Inhaltsangabe
I wanted the role of Juliet more than anything. I studied hard. I gave a great reading for it—even with Bobby checking me out the whole time. I deserved the part.
I didn't get it. So I decided to level the playing field, though I actually might have leveled the whole play. You see, since there aren't any Success in Getting to Be Juliet in Your High School Play spells, I thought I'd cast the next best—a Fame spell. Good idea, right?
Yeah. Instead of bringing me a little fame, it brought me someone a little famous. Shakespeare. Well, Edmund Shakespeare. William's younger brother.
Good thing he's sweet and enthusiastic about helping me with the play...and—ahem—maybe a little bit hot. But he's from the past. Way past. Cars amaze him—cars! And cell phones? Ugh.
Still, there's something about him that's making my eyes go star-crossed....
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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor
Douglas Rees has written a wide range of titles for young readers, including humor, historical fiction, and picture books. He holds several awards, including the Nutmeg State Award for young adult fiction. When he isn't writing for kids, he works with them as a young adult librarian. He lives in the San Francisco Bay area with his wife, Jo, who is the model for the outgoing, lycanthropic librarian in the Vampire High novels.
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"Miranda Hoberman."
That was me. My turn. My chance. My audition. Now. With all the cool I could muster, which felt like exactly none, I left my seat and climbed up onto the stage.
Down in the front row, Mr. Gillinger glared at me, looked at my audition sheet and glared at me again.
"You're reading for Juliet?" he drawled in his deep voice.
"Yes," I gulped.
"Very well, go ahead."
Bobby Ruspoli grinned, sizing me up. He was already Romeo, and everyone knew it. It just hadn't been announced, yet. Mr. Gillinger would post his name along with the rest of the cast on the theater office door tomorrow or the next day. But we all knew he was Romeo before the play was ever announced, the way people in drama know who's going to get what, when the fix is in. So with that weight off his mind, handsome Bobby was checking out every girl who might be his Juliet.
As if I wasn't nervous enough. As if I hadn't been studying this part every day since it had been announced that we were doing Romeo and Juliet. As if I hadn't spent the last week lying awake nights worrying and thinking about how to do this moment better, I had to have Bobby checking out my boobs and butt. As if2—
"Begin," Mr. Gillinger commanded.
Bobby shrugged, inhaled, the way he'd seen real actors do in some of the acting DVDs we'd watched in class, and announced:
"He jests at scars that never felt a wound."
Then he looked up, like I was hanging from one of the Fresnel lamps that were glaring down on us, instead of standing right in front of him, shaking.
"But soft! What light is this that through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou her maid art far more fair than she…"
He rattled off the next nineteen lines of the speech exactly the way he had done them all afternoon, racing down to:
"O that I were a glove upon thy hand, that I might touch that cheek."
My turn. My line: "Ay me!"
I know, it sounds lame. But I said it like I wanted to die. Because that's how Juliet feels right then. But had it been too much?
Bobby went on, "She speaks."
Out in the auditorium, someone giggled.
Bobby continued.
"Oh, speak again, bright angel, for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o'er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white upturned wond'ring eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him,
When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air."
Me again. My first real line in the scene. The one everybody knows—usually wrong: "O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?"
You probably thought Juliet was asking where Romeo is, right? Wrong. She has no idea he's anywhere around. He's just been thrown out of the party her father was giving. He's gone. She's asking why the guy's name has to be Romeo, and the next lines make that clear.
"Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet."
"Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?" Bobby asked the invisible balcony where Juliet was supposed to be standing.
Me:
"'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's a Montague?—"
"Thank you," Mr. Gillinger said. Like he was saying "Thank you for shutting up now, please."
"Auh?" I said. I was kind of surprised. That was an awfully short audition.
"Let's see. Next. Vivian Brandstedt. Also Juliet, right?" Mr. Gillinger said.
I got down off the stage. I was done. I could leave. But I wanted to see what the rest of my competition looked like.
I went to the far back of the auditorium and moved into a corner seat.
Vivian Brandstedt slithered up onstage and began to play Juliet like she'd been the hottest babe in Verona. It was funny, except that Vivian really was a hot babe, so nobody thought it was funny but me. Certainly Bobby didn't. He fluffed his lines twice. Of course, it was hard for him to talk with his tongue hanging out of his mouth like that.
Mr. Gillinger let Vivian go on all the way to the end of the scene. He even read the nurse's offstage lines to keep the thing going to the point where Juliet says,
"Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good night till it be morrow."
And Vivian wasn't bad. She just read it like she was tossing Romeo down her panties and her room key.
Why, why, why hadn't Mr. Gillinger let me read the whole scene? Was I that bad, or was I so good that he didn't need to see any more of me? Or was Juliet pre-cast like Romeo?
There was a noise down at the end of the row and a shape came toward me. Drew Jenkins.
He sat down beside me and whispered, "You were good. You get it."
Then he got up and went back down to the front row where he'd been.
I was absurdly grateful. Drew Jenkins, for reasons nobody could understand, was total BF best friends with Bobby Ruspoli, and if Drew liked me, maybe Bobby did, too. And maybe Bobby would say so to Mr. Gillinger and maybe—or maybe Drew had inside information. Maybe "You get it" meant "I just saw Gillinger's notes. You've got the part," not just "You get who Juliet is in this scene." Or maybe Drew had some kind of weird hold over Mr. Gillinger and was going to make him cast me—Drew was kind of mysterious for a sixteen-year-old geek. He knew all kinds of things. Maybe he had something on Gillinger, like an old arrest for marrying his own ego.
I forced myself to stop thinking like that. I didn't want the part because Bobby Ruspoli liked me, or even because Mr. Gillinger did (which would be amazing, since Mr. Gillinger thought he should be directing on Broadway and didn't like anybody). I wanted to play Juliet because I was the best actor who read for it, not because some guy hanging out with some guy thought I was good.
Which is not to say I wouldn't have taken the part under any conditions. Play Juliet in Swahili? I'll learn it.
But if I wasn't going to think about whether Drew's opinion counted with Bobby and Bobby's opinion counted with Mr. Gillinger, or whatever, what was I going to think about? I was going to think about why I hadn't been allowed to finish the scene. Of course.
Had I said "Ay me," too loudly, or not loudly enough? Had I sounded convincing when I said "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" Did I even sound like I knew what it meant? Yes, I had. No, I hadn't. Yes, I—
He likes me, he likes me not. He likes me, he likes me not. That was what it came down to, and I couldn't stop obsessing even though I knew it was all out of my hands.
Two more girls read for Juliet that afternoon. They were both awful. I'm not just saying that. They were awful. One read like she was reciting a recipe: "Take one part Romeo and one part Juliet and stir until done. Then separate and—"
And the other was total emo.
"O Romeo, Romeo WHY ART THOU CALLED ROMEO?"
(Which is not the line, right?)
"DENY thy father and REFUSE thy NAME;
Or if thou wilt NOT, be but sworn my LOVE,
And I'll no...
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The Juliet Spell
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