CONFESSIONS OF A PRIME MINISTER
#3: THE DRAMA KING
BY: FAHID HUSSAIN
CONFESSIONS OF A PRIME MINISTER
#3: THE DRAMA KING
Copyright © by Fahid Hussain
All rights reserved.
Cover was created using image by © Stab | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos
This short is dedicated to those who feel the emptiness of love and the void of fate on their side.
Robin Hood
“What is a Canadian? A Canadian is a fellow wearing English tweeds, a Hong Kong shirt and Spanish shoes, who sips Brazilian coffee sweetened with Philippine sugar from a Bavarian cup while nibbling Swiss cheese, sitting at a Danish desk over a Persian rug, after coming home in a German car from an Italian movie... and then writes his Member of Parliament with a Japanese ballpoint pen on French paper, demanding that he do something about foreigners taking away our Canadian jobs.”
Out of all the plays, out of all the Shakespearean stories and last year’s Frankenstein, our school wanted to do Robin Hood. The fact is that we were now targeting elementary and middle school students; another way for school fundraising. Growing up, I wasn’t the biggest fan of Robin Hood until the play; didn’t like the idea of a thief as a good guy.
When you think of it, we grew up with different types of heroes that weren’t exactly heroes to begin with. Think pirates, they were an enemy of the world; deemed as terrorists that even exist today. Yet give us Treasure Island and most of us would love to see a play, read of the tale that was or kids wanting to be a pirate at Halloween. Now I wasn’t so sure about Robin Hood, most kids were but I didn’t bother to watch the old cartoon.
In the eleventh-grade, I heard of our school play of Frankenstein being a bust. It took the tale into a modern setting, dealing with sensitive issues that parents didn’t see fit for teens to see. The difference in the story was that it was from the monster’s point of view and that the main protagonist Victor was the real monster. I wanted to see it, there was a lot of hype and talk about it in the school, but I didn’t have to time to watch it; was too busy to get on the honour roll. Getting low 80’s were fine, but not good enough for a future doctor.
I was always interested in reading about stories from a villain’s point of view. Most villains in our history or lives think they’re good or what they were doing was something they deserved. After all, most of us who graduated from university believe that the hard-work, studying and sacrifice make us worthy of great things in life. Yet, most things don’t end up the way you expect or hope for and life probably owes us nothing.
Just as the middle-aged Claire who was after a sixteen-year old kid, I would have loved to see her villainous side of the story. In the end of her story she got what she deserved after her ex-husband was financially involved with the defendant in a sexual assault case against her. Imprisoned, the one-time city ward-counselor was done. Roger was no longer in school after the tenth-grade, and I never heard about him again.
I got interested in Drama class in the twelfth-grade, but the truth was while it would be nice to be part of a play or become an extra in a movie one day, I believed it to be a slacker’s class and two past hockey buddies of mine, Pierre and Frank, begged me to join in with them. I needed something like this, especially since I started to fast-track high school and started taking Grade 13 classes. Fast track was a nice way to get into University as quickly as possible, after all I was seventeen going-on-eighteen and it would be nice to be around people my age.
Grade 13 was known as OAC (Ontario Academic Credits) in the province, a transitional grade between Secondary School and University that was publically-funded. I always liked an extra grade for high school, especially if you were good in the social chain you got another year of a memorable time in your life and as for parents it was an opportunity for an extra year before paying for school. For politicians, it was a waste of money and eventually by the turn of the century it came to an end; forcing students of earlier grades to play catch-up.
Rushing to graduate as an advanced student in the twelfth-grade and getting into a good university early on was a big mistake. It took a toll on me and since I believed Drama was going to be just another OAC credit on my transcript to upgrade my grades, I had no prerequisite to get in.
I asked the guidance counselor for help to get into the class; trying to convince him that I wanted to show off my phony skills. The biggest issue was that I was shooting for Grade 13 Drama, and I didn’t even have Grade 9 Drama on my transcript. He recommended taking Grade 10 and I laughed it out in my head, sitting with kids three-years younger than me? No thanks. How did I manage to get in to the class? Simple, I falsified an initial on a course selection sheet for recommendation; I got in.
Pierre and Frank chickened out and I was left in a class full of people I’ve never seen before. As much as it was a great opportunity to meet new people, these were a different breed of people and it made me feel like an outsider. The teacher was Ms. Dawson, head of the drama department who had no idea who I was. Didn’t matter, she welcomed everyone to the class as well as a Student Teacher from university who was sitting in.
First thing we did in class? Read a page from Hamlet, pick lines and read them out loud with memory. I had to be specific, what lines and page I was to present; this was a first for me. I was good with memory, but doing this in front of real students of Drama was going to be embarrassing. I had to succeed and before I could pull it off, I was amazed by a student who got up first and read out the lines of Ophelia in her madness; acting out the scene at the same time. If you were there you would have believed her to be mad.
I had no idea what character to play, I went ahead with lines of the main character with a phony British accent and the only thing great about it was that I remembered the lines better than a few people. It surprised me, but nothing like the girl who would change my life forever.
Her name was Valerie Suvari, a fair-skinned brunette with a ponytail in her back and the cutest round cheeks with a dimple I’d ever seen. She was half-Turkish and half-British with a Canadian accident. I didn’t recognize her at first till I remembered her campaign victory last term for Student Council President. Sometimes in a matter of months a student can look totally different with a new makeover or hairstyle and that had to be the case with her.
The Student Council was made up of some of the brightest students in school, who actually took part in school affairs with teachers and principals alike. The council was made up of a President, Vice-President, Secretary-Treasurer, Speaker and five Class Administrators (aka. Class President).
We were one of the rare schools in the metropolitan that had a very active student council, where people actually cared about campaigns and elections; 80% of students casted in votes last term. For a school that now capped at fifteen-hundred students, this was turning out to be a college campus in need of students who could speak up. An elections campaign was going to begin in November, as a President could only serve for two-terms.
For a few classes we partnered up with other actors for role-play and line practice till I was placed with Valerie. She wore a cute red blouse over her jeans; her hair was in curls and out. Personally, I was sick of my army-cuts and went for a wavy floppy-style that suited my dirty blonde hair by this time. I was going to play Cardinal Wolsey in Act III of Shakespeare’s Henry VIII and Valerie had the role of Queen Catherine. Nothing romantic about the roles, but this was the roles that Valerie chose for us.
“Queen Catherine is a hero, gotta love these lines.” Valerie spoke softly.
“Are you Catholic?” What kind
of question was that? I may have known parts of the story from history and from my collection of cliff notes (a cheat sheet), but what did that have anything to do with her being interested in a character?
“Why are you asking?”
“I supposed…I mean the Queen and Mary was Catholic and depending on how you look at the story, I mean who were really the villains?”
“So was the King? Even with the reformation, he still had Catholic roots and even married a Catholic later on.”
“That is true, but everyone remembers Elizabeth.” Valerie rolled her eyes in a different and we continued with our lines.
“Are you?” She interrupted.
“Excuse me?”
“Are you a Catholic?”
“Well my mom is, but my family wasn’t that religious. My dad is agnostic.”
“So whose side are you on in the story?”
“Well the Protestants had their reasons, they were being persecuted. The Boleyn family influenced the King one way or another for reform. Soon Catholics were being oppressed. Cardinal Wolsey seems like he had an agenda all of his own and not to forget he did have a mistress if I recall.”
“That’s your first lesson.”
“What do you mean?”
“I look at you and I see someone who is speaking lines out of a book. But once you learn about whom you’re playing, the environment, the setting, the history…put it all together. Ask yourself about Wolsey just as you did, and you’ll be a brilliant actor. You’ve got to live the character, not just read his lines.”
Live the character, when I think of it, as Prime Minister was I living the life of a character all along? Or was I reading lines handed to me like an actor? Maybe that is what life is, that we were meant to read out our own lines; every action and word. After all, some of my early speeches were written by speech-writers; words handed over to me read.
Valerie didn’t seem like the kindest of school Presidents, but I found myself intrigued about her words of wisdom at home by opening up last year’s yearbook. I found that she was one of the top ten students of the eleventh grade and as President in her first-term; her greatest achievement was implementing a garbage cleanup program in and around the school.
I decided to join in on a Student Academic Council (SAC) meeting the next day as students were permitted to sit in if they sign up as Observers. The Council Lounge was the meeting place, four large leather sofas (nicely carpeted area), a kitchen with a coffee maker and fridge, an office of the President and a board room. Talk about being supported really well by a school.
What was even more surprising of SAC was that they always had a surplus of revenue each year and transferred to later years. Students weren’t exactly allowed in the area, but as an Observer you had to give up your Student ID card (would be given back at the end of the session) and sign your name on a tally sheet to get in.
Valerie was brilliant, she spoke like a true leader in that room and I was impressed with her pushing the idea of having a multi-cultural month in October; dedicated to the different religions and cultures of the school. The showcases in the school would present particular images, symbols, books and objects that would provide information for students. At the same time the auditorium (a capacity of two-thousand) would be used for the third-week during lunch hour as a place for students and teachers to share cultural information with other students with presentations.
“What about a talent show to end it off? You know a multi-cultural talent show.” I asked, standing from my seat. There were three other Observers around me and the members of the council were gazing over at me.
“That’s not a bad idea,” said Brenda Williams. I can remember her name so well; she was the running-mate of Valerie, and Vice-President of the SAC. She was quite short, tanned-skin with dirty blonde hair and hazel eyes with glasses. She had dreams of being the first minority President in the school. After all, she was already the first Hispanic Vice President (well half-Hispanic) who made a big deal out of that last year.
I smiled from Brenda’s response and liked her already as Valerie only glanced at me for a quick second to disagree with the idea. She talked about budget cuts in the school and that they would rather invest their time to help the school in something better, like a play. It was that play, Robin Hood. I didn’t even know about it from class, but I guess President’s get to know things first.
Guess who was already in line for the role of the female protagonist Maid Marian? It was Valerie. A sign-up sheet was made available for all Drama students from Grade’s 9-13 and something in my gut told me, I’ve to play Robin Hood. I sat down on a Sunday morning, watching the old cartoons and movies on the big tube, renting VHS tapes from the local video store. I practiced a couple of lines by myself and decided I’m not going to do it. My reaction to the character was that it would have been too cliché for me, after all fifty signups for the lead role was pretty impressive. It’s not like you would get an extra credit for being involved, but bonus marks in class was obvious. Instead of signing up for any character, I went straight to Ms. Dawson.
There was one thing I needed to know, who had the best role in the script? The script was originally written in 1988 by a student that took second-level OAC English in Language and Literature. Given a score of 90%, it was supposedly a really good script. Despite being for kids, it was comedic, dark and with twists. It seemed that Ms. Dawson wanted something that parents could enjoy and middle school students to actually appreciate.
The story was simple; the hero Robin is captured in Nottingham and his love the Maid Marian who was to marry the evil Sheriff, manages to escape in time and decides to lead Robin Hood’s Merry Men with her bow to save Robin. Awkwardly enough, Marian falls in love with Sir Guy of Gisborne who has a change of heart in the story. This was it; the character of Sir Guy was the one I decided to sign up for; he gets the girl in the end!
The top three students the department decided on for each role were brought in for tryouts after school on a specific day. Valerie was chosen early on as Maid Marian and while she did tryouts with Robin Hood candidates, I was given the opportunity to try out for Sir Guy. Lucky me it was a strange turn of events. Taking some time over some lines, we had a scene where Marian tries to convince Sir Guy to be on her side.
“My dearest Sir, do you not see the corruption of the land your Sheriff has caused? The grief of the people and the taxes you have usurped? Robin has been fighting against corruption, while you bath and eat of the people’s bread.” Valerie spoke with conviction.
I replied in haste, “My Maid Marian, Robin Hood is a thief, and a thief is punishable by death. He will die in the morning to set an example. These are the laws of the land by King Richard.”
“And what will you do to me if you take my hand this night?”
“Robin Hood was a fool to have left you for a war; I would have never left you.”
“Oh do you say it dear Sir that you would not see me hung?”
“No my Maid Marian, I would…”I paused, something happened to me. It was in her eyes like there was feeling of a certain reality that cannot be seen. A reality that is unknown to our ears, but one that our hearts can feel. I stuttered and continued, “Would ask…would you go out with me? That’s what Sir Guy would ask…sorry I forgot my lines.”
In stories of old, it may have worked. Not this time, she backed away and shook her head. Ms. Dawson gave me her thanks and I left the room. What was it about this girl? It’s not like we were attracted to each other, or maybe I never understood attraction till the very end. The next day I saw Brenda in the hallways on her way to a class and I did something that most desperate guys do, I asked her if Valerie was available.
What was with me now? Here I was a handsome guy who was six feet tall, a book worm sure, but a onetime popular boy. You know what she asked, if I was gay. You mean to tell me that for the past few years the rumours lasted this long? Surely enough it wasn’t, I shook my head and the next thing you know she asks me out. It wa
s a date.
It was one of my most memorable dates of my life and the only date I had with Brenda. She had two tickets to go to Canada’s Wonderland on a Saturday; a theme park located north of Toronto. Despite being quite cool that day, I thought why not try this out as a first date? We went on several rides and ate funnel cakes. It was a real blast, we even bought photos of ourselves on a ride and Brenda was so good at the games that she got me a teddy bear. Sweet it was, but it kind of went downhill like a roller coaster right after we got out of the park.
Earlier that year, my dad bought me a brand new car, a Chevrolet Cavalier. Sure it wasn’t exactly the kind of vehicle you’d wish for; especially when all these BMW copycats were making their way on our school parking lot. But it was that one thing you needed as a teenager, a car that can take you places and even to school. Even though I didn’t mind public transport, there was always that sense of freedom of the drive; even till this day. Go figure, we pushed public transport as part of our party campaign for a ‘Cleaner Canada’, and there I was driving away on petroleum as a teen.
Brenda does the strangest thing as we got to the car, she starts making a phone call on her new cell-phone her dad got her to one of her friends. Wow, cell-phones can you imagine how we used those thing back in the day? They were such a hassle to carry around, especially when they started getting so small a decade later for convenience and eventually enlarged so fast with the so-called ‘smartphone’ craze. Still, she got off the phone and asked me what I thought of Valerie. I told her right away that she was a nice girl and she told me that Valerie was dating a college guy from the states and that I had no chance with a girl like that.
“What do you mean I have no chance?” I asked in haste.
“She’s top in her class now, President of the student council, an amazing actress and she’ll probably be on Broadway after finishing her Masters from an Ivy League school. You’re no match for her.”
The Drama King #3: Confessions of a Prime Minister Page 1
