as your TA the first year, though. She was a wet dream.”
“Are you telling me you were attracted to her?”
“No! Terry, how could you think such a thing? Well, maybe a little. You had to fantasize about her all the time!”
“If I fantasized about all my good-looking students, I’d never get any work done and I’d be too raw from beating off to ever make love,” I laughed.
“You’re no fun at all! I want to know more about your fantasies, Terry. I want to make sure I fulfill any I can.”
“You, too, honey.” The train—and another orgasm—finally rocked me to sleep.
I had announced Romeo and Juliet as the Shakespeare for next season, so I was surprised twice right after freshman orientation. The first time was when Jon invited all the theatre faculty and their families to his house for a Labor Day cookout. While there, he informed us all that the schedule had been changed. First, we wouldn’t be working at ACT this year. Dan Richardson would move into the early spring slot and would be performing at Seattle Rep’s Bagley Wright Theater. Evita had really put a mark on the map for PCAD and the Rep had asked to host our next musical. Dan was planning to direct Victor Victoria. My Shakespeare would be at SCU, the university we often associated with and it would be the first two weekends of May. I’d worked on how I was going to stage Romeo and Juliet on ACT’s thrust stage. Switching to a proscenium stage would be a challenge. I needed to get to work on it right away.
The second shock was Traci sitting in my office on Tuesday when I got to the school.
“Are you my TA this year, Traci? I thought that was reserved for seniors.”
“I’m not and it is.” She handed me a cup of coffee.
“So, you are here with my coffee why?”
“Well… Lee Price is your TA but she has a class this hour and can’t be here to greet you with your coffee. She didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot, so she asked me to bring you a cup. It seems awfully demeaning to have your assistant run to get you coffee. I think you should be able to get your own.”
“The… uh… coffee is a longstanding theatre joke. It’s the same as sending a new techy to wash gels. The assistant is always responsible for getting coffee, cigarettes, and comic relief for the director. I assure you, I told both El and Richard about it and they both decided—independently, mind you—to keep the joke going as long as they could. Now you’ve made me admit it.”
“Oh, poo. Now I’m going to have to bring you coffee every day in order to keep the mystique up.”
“You don’t have to.”
“But I will. You see, I’ve got a request.”
“Really? Tell me what’s on your mind, Traci.”
“First, we’re not trying to manipulate you or get you to make a lot of promises but Lee and I have talked it over. She almost turned down becoming your TA because she desperately wants to audition for Romeo and Juliet.” I could definitely see Lee in either one of the major female roles.
“There’s no rule that my TA has to be assistant director. She can certainly audition instead. I was surprised Richard didn’t audition last year.”
“But that leaves you without an AD. Which is why I volunteered to bring you coffee this morning. I’d like to be your assistant if you’ll have me.” Now that was a surprise! I’d been thinking seriously about putting Traci in the leading role. Partly because of what I had planned for the part. But to have her working beside me all the time? I could certainly tolerate that.
“Give me a little time to think this over. I’m surprised you want to work on that side of the stage, but it would certainly be good for you. I want to talk to Lee, too, and make sure she is onboard with this. A lot of my TA’s job has been managing the production as well. I need to decide what a division of responsibilities would be. I’ll talk to her when she comes in today.”
“You’re a peach, Terry!” Traci bounced up out of the chair, kissed me on the cheek and took off. Oh my. I wonder if I should put her on my list of fantasies to be shared with Daphne.
“You want to what?” Jon wasn’t really angry but he was thoroughly nonplussed. That wasn’t the way Shakespeare was normally done but I had already shown him I was trying to break new ground. I hoped he would accept this as just another of my attempts to make the Bard more relevant. He took a deep breath and calmed himself. “I’ll have to take this to Watts, probably to the board, and we’ll need approval from SCU since it’s on their stage. Be prepared with a complete rationale, not only of the artistic merits but of the effects it will have on the performers. I’ll start in the morning.”
“Thanks, Jon. I’m sure this will work if we do it right.”
“Well, be prepared with an alternative. I’ve no idea how long it will take to get this through the process.”
Jon had a rehearsal to get to. He was breaking his own tradition of small cast shows for the fall. There were twenty-six characters in Dark of the Moon and half were women.
I managed to get responsibilities divided up between Lee and Traci with only a few overlaps. Fortunately, the girls worked well together. Lee ordered scripts and supplies for me. Traci started doing the cue books. My first production meeting with Jim, Traci, and Jim’s assistant, Levi Reichman, was revealing in many ways. Jim was deep in the construction of the versatile set for Moon. He was disappointed in Dan’s concept for Victor Victoria. And I was going to throw another wrench in the gears.
“You know that Dan wants to do Victor Victoria with nothing but props and furniture. We’ll be on that beautiful stage at the Bagley Wright with a show that simply begs for lavish sets of hotels and nightclubs and putting no backgrounds or set construction on it at all,” Jim moaned.
“Well, I’m looking at something a little more complex for Romeo and Juliet. Something with levels and, obviously, a balcony. It’s the bedroom scene I’m most concerned with. We’ll need extremely delicate and well positioned lighting. I’m planning on having them nude.”
“Nude! Has Jon approved this?”
“Not yet. It’s working its way up through the channels. But that’s the concept. Even if it doesn’t get approved, I’ll want it lit like it was.” I glanced over at Traci. She and Levi were just sitting there with their mouths open. I grinned at Jim, who was just shaking his head.
“Marcie Johnson,” he finally said. I hadn’t met the woman. “I’m going to task her with the lighting design. Levi, you need to make sure the set is designed in such a way as to provide anything she’ll need in the way of lighting angles. If I were you, I’d start with the bed and design the rest of the set from there. Terry, things sure have been interesting since you started doing Shakespeare here.”
“Let’s keep this part of the production under our hats for now. I don’t want a huge rumor mill generating gossip.”
We adjourned the meeting and Traci followed me quietly back to the office and sat in Lee’s chair. I saw a lot less of Lee than I had of either of my two previous TAs and a lot more of Traci.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. I almost didn’t catch what she said. I turned toward her and raised an eyebrow. “I messed up your plans when I asked to be your AD. You intended to have me naked on stage, didn’t you?” It wasn’t particularly accusatory. In fact, I thought she sounded a little sad.
“I hadn’t and still haven’t made any casting decisions,” I justified myself. “There are a lot of actors who will try out for the parts of Juliet and her nurse.”
“Maybe fewer when they find out they’ll be nude. Or maybe more. The school has its share of sluts.”
“I’d like to keep this quiet for now. I’ll tell people after the first audition. What do you think will happen to the men?”
“The men? You’re going to have them both nude? Shit! I don’t know. Will any of them be able to do it without a perpetual boner?”
“This is theatre, not pornography,” I said. “I’ll need you to help me control the gossip and the expectations.”
“I’ll help, Terry. I’m still sorry, though. Maybe more for me than you.”
There was even more intensity in my classes this year than last. I don’t really think anyone knew beans about Romeo and Juliet past “Wherefore art thou Romeo?” which most of them didn’t understand. The best role in the show might be Mercutio. Even the servants have a bawdy exchange in the first scene among servants and the sword fight should have had them salivating. And Friar Lawrence is a plum role for a character actor. The only thing this show lacked was a lot of women. There were only two principal ladies and three minor parts. I had a feeling I’d be casting women in a lot of men’s minor parts.
My stage movement class had grown so much that I now had two units and a part of what I was teaching was sword choreography. Stage combat is neither fencing nor blocking. It is a dance and the steps must be executed perfectly or the dance is a disaster. I expected to be working more with the fight scenes than with the love scene. There would be the servants in the first scene, as well as Tybalt and Benvolio. The Mercutio/Tybalt duel may be the most dramatic of the play, quickly followed by Romeo/Tybalt. Act III Scene 1 sees the death of Mercutio—“No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but ’tis enough, ’twill serve”—and Romeo’s subsequent slaying of Tybalt making him an outlaw and banished. Then, in Act III Scene 5, the love scene. Romeo comes to Juliet’s bed.
Well, it is an active and dramatic tragedy, finished with another sword fight between Romeo and Paris at the tomb and the double suicide of Romeo and Juliet inside. By the time I was ready to start auditions during Dan’s mounting of Victor Victoria, I had tentative approval from both PCAD and SCU for the nude scene. The tentative would be a last-minute judgment at our final audience dress rehearsal when the administration would review whether the scene had artistic merit or was exploitive. I was happy they had set those as the guide rather than simply ruling that nudity was obscene.
“Okay, listen up. You’ve all done well in the first round of auditions. Tomorrow will be callbacks for specific roles. If you aren’t called back, it doesn’t mean you aren’t cast. Check Monday morning for the cast posting. This is a big show and some of you are just coming off of a big show. We’ll be sweating to get this mounted in the next six weeks.” Everyone shifted a little, expecting that I would release them, but I wasn’t done yet.
“Some of you have heard rumors and some of you have spread rumors regarding possible nudity in this production. They are no longer rumors. We will be rehearsing as if the rumors are true. Until run-throughs begin, the rehearsal of that scene will be closed. A final judgment will be rendered after the audience dress rehearsal. That means at least one performance will be in front of an audience, and likely both full weekends. If you are called back to read for Romeo or Juliet, I want you to think hard about your willingness to do this scene. If you are cast, I will work with you to mitigate any embarrassment you have, but I won’t remove the requirement.”
“Do we need to audition nude?” one actress asked.
“No. I can tell what I need to tell with clothes on. Body shape and condition are not part of the choosing. Hollywood directors can get away with that and bend our perception of characters in a four hundred-year-old play as being perfectly toned actresses and actors with blemish-free complexion. I have no such preconception. You will act and you will do it well.”
“Will we be wearing a G-string or dance belt?” Leave it to one of the guys.
“What part of nude did you not understand? Look the definition up in a dictionary.”
There were no more questions.
“What are you really looking for, Terry?” Traci asked as she typed up the callbacks. I sat looking through my notes and calling out names and potential roles.
“I don’t have a good idea right now. I’m not seeing the pairings yet. I think, regarding the argument Paris has with Capulet, that Juliet is barely a woman. And I think Paris is considerably older. I’d like Romeo to be much closer to Juliet’s age while Mercutio and Tybalt are a little older. In general, I think I see the two of them as the youngest characters in the play. It’s the only way the love scene works. It’s the passion of adolescence.”
“Wow! I’ve learned more about Shakespeare working backstage with you than I did in Kellogg’s Shakespeare class.”
“Allen and I probably don’t universally agree on interpretations, but I have discussed it with him. He holds that many of the characters in Shakespeare’s plays are merely adolescents who don’t understand the implications of what they are doing. That Scottish play is another example, as is Twelfth Night.”
“Are you going to do Mac… that Scottish play next year? I could clearly see myself in the role of the lady.”
“The problem is that other than the three witches, she’s the only female in that show. I’m skimping on women with R and J. I’d like to get something with a couple more good female leads. Maybe King Lear.” I looked at my notes. “Rob Kantor and Jill Morrow. Put Romeo and Juliet next to their names. I know I have Rob called back as Mercutio, but he’s really too young for the part. Still, I’ll let him read for both.”
“Jill certainly fits the adolescent role. She looks like she’s twelve. Did you know she’s a senior?”
“No. I don’t usually monitor what year they are. She’s in my Stage Movement class which is usually first or second year. I guess this year it attracted a lot of older students because of the stage combat element.”
We finished the callback list and Traci sent it to the printer. It was nearly midnight so I offered her a lift back to her dorm. Before she got out of the car she looked at me a little strangely.
“What?”
“I would have done it, you know.” She got out of the car and ran to the dorm. I had to admit that when I first thought of the concept, I’d envisioned her in the role.
Ultimately, I did cast Jill as Juliet and was glad I did. She’d played Lucetta in Two Gentlemen and had good acting creds. Her voice was perfect, young but not infantile. And she did look like an adolescent. Opposite, I cast Barry Harmon. I only made the decision when I lined up all the guys auditioning for the part and scanned them all. Barry wasn’t the shortest, but I would be surprised if he had ever shaved. On the other hand, he had the body of a gymnast. I put Rob Kantor in as Mercutio and cast my TA, Lee, as the nurse. And we were in rehearsal.
Working with Barry and Jill was a pleasure. They got it. When I’d explained the characters as I saw them, they lit up. It carried over into their scenes with others, including Mercutio, Tybalt, the nurse, the friar, and their parents. It left me with a lot of time to work on the choreography for the fight scenes. I was surprised one evening when I was working on the love scene when Jill started stripping. Barry followed suit.
“I was going to do the first blocking while you were dressed,” I said.
“I’d rather get used to it from the start,” Jill said. “Our early rehearsals will be closed, so with just us, we can get used to seeing each other and being watched.”
“We talked about it,” Barry said. “And we went to talk to Dr. Kellogg. He got it right away and encouraged us.”
“Fine. Then let’s work on the opening of the scene. Romeo, there will be a birdsong and you will start to sit up in bed next to Juliet. Juliet, tug at him a little and begin your line.”
I think I was a little more distracted by their nudity than either of the actors and I wondered if they had been rehearsing like this together already. I glanced over at Traci and she was chewing on her lower lip. I think she had a few regrets just then.
The night we started our first dress rehearsal, I stopped it long enough at the beginning of their scene to call all the cast and crew out front into the audience.
“I know you’ve all wanted to see this, so this is your opportunity. Remember, we are in dress rehearsal. Keep it quiet out here and pay attention. You are about to see a beautiful love scene.”
The lights went down and the bed was positioned with the two actors already on it. It was beautiful. You could see the first pink tinge through cracks in the shutters of the window. The rest of the room was so softly lit that you really couldn’t define the shapes. But as the scene progressed, it got steadily lighter outside. When Romeo rises and opens the shutter, the dawn is still a soft light and he is clearly silhouetted. Juliet reaches past him to close the shutter and protests that the light is not yet dawn. Then they kiss. Everyone could see it was a true lover’s kiss.
ROMEO
Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death;
I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye,
’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow;
Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat
The vaulty heaven so high above our heads:
I have more care to stay than will to go:
Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.
How is’t, my soul? Let’s talk; it is not day.
JULIET
It is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away!
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
The scene ends with Romeo hastily dressed and climbing out the window, pausing for yet another kiss. Juliet turns and slips on a robe before her mother enters. It was beautiful.
The administration agreed. I believe they, too, had been influenced by Dr. Kellogg who insisted that the apparent youth of the characters would be truly revealed in this way and explain most of their impetuous behavior.
“I guess I’m glad I didn’t play that role,” Traci said as we walked around the closing night party at Jon’s house.
“Really? Don’t think you could have done it?”
“Oh, I could have done the nudity and all. But I wouldn’t have been able to relate to Barry like Jill did. She… um… they fell in love. Look.”
I glanced in the direction Traci pointed and saw my two stars in a corner making out.
“I dream that one day someone will look at me like that. They weren’t acting.”
I took Traci back to her dorm after the party and she leaned toward me for a kiss. It started as just a little peck and progressed to something much deeper and passionate. When we broke the kiss, she leaned back and grasped the door handle.
“Goodnight, Romeo. Sweet dreams.”
My dreams were, indeed, sweet. And also wet. Fortunately, Daphne was curled up to me as my little spoon and accepted my sleep induced ejaculation as a tribute to her. She managed to keep me hard and get on for her own little ride to glory. My fantasy had been of Traci.
Of course, I never told my wife about that.
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