A Loaded Question

1.

"So how would you stage it?"

Alexis Bishop looked over small wire-rimmed glasses at me. Her dark hair long and loose around her face, her large brown eyes serious, not to say challenging, and her full lips slightly quirked to one side in a half-smile, like she wasn't sure she was going to like any answer I came up with.

She was sitting in the corner of a blue denim couch in the living room of a small two-bedroom up in Washington Heights. She wore skinny jeans and a long loose sweater over an olive green t-shirt with a peace symbol across her chest. Her feet were bare, and her toes were painted the same deep red as her lips. The only other person in the apartment was snoring gently on the couch next to Alexis, with her feet in her roommate's lap; Cassie Bradshaw: a director friend of mine, who'd invited me to over to read a play.

The play in question, The Changeling, by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley--younger contemporaries of Shakespeare--concerns a beautiful young noblewoman, Beatrice-Joanna (read by Alexis) betrothed to one man, but in love with another, who hires her deformed servant De Flores (read by me) to murder her fiancee so that she'll be free to marry the object of her affections. De Flores commits the murder, but demands Beatrice's virginity as payment for the crime. At the end of Act III, De Flores threatens Beatrice with exposure, and she, having threatened, cajoled, bribed and begged him to relent, finally submits to his demands. Of course nothing happens on stage, or nothing need happen on stage. What potentially could happen was one of the questions we had been discussing; first the whole cast, then--as people started to head home--a group of five of us, then Alexis and Cassie and I, and now...

"So...how would you stage it?" Alexis repeated.

And wasn't that a loaded question?

2.

I didn't know Alexis all that well. Cassie and I had been friends ever since we'd worked together on a mediocre production of Romeo and Juliet for a now-defunct company called--God help us--Eagle's Claw Repertory of the Classics. She'd stage managed, and I'd played the Prince and Peter. Six weekends in an unheated church basement in Alphabet City; nobody came...well, the director's mother did, five or six times, but nobody else.

But Cassie and I had become pals, and so one night she drags me to her roommate's improv show. Improv: I'll try not to get started...but seriously, improv for me...it's like the violin, or a legit soprano voice: it can't just be good; it's got to be off-the-charts holy-cow fuck-your-hamster a-fucking-mazing. If it's not I tend to spend most of my time wondering why I'm not doing something more productive, like stabbing myself in the leg with a fork.

So we're watching this "comedy" whatever for about ten minutes, and I'm wondering if any of the twelve people enduring this shit show with me happens to be carrying a fork, when this mad scientist gets in on the action. He's a tiny little guy in an Einstein wig and mustache, enormous black horn-rimmed spectacles and a filthy lab coat, and he's talking in this impossibly thick Euro-trash accent, and he's...good. He's not...I don't know, name your favorite stand up or sketch guy or gal, but he's better than anything else up there, and then there's some suggestion from the audience about erectile dysfunction, and this guy's come up with a cure that he's trying to test on gorillas and sporadic hilarity ensues.

After the show, we're hanging out in the lobby, and here comes the roommate: Alexis, maybe 5' 4" with a round face, the long dark curly hair gathered at the back in a scrunchie, the big eyes, and the wide mouth. She's wearing a collared blouse, denim skirt, boots and a bomber jacket, and she's...very attractive without being exactly pretty or...striking, or I don't know. It's hard to describe why she's so appealing but she is. She's also sexy. Again, I couldn't say exactly why. Her body--what I could see of it under the bomber jacket--looks trim, maybe even a little skinny, but her face, the way she moves...she's got energy, confidence, some...little something extra which makes it hard for me to stop looking at her, even standing next to Cassie, who is--probably by most lights--much prettier.

Cassie introduces us, and we shake hands. "So," she's got that half-smile which I would eventually come to recognize as her 'considering' expression, "how'd you like it?"

"It was good," for some reason, I felt compelled to be honest rather than effusive. "Tell you the truth, I don't see a whole lot of improv. And, you know..." I didn't want to be too honest, "you're pretty dependent on what the audience gives you, and I know there weren't very many of us...I really liked the mad scientist guy, but..."

"Och, zenk zhoo veddy mooch!"

"Wait a minute, that was you? Holy sh...I mean I did NOT recognize you at all. You were hysterical!"

Alexis laughed. "You seriously didn't know? I'll take that as a compliment!"

"You should. You were...I'm sorry, look, no reflection on your colleagues..."

She raises an eyebrow.

"Ok, maybe a little reflection on your colleagues," I say, lowering my voice, "but you really were far and away the best thing up there."

Her response surprises me. "Yeah," she sighs, "I probably was, tonight anyway. Tony--he's the guy who was doing the kind of redneck preacher guy--was kind of off his game. He'd been up for a TV thing and found out he didn't get it something like an hour before we went on...Anyway, he's usually pretty great. Wait a minute..." She was looking directly into my eyes. "Where do I know you from?"

I shrug: "Did you see that R and J down on F?"

Her face clears: "That's it. You're Saul. Cassie talks a lot about you. You were the servant, right? The one who couldn't read?"

I nod, "Yup," and pull a rueful face.

"Oh yeah," she agrees with my expression, "most of that was ba-ad, but you were really funny--production could have used more of you--and was it the Benvolio who was also pretty good?"

"You've got a good memory for crap Shakespeare."

"I played Lady Cap in college; my only ever Shakespeare, so..."

3.

We'd run into each other a few times since then, mostly in bars, hanging with Cassie or one or two other mutual friends. I'd always enjoyed talking to her, and I'd always found her...compelling, but we'd never done anything together, either socially or professionally, until that night, when we'd read The Changeling as part of Cassie's ongoing search for a showcase to direct on the cheap.

"So...how would you stage it?"

I looked at her, registered that we were for all intents and purposes alone. "You're talking about the end of Three, right?

"Yeah. It's the natural act break; last thing the people see before intermission. How would you do it?"

"You don't really have to do that much. I mean, what're the last lines?" I reached over for a xeroxed copy of the script which somebody had left on the table, flipped through to the scene in question. "Right, so De Flores says..."

"You say."

"What?" The interruption had startled me.

"Sorry," she had a kind of rueful smile on her face. "I had this teacher who always insisted that we refer to ourselves as our characters in rehearsal. She'd say calling a character 'her,' or 'my guy,' or whatever was a cop-out because it distanced you, made you safe...anyway, so you say what?"

"All right..." was this a rehearsal? "I say...well actually, Beatrice--sorry--you say: 'Was my creation in the womb so curs'd / It must engender with a viper first?' Which is not very nice..." I looked over at Alexis. She wasn't smiling. Okay. "Then I say: 'Come, rise, and shroud your blushes in my bosom;' then a stage direction: 'Raises her.' right...because you'd knelt to plead with me a few lines before, then 'Silence is one of pleasure's best receipts; / Thy peace is wrought forever in this yielding. / Las, how the turtle pants!' That sounds like you're trembling; not a surprise...then: 'Thou'lt love anon / What thou so fear'st and faint'st to venture on.' Then we've got an Exeunt, so the playwright--or playwrights--have them embrace and leave the stage."

"So," no impatience in her voice, even though this was her third time asking, "if you were directing, is that what you'd do?"

I looked at her, mirrored her half-smile. "Probably not."

She still looked thoughtful: "Yeah, me neither."

4.

"It's really a rape, isn't it?"

A few minutes earlier, Cassie had rolled over enough to half-wake herself up. She got up woozily, apologized, headed off into one of the bedrooms. I couldn't swear she'd been entirely conscious for any of it.

After the door shut behind Cassie, Alexis returned to my question: "It sure starts as one."

"Meaning...?"

"Well, I'm a virgin, right? I mean, I've just offered you everything I have if you'll leave me...um, intact." She giggled at her choice of words. "Are you, by the way?"

"Am I what?"

"A virgin."

"Am I a...? Oh, sorry, you mean is..." Alexis opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, I remembered her teacher's dictates. "Oh, right, sorry...um, am I a...? No, I don't think so. I mean I'm considerably older than you, right. I'm talking like I am, and I've been a soldier...I think..." Then an idea struck me. "I'm deformed, right?"

She said: "I was wondering about that. How are you deformed, or maybe that should be how deformed are you?"

"I looked up some production photos when Cassie first sent me the script. Some guys do a physical deformity like a hunched back or a clubbed foot or something, but a lot of them just kind of...fuck up the face, you know, so that your line, when you're trying to charm me into doing the murder, about making an ointment for my face makes sense. So...big port wine stains, scarring, like that. One African American...or no, this guy was at the National, so Afro-British?...actor had what looked like tribal scars across his cheeks, but..."

"Ok," she interrupted, "so you're physically off-putting somehow, but maybe not actually disabled in any way, which makes sense given how many people you run around murdering for me. What about it?"

"Two things really," I replied: "Given the soldiering and what not I think I've been with a prostitute, or maybe prostitutes, you know, like camp whores, but...not with classy ones, right? I mean, I'm so ugly the high-end types probably just don't want my money. And I've been in your father's service, and consequently in lust with you at least since you hit puberty. Maybe before..."

"Ew, you know what, let's not go there, ok? This story is fucked up enough without that angle."

"No, you're right. Totally agree."

"So, you've had the hots for me ever since I grew tits, right?"

"Right, and that's..." I'd lost my train of thought. Which I guess lots of guys do when an attractive woman mentions her tits. The funny thing was that in thinking about how attractive I always found Alexis, I'd never thought much about her boobs, which if you know me is pretty...out of character. But as she'd said it, my eyes had dipped to her chest, and I'd noticed--well--a couple of things, no joke intended. Seriously.

5.

First of all, I became aware kind of in retrospect that every time I'd seen her, Alexis had been wearing a big jacket, or a loose sweater or something. Now the sweater was open, and I was looking at that army-t with the peace sign on it: Alexis had seriously beautiful, large breasts. Not freakish or anything, but particularly compared to the rest of her, which was almost slight--thin legs, gentle curve through the hips, small butt--she had quite the rack. And as the phrase came to my mind, I realized all the bulky sweaters and stuff meant that she was probably self-conscious about the size of her...my eyes snapped back to her face. She'd caught me looking, but...I could almost see her decide not to mention it, at least for now. I looked away, trying to gather my thoughts again, but an after-image of her chest presented itself to my kind of tired, slightly buzzed brain...little bumps on that t-shirt, as if her nipples had hardened behind her bra.

6.

"Anyway..." the word came out on a slightly exasperated sigh, the subtext clear enough. Girls have used exactly the same tone of voice to guys ever since the voice was discovered. Whatever the words happened to be, the tone had said, says, and will forever say: 'Yes, I have breasts and you approve. Now, can we get back to the subject at hand?'

Fine with me. The subject at hand was my lusting after her...or at least the character I was...rehearsing?...lusting after the character she was...never mind. Focus!

"So yeah, I've been with your family for years, and you're how old now?"

Her turn to be caught off guard. Revenge is sweet. "Um, I don't...maybe 18 or 19?"

"Call it 19 then, and let's say, just to raise my stakes that you developed early. I'll bet I haven't been to a brothel, which means I haven't been laid for...maybe five years. And we live in a Catholic country, and I probably sleep in servants quarters in close proximity to, I don't know, the stable boy, the boot black?"

"So you're saying you don't masturbate? Well, come to think of it, maybe you don't. But why not go to a brothel, or ravage the parlor maid or something?"

"Because I spend all day trying to get a look at you, and you're so beautiful just the thought of you would probably make it impossible for me to even get it up with other women."

"Jesus!" it came out on a breath, "that's a lot of pent up..."

"Frustration, aggression, something; you're goddamn skippy it is!"

Alexis laughed so abruptly she almost choked. "Sorry, it's just...I hadn't really conceived of De Flores saying 'goddamn skippy,' but somehow...you made it work."

"It's because I'm a master thespian, but in all seriousness, you take my point, right?"

"Yeah, I really do. So I'm this untouchable nubile virgin beauty, and you're this mass of anger, frustration, and lust. Tell you one thing."

"What's that?"

"There is no way that scene ends with you gathering me tenderly in your arms and escorting me offstage."

7.

"You know, I don't think I've ever seen a rape staged, or at least not in a play." It was a continuation of her thought. "Have you?"

I considered. "Not as a...central event. I mean I think I saw a production of...Timon, maybe? Anyway the last image: this conquering army comes pouring onto the stage and starts looting and pillaging, so, you know, a soldier pushes a lady townsperson against a wall, but it was just sort of part of the general mayhem."

"I suppose you'd have to treat it the same way you'd treat a fight. I mean you'd have to choreograph it."

"Yeah, which means that ideally, because..." flashing back for a second to the posturing, mansplaining moron who'd 'choreographed' the Romeo and Juliet fights "...not every fight guy even considers this, you'd have to work out the narrative."

Alexis frowned, not quite with me. "You mean the...narrative of the rape, how does that...I mean basically what's to narrate?"

"Well...ok, so first of all, I've never raped anybody, and I'm also not fight certified, but...um, how to explain this. Ok: this friend of mine was taking a directing class at NYU, and he needed actors for a scene and so we went in and did this cutting from True West, right? And we--the actors--got to stick around and hear the critique..."

"Ooh, I love Shepard! Who'd you play?"

"I know, right? I was Lee, and now I've got to do that show before I die or get too old for it, or both..."

"I've always wanted to do Mae in Fool For Love..."

"God, you'd be amazing, but anyway, this directing teacher...?"

"Right, sorry. Go on."

"He talked about how every individual event on stage has a beginning, middle and an end, and how sometimes the audience doesn't get to see each step, but they're always there. So, like Lee laying into Austin's typewriter with the golf club? The audience sees the middle--him beating the typewriter until he's worn out (or until, like when we did it, the prop breaks,)--and the end, when he stops for whatever reason, but the actor should be aware of the beginning, whatever the impulse was that made him pick up the club. Even if the audience doesn't see that first impulse take place, the actor should...at least acknowledge where, when and what it was."

"So you're saying with this...whatever this act of sexual violence that we're building into the end of the act..."

We'd completely forgotten we weren't actually rehearsing a production of The Changeling, which is weird, but I guess when you're in the middle of a really intense discussion, when you're really connecting with somebody...

"Yeah," I agreed with the thought I assumed she was about to express. Then: "Sorry, go on."

"No, I was just going to say that we need to...sort of chart how this...rape begins, and what happens during it and..."

This time I didn't interrupt, and when the sentence kind of died away, I said: "Look, this is really...kind of...interesting, and exciting, just thinking about...and talking about doing this piece, but if any of this makes you feel uncomfortable or...I don't know, creeped out, we can stop. I mean, it's late, and..."

"No! Fuck, no, please. I'm really into the discussion. I mean, if you have to go, I get it, but I'm...look, I promise I'll tell you if anything feels...wrong or bad, but no, I was just...thinking about how...I mean...are you alright with staying and chatting some more? This is...pretty cool, and very unusual for...I mean, most of my performer friends are improv people, and too much talk about improv can be kind of deadly. But seriously: do you have to go? It's ok if you do."

"No, no! I'm good if you are."

8.

We were silent for a minute, looking at each other. Alexis was frowning slightly, with half her lower lip caught behind her teeth. I took a deep breath; all of a sudden I needed it, for some reason.

She said: "So...you initiate this particular thing, right? I mean you...decide to rape me, if that's what we think happens here..."

"I mean...right, I guess. You're not going to...wait a minute." I flipped back to the page in the script. "What about the stage direction? I tell you to get up; hell, I'm basically saying 'Come here and let me give you a hug: 'rise, and shroud your blushes in my bosom...' And then it says you rise. Do you think you do? Or, do you think you would?"

"No...I mean, the stage direction is there and all, but...I don't think I want anything to do with you. I mean, I've given in in theory, but I'm not gonna make it easy. I'm terrified of you, and I hate you for putting me in this position, and I think you're ugly, so...but at the same time, I'm probably kind of...fascinated by you, or at least by...I don't know! I call you a viper, so I feel like maybe if I look at you, I won't be able to look away. So, yeah, I think I'd stay kneeling, facing away from you."

"What are you wearing?"

She giggled: "Sorry, I was just like: 'Renaissance phone sex!'" Which made me laugh out loud. Alexis shushed me: "Come on, we don't want to wake Cassie...!"

We didn't? No, I guess we didn't.

"Sorry, but seriously, I'm trying to get an image of what you look like, kneeling with your back to me. You're not naked, right?"

"No, but...I mean just from a costuming point of view, it should be something you could believably get off me pretty quick. Maybe a nightgown?"

"So like a long, white thing, maybe tied at the throat?"

"Yeah, or...could be something a little more...risque, just to amp up the sexual tension in the scene, right? I think it's definitely white, so, you know, if daddy walks in I'm still the dutiful virgin, but...maybe cut a little lower than strictly necessary." I could hear a little smile in her voice now. I remembered the glance I'd snuck at her chest, and wondered if she'd meant to remind me. Then she got up off the couch. "Give me a hand with the coffee table."