4 #2
Two weeks later, Mido had more or less attached herself to the Sydney University Dramatic Society.
She became a SUDS person, which felt like being in a joyful cult.
She did not act, sing, direct, sew costumes, work sound, do lighting, or know how to make sets.
But she liked working in the ticket booth, hanging up posters, and organizing props for performances.
None of these activities interfered with her schoolwork or her part-time job as a math tutor.
Mido went to all the rehearsals, and she observed how performers behaved.
It felt impossible for her to get onstage, but when she wasn’t busy, she sat in the back of the theater, a bundle of programs in her hands, and she admired the courage of the performers.
In her first semester, not once did she improvise or do acting exercises, and no one seemed interested in making her do anything she didn’t want to do.
What she had not anticipated was the inspiration she’d feel to write a one-act play.
She showed her second attempt at a one-act to Trevor Kimball, a well-liked student director, and he offered to pitch it at the next general meeting.
When the members took a vote, Mido’s Desde/Mona/Rockstar, written in not-too-terrible iambic pentameter, was selected.
The Cellar Theatre was showing its age. The black paint needed attention, the floors were shabby, and one of the stage lights was permanently broken. No one bothered to scrape off the old gum beneath the benches.
Despite its drab atmosphere, the black box theater of the Sydney University Dramatic Society couldn’t help but light up with the youthful beauty and spirit of the vibrant cast and crew.
On Tuesday night, at the second rehearsal of Desde/Mona/Rockstar, Mido sat in the front row and took notes, while the two gorgeous leads flirted.
Cynthia Hendrin, a lissome, dark-haired third-year from Brisbane, who was playing Mona, had already memorized her lines and was busy refining her character’s air guitar and head-tossing gestures.
She batted her mascaraed lashes at the handsome Harry Chang, who was playing Otto, the prosperous and jealous head of a record label.
As usual, they were in the midst of some private joke, which Mido could not hear from her seat.
Everyone knew they were screwing, and in a way, it was lovely to watch their erotic charge.
The director, Trevor Kimball, a third-year, raised both his hands like an aircraft marshaller and pointed at the actors, giving his cue for the scene to begin.
Cynthia recited the lines with her characteristic verve, but there was something off in her delivery.
Trevor cocked his head. The director, sensitive to and respectful of Cynthia’s prickly nature, gave her notes.
He started by admiring her performance, then suggested that perhaps she should slow it down and consider what Mona would be feeling at that moment.
Wouldn’t she be more sensitive to what Otto had just told her—that he could not bear to see his beloved talent switch record labels and work with a despised competitor?
Cynthia tried it again, and this time the performance felt even colder, more precise, each phrase inflicting a sharp, brutal wound. Her tone was angry. Hearing her give the speech surprised Mido, who had written the words herself.
“Um.” Mido raised her left hand lightly, her fingers fluttering a bit from nerves. She’d never been interested in directing but felt that she should intervene.
“May I?” Mido said, even surprising herself.
Cynthia smiled. “Please do. I’d love to hear how you had intended it.”
Mido spoke Mona’s lines from memory:
“I must leave, Otto. Yes, I’m in your debt.
I get that, however, I need to go.
Without you being in charge, there’s more in me.
There’s more music for me… for me… to make.”
She paused for a beat between “me” and “to make” to emphasize Mona’s hesitation about leaving Otto’s label but also her recognition that she needed to leave to make room for her own art.
“I wish you’d get how difficult this is.
But our love, Otto, is unchanged.
My devotion to you remains the same.
No, no. Actually, it only grows.
Our love… my love… for you. Hey… hey, Otto.
Why can’t you see that? Why can’t you see me?” Mido lowered her voice.
“Yes!” the director shouted, springing up from his seat. “Exactly! It must be quieter and full of worry. She’s scared of his reaction. Right?”
Trevor turned to the crowd, who’d been absorbed by Mido’s performance.
In fact, the cast and the dozen members present were astonished by Mido’s rendition of the title character, and, perhaps, that she’d said anything at all when normally Mido said next to nothing. She usually smiled and got along and did the necessary work.
Harry crossed his arms and stared again at the first-year playwright, whom he had never really noticed before.
She was a small, plain Asian girl, and not at all his type.
He liked sexy green-eyed girls like Cynthia, with her long legs, perky tits, and tiny waist. Cynthia was the kind of knockout that every man and woman could not help but notice.
She sizzled just by crossing her ankles.
Harry felt startled by little Mido. He could not remember ever having heard the playwright’s actual voice. It hadn’t mattered because SUDS didn’t need another actor, and writers could be lousy speakers. Mido was a small, quiet person who had written a solid one-act with a decent premise.