Emma
15
“The The-ah-ter”
The sun rose and everything else fell.
“FOR GOD’S SAKE! HOLD!”
Everyone froze as a monstrous shadow arose from the very depths of the Woodrow Wilson Middle School Theatre. A chill cracked through the terse air like a lightning bolt and heads swiveled towards the growing shadow. The dark silhouette loomed over the actors, seemingly shifting into a cumulonimbus cloud into a demonic bear into a hooded and cloaked figure. And from the profile of the hooded figure emerged a very small man.
“Joey,” it called in a quiet, quaking voice, “please come out here.”
Silence held for a few moments, and then there was the sound of rustling and hands pushing and a pudgy little boy of around 11 or 12 stumbled onstage from the wings.
“Y… yes Mr. Wright?
“Joey,” the quivering man took two careful steps towards the stage, “please explain to me what is happening in this scene.”
“Well, it’s… it’s the first scene of the show, and Curley comes whistling from the back and walks onstage and starts singing Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.”
Mr. Wright took another step closer to Joey. “And, Mr. Grayer, can you please tell me what your job is in this scene?”
The little boy looked down at his beat red and blue sneakers and picked at a scab on his right wrist. “I’m supposed to pull the red and green ropes so the sun and the rest of the scenery goes up…”
“And?”
Joey shrunk a little more into his striped sweatshirt. “And I’m supposed to make sure they don’t fall by holding onto the ropes...”
“YES! That’s it!” The petite man bounced eagerly on the balls of his feet. “You’re supposed to hold on to the ropes, aren’t you Joey? Aren’t you?”
The boy’s shoulders drooped lower to the ground. “Yes.”
“And did you do that, Mr. Grayer? Did you?”
“I…I held onto the red one.”
“But how about the green one? Did you hold on to that one?”
His head hung so his chin brushed his chest. “No.”
“No, no you sure didn’t. And through that you completely ruined the composition of the opening of our great musical. It’s called Oklahoma!, Joey, not Sucklahoma!”
A tear trailed down Joey’s robust cheek.
“Get out of my the-ah-ter. Out!”
With the speed that Joey ran out of that theatre, you would have thought that his father was a Kenyan and his mother was a cheetah. Mr. Wright watched the doors of the theatre slam closed, and then proceeded to step onstage to face the actors watching in the audience.
“Alright, actors, in light of our comrade’s hasty retreat, I think that now is a good time to regroup and re-establish our fundamental beliefs. And when I say fundamental, the emphasis is on?”
“Mental!” The children yelled.
“That’s right! F, U, and N are just extra letters.” Mr. Wright spun around on the polished heel of his leather boot to face the wings.
“Technical people, get out here! We’re having an important conversation!”
After a couple of moments, a group of scrawny and pimpled tweens climbed out of the jungle of wires that was Backstage and clambered into the empty seats of the theatre. When the dust settled, Mr. Wright turned to face his young audience once again and called out in a commanding voice.
“Children, I think we’ve lost focus on what’s truly important here. What’s at stake.”
The teacher’s beady eyes swept over the crowd of children.
“We are forgetting the very essence of Oklahoma! Nay, the essence of the the-ah-ter itself! We have been so caught up in our own selves, in music notes and electric wires and sparkly costumes, that we have forgotten that the the-ah-ter is about more than just one actor or one nerd or even one Rockville County The-ah-ter award nominated director! It is about bring glory and honor to the art form! It is about making people feel things, things they would never dare feel even in their wildest dreams! It is about chivalry and creativity and redemption on the people who told you that you were to short to audition for the part of Curly in Wagner The-ah-ter’s revival of Oklahoma! It is about life, children, it is about life.”
A quivering hand slowly rose from the sea of terrified of middle schoolers.
“Ex… excuse me? Mr. Wright… Sir?”
A wave of fear rushed over the crowd at the sound of the voice.
“Yes?”
A very skinny girl stood up.
“W… well, my mom told me that theater was about having fun?”
A gasp shuddered throughout the audience. Mr. Wright inhaled deeply, closing his eyes tightly in irritation.
“First of all, drama is a verb, child, the-ah-ter is a noun! Secondly, we have been over this, child, fundaMENTALs! Only amateurs truly believe that fun is somehow infused in the art form.”
The girl looked down at her intertwined knobby fingers.
“Well my mom thinks…”
Mr. Wright strode in long, quick strides over to where the little girl stood and bent his knees so his eyes met hers in the same plane.
“Your name is Jessica isn’t it?”
She sniffled a little bit.
“They… they call me little Jessica.”
The small man scoffed and his thin lips turned up in a smirk. “Yes, yes they do, and do you know why?”
“Because I’m smaller than the other Jessica?”
“No,” He leaned in closer to her, so that they were nearly nose-to-nose.
“because you’re a little shit, little Jessica.”
“Hey!” The crowd gasped once again as a burly eighth grader burst from her seat and stalked down the aisle to place her large hands on Little Jessica’s shaking shoulders. “You can’t talk to my sister like that! You can’t talk to anyone like that! You’re a teacher, you’re not supposed to be the one bullying people!”
One would have thought that Mr. Wright would have been at least a little intimidated by the hefty girl staring him down, especially since she was larger than him both in girth and height, but the tiny man simply drew himself up to his full 5’3 frame and looked the girl squarely in the eye and laughed a long, hearty laugh.
“Alexis, do you dare tell me what I can and cannot do? In the world of the the-ah-ter, I sit on the iron throne and you, Ms. Shaloe scrape at the filth at my feet!”
“Was that a Game of Thrones reference?”
“Never mind that.” He clasped his hands and smiled a sickly sweet smile up at the girl. “Alexis…”
“My name is Alex,” she snarled through gritted teeth.
“Alexis,” he continued, “if you continue to give me such attitude, I will have to ask you to follow in your classmate’s footsteps in the path out of my the-ah-ter.”
Little Jessica clutched at her sister’s muscular arm, but the burly girl stared aggressively back at her teacher.
“It’s not your theatre. It’s the school’s theatre and we’ll leave, but not because you told us to, but because we don’t want to put up with any of your bullshit anymore.”
The little man seemed to flit up in the air with excitement. “Was that a curse word I heard, Miss Shaloe? That’s a Saturday detention for you, missy!”
“But you called my little sister a little shit…”
“And there’s another one! Friday detention! I would watch your mouth in my the-ah-ter, Alexis!”
“Alex! And why do you say it like that?”
“Say what like that?”
“The-ah-ter.” She imitated Mr. Wright’s accentuated vowels and pursed lips. “It’s pronounced ‘theatre””
“Yes,” he insisted, “that’s what I’ve been saying. The-ah-ter.”
“Theatre.”
“The-ah-ter.”
“Theatre.”
“The-ah-ter.”
“Theatre.”
“The-ah-ter.”
“The…” Alex drew in a sharp breath of irritation and grabbed her sister’s hand. “Whatever. C’mon Jess, let’s go.”
As the sisters began to turn around to walk to the exit, Mr. Wright turned brightly to his cast and crew and clapped his little hands together.
“Let little Jessica, Alexis, and Joey’s exits teach you a lesson! Do not toy with the the-ah-ter or with me, for I did not leave the hallowed halls of the Kansas City the-ah-ter district to make mediocre amateur actors less mediocre. I came here to make artists! Artists!”
Alex stopped in her tracks and spun to face her director once again. “But didn’t you just say that the people at the theatre didn’t cast you as Curly because you were too…”
“Desist! Be gone already, Alexis! Leave these hallowed halls and never return!”
“It’s Alex!”
“Potato, potahto. Dissipate!”
After one, last, long, hateful look, the larger girl took the smaller girl by the hand and led her up the long aisle to the door of the theatre. And as the whole cast and crew looked on, Alex stared at the rusty door handle, turned her head back to glare defiantly into Mr. Wright’s eyes, and slowly turned the knob.
