The Dutch aren’t big on the whole “special” thing. The whole premise of the country is “So what, big deal.” Being famous is completely different here. As far as I can tell, the big dream for Dutch actors is getting a gig on the popular soap opera Goede Tijden, Slechte Tijden (Good Times, Bad Times). It’s a tiny country, so the actors are famous to about four people.
Normally I wouldn’t even try for something like this, but maybe they’ll need someone to play soldier number four or interns to make coffee. They wouldn’t have to pay me. I’ll make sure to tell them that first thing. Don’t pay me, and give me the shittiest parts.
I snuff out my joint (oops, where did that come from?) and call for an audition.
Apartment 1408. Somewhere in North Amsterdam where I’ve never been before.
Billie, a twentysomething guy in tight Wrangler jeans and cowboy boots, is leading me down a dark hallway. The apartment is full of things like glass butter dishes, ceramic swans, teacup collections, and musty old rugs. There are mysterious brown smears on the walls. I wouldn’t be surprised to find a skeleton with a gray wig wearing a housecoat sitting on one of the kitchen chairs.
Billie has a crooked cowboy smile and a tight little sparkplug body. He’s bursting with incredibly attractive, rugged Texas passion. I’ll never get in this company. Good-looking people like to be around other good-looking people so they can feel free to say things like “You’re beautiful, I’m beautiful, but I want so much more in my life,” or “I know it sounds awful, but why do poor people have weird foreheads?” without feeling bad.
The artistic director is an ex–hand model turned genius theater director named Nico McMasters. She chose three of “her very best” actors to help her start the new company, and Billie is one of them. He is clearly in love with her. He tells me how working with Nico changed his entire life. Testing to see if he could ever be persuaded to love a clown, I ask him, “Before you met her, you were an armless hamster learning to paint with your feet, right?”
All I get is a quick “ha,” and he’s right back to Nico.
“Nico is kind of a god in Houston. Everyone wants to work with her, but it’s really hard for her to find folks who can do ‘the work.’ She was feeling so limited by American audiences she had to get out.”
I nod—“Oh god, I get it”—but the truth is I’m hardly listening because I’m trying to wrap my head around how tiny Wrangler jeans make men’s butts look.
On the lumpy baby-poop-colored couch in the living room sit the other two chosen ones, a short, buff version of Paul Newman and a short, buff version of Jesus. They are also quite handsome and sexy. Either I need to move to Texas or Nico is a genius—whom, sadly, I won’t be meeting today.
Nico wants “her boys” to make the final decision on who joins the company since they’re the ones who understand “the work” and know what it takes to do “the work.”
Let’s hope that “the work” they keep referring to is stuff like memorizing lines and learning how to glue fake noses on and not mining kidneys from desperate illegal immigrants. I’m in the middle of answering buff Jesus’s question, “If you could invite anyone to dinner, living or dead, who would it be?”
“Loudon Wainwright III, Oprah, Kurt Vonnegut, Walt Whitman, Sinead O’Connor, Abbie Hoffman, the Dalai Lama, Robert De Niro, Vincent van Gogh, Sylvia Plath—”
I’m about to say “and the guy who played Starsky on Starsky and Hutch” when I hear the distinct sound of a match being lit followed by a long exhale coming from behind a cracked door in the back of the room.
There’s someone or something looming in the dark shadows.
It’s that Nico lady. I’m sure of it.
I couldn’t care less.
At this point I don’t care if she’s an alien kept in a jar. I’ve never been around so many good-looking heterosexual actors in one room. The theater boys I know scream “South Pacific!” just to celebrate being alive.
The monologue I’ve chosen to do for my audition is a self-written comedic piece entitled “Weight Watchers Group Leader.” As Margie, the perky Weight Watchers leader, flaunting my tiny wrists in the faces of the obese housewives and encouraging them to pry their fillings out of their teeth before weigh-ins, I was heralded at North Central High School’s “A Night with Repertory Theater” as “better than Carol Burnett by Kristin Chapman’s stepmother.” It’s a sure thing.
Halfway through the monologue there’s been nary a chuckle. Even when I’m all alone at home rehearsing I have to stop for laughs.
If they don’t laugh at the motivational poem, I’ll tell them the monologue was written by Wallace Shawn and go home.
Aaaaaaaannnddd . . . nada.
Forget it.
These guys are just another group of pretentious Texas artists looking to change the face of European theater. Perhaps if I had set the Weight Watchers meeting in a concentration camp and the leader had a Polish accent they would have liked it. “Elsa lost five pounds! That means at eighty-eight pounds she’s gone past her goal weight by forty pounds! Good for you, Elsa! Remember cockroaches are three points, ladies! They count!”
If I promise not to bring my dictionary and not to drink all Magda’s orange juice again she’ll hire me back.
“Thank you.” Billie stands up and walks toward me with what seem to be tears in his eyes.
“That was amazing.”
Buff Jesus tells me it’s “very complicated stuff.”
Buff Paul Newman can’t believe I wrote it myself.
Apparently, without the laughs the entire piece becomes this deep examination of misogyny in America. And calorie counting.
Billie called this morning. I’m in. I cannot believe it. I’m an official company member of the Amsterdam-American Alliance Theater Company. The first thing I need to do is bow my head in gratitude and give thanks to the unseen forces that got me to this life-changing moment where it turns out that I am better than all those schmucks who didn’t make it in! In your faces! I won! You lost! Find me a tailor in Amsterdam who works with purple satin; I’m making me a new suit the Bee Gees would kill for! Yes! Yes! Finally, yes! I am going to be a professional actor. Paid. With money!
My phone rings. It’s my ex-boyfriend Hans. Buzzkill. Hans and I were together for almost two years. We’ve been broken up for a year. Every so often, he likes to show up at one of my housecleaning jobs and chase me home on his bike trying to kick my spokes, determined to make me suffer how “I made him suffer.” The last time I saw him was when he came over to my apartment at three A.M., completely drunk, and accused me of having sex with strangers and never loving our pet rabbit, Liza. The next morning he sent me a Joni Mitchell tape to apologize.
He’s calling to share with me the good news. He’s going to be a company member of an exciting new . . . Texas . . . blah-blah . . . bigger buzzkill.
We both agree that we shouldn’t mention to anyone that we’ve dated because we don’t want it to get in the way of “the work.” Mostly I don’t want him complaining how hard it was to give me an orgasm in case I have a chance with any of the Texas boys.
Monday morning. First company meeting.
This is the funkiest group of artists I’ve ever seen in one place. It looks like a scene from a Fellini movie. People of all ages and pant lengths are running around the raw open space of the eighteenth-century canal house that is going to house the new theater. It’s a gorgeous space. People from Texas have so much money!
With Hans safely on the other side of the room talking to an attractive blond woman with yellow paint splatters all over her face, I corner Billie to share with him my passion for life. “Thank god I got in this company. Not acting for me is like being a whale and taking in huge gusting breaths of air and not being allowed to blow it all out the top of my head.” If I ever want to have sex again, perhaps I should stop using whale analogies.
Nico makes her entrance.
All twenty-five people in the room go completely silent. She didn’t even have to go, “Shhhhhhhh.” It’s like a lion sauntered in. Or a movie star. Or someone with a gun.
She is one tall, beautiful drink of lady water. Early thirties or late forties; I’m bad with ages. Miss Texas hair and dreamy blue eyes that look like they were painted on by the guy who designed the sixties Barbie face.
“Whoa, now. I love you guys already!” Nico says and laughs. We all laugh with her. I can’t stop laughing. Right as I start to wonder if this is what an anxiety attack feels like, I look up and see Nico looking right at me. Immediately I feel a connection. She sees past my Michigan State sweatshirt and MC Hammer pants. (I’m the only one who took the “dress to move” note seriously.) She sees who I really am. What I’m capable of. Or maybe I look like a girl who goes to her hair salon. I get that a lot.
Nico steps to the side and introduces R. T. Thomas, a retired Hewlett-Packard businessman. He is “a dear old friend, whose financial commitment and passion for truth have made all of this possible.” Amsterdam must be R.T.’s version of a Carnival cruise, because he’s wearing shorts and a Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, which blesses the viewer with a glimpse of gray furry belly, and he has a camera around his neck. R.T. became a die-hard supporter of the theater after seeing Billie play the title role in Jesus Christ Superstar seventeen times. He tells us that he’s very excited about what the future holds for this group of talented young people and excuses himself. “Gotta make hay while the sun shines.”
Nico yells after him, “Careful you don’t make too much hay where the sun don’t shine, my friend,” and busts out in a “you gotta love this guy, right?” laugh.
Once R.T. is completely out of the building, the mood shifts. Nico takes a deep breath and makes a slow scan around the room.
“If y’all don’t want to be here . . . if there is anything that is keeping you from being completely present in this room . . . go do it. I don’t want y’all in here unless you are here. I’m serious. You won’t be fired. Just go do whatever it is you need to do in order to be here with your full self. When you’re done . . . come on back.”
Nobody moves. I love it. Good stuff. This is how every moment of our lives should be lived.
“We looked for the bravest artists in the world. And we found y’all. The stakes could not be higher for us. That’s the kind of work we do. High stakes. If it’s not high stakes . . . If you’re not on the edge of a cliff about to fall to your death, you’re not doing ‘the work.’ Let me tell y’all something. Your fears are not that you are inadequate, but that you are powerful beyond all measure.”
That’s what Oprah says. Oh my god, Nico knows Oprah. This doesn’t surprise me at all.
Now it’s time for verbal contracts. She warns us that the work is going to be very personal. The contracts are vital for our unblocking our creative selves. She has us repeat after her:
“I promise to be open, honest, and reactive
“I promise to maintain confidentiality
“I promise not to have sex with company members—”
Ohhhhh. That’s why Billie was so nice to me. He knew about the contract. He knew he could dry hump me without needing to see it through.
You know what? This is exactly what I need.
Now I can be myself and not worry about if I had a chance with any of the Texas boys, which, considering the presence of our beautiful Italian set designer and the tall blond Dutch actress, was unlikely to happen anyway. I’m free to pretend that secretly everyone wants to have sex with me but they’re contractually bound not to.
Nico pairs us up and puts me with Emile, a German playwright with very angular features and little tiny glasses perched on his nose that look like he’d stolen them off of a figurine of an old lady.
“We are going to practice being all knowing. Dipping into the collective unconscious. For the next thirty minutes you will be able to see into a person’s soul. Not pretending to see into their soul but seeing into their soul.”
I’m being paid for this?
“Look into your partner’s eyes. Do not look away. You are going to be able to see into their soul. Every image that comes up needs to be shared. Don’t think about it. Don’t judge it. Say it. Don’t hold anything back, and whatever you do, don’t look away from their eyes.”
I offer to look into Emile’s soul first. I’m worried that I’m going to do it wrong. What if the only images that come up are about me? “I see me eating my breakfast. I see me eating my lunch.” Perhaps I should have had a snack.
Emile takes off his glasses, and by golly if the images don’t start coming to me so fast I can’t keep up with them. “There’s a house. And flames. People are screaming. Horses—yes, there are horses running out of barns. There are men praying, clergymen, wrapped in red flags, handing you babies to save. There’s a food court in a mall—no, it’s not a mall; there are women with torches. It’s the French Revolution. Yes, the French Revolution . . .”
By the time it’s Emile’s turn to look into my soul I’ve seen the moon explode and entire empires crumble and I’m completely drained.
Emile needs his glasses to see into my soul. He puts them on, peers into my eyes for about thirty seconds, and says, “You look like Kathy Bates.” Takes his glasses off and sits back in his chair, looking around the room to see what everyone else is doing.
I want a new partner. That is not what my soul looks like. That is what I look like when I don’t put enough contouring blush on. If Emile can’t at least pretend to be deep, there’s no way he has what it takes. I wonder if I should alert Nico.
Every once in a while I catch Hans glaring at me. As skinny and pale and bald as he is, there’s something about a six-foot-seven lapsed Catholic Dutchman glaring at you from across the room that’s unsettling. He’s constantly judging me as a madonna or a whore. It’s like he knows I made out with that Dutch bartender last night. I also bought flowers, recognized the existence of synchronicity, and read an Allen Ginsberg poem. Why doesn’t he sense that about me?
After a smoke break we jump into “wound work.”
I have my journal and my pen poised to write down every word Nico says, so I’ll do well on the test. Nico tells me to put the pen down because I’ll remember what I need to remember. She doesn’t know how much pot I smoke. Or I bet she does.
“Deep inside each of us is a wound where we carry the knowledge of our death. If we are brave enough to do the work, we will eventually be able to cut through all the layers of resistance inside of us and have full access to that wound.”
I don’t get it. Is she saying that inside of me at this moment I know that one day I will be drowning in darkness but I won’t notice because I’ll be a corpse rotting away as people I love live on? Ouch. Found it.
Nico starts rolling herself a cigarette. She’s already so European. What’s next? Neon orange shirts tucked into tight white jean shorts and hairy armpits?
“Touch that wound and you will cry like you have never cried and laugh like y’all have never laughed. I’m not gonna lie. It’s a long road to get to this place. Not all of you are gonna be able to make it. But those who do, get ready, because the power that will be released onstage will be magnificent.”
On our fifth smoke break, Nico walks over and puts her arm around me. “You didn’t think you’d be here, did you, girlfriend? Let me tell you something. You are supposed to be here. I have no doubt and I cannot wait to see what you can do.”
Uh-oh.
She’s got high expectations for me.
Just like the 950 graduating seniors before I delivered the commencement speech at my high school graduation. At the audition I’d beaten out bright young speech team leaders with messages of hope and “Gandhi said unto Martin Luther King Jr.”–type quotes simply because I had a lot of energy
and didn’t mind large groups of people looking at me. In fact, I preferred it.
From the podium I could see row after row of my fellow students filling up the floor of Market Square Arena, with big, hopeful smiles, hands poised over gown-covered thighs, ready to slap. “Oh, this is going to be funny,” all their faces said. “That’s the crazy girl I sit next to in algebra who pretends to smoke tampons like a cigar. Didn’t she do that Weight Watchers monologue that Kristin Chapman’s stepmom loved so much? Oh, we are gonna laugh.”
Speeches like “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth” do well in large arenas meant for major sporting events, their impact made more powerful by the echoing and tinny reverb quality. Not so much with lines like “You know how Grease was a musical about a group of high school kids in the fifties. Well, maybe they’ll have a musical about high school in the eighties and call it Mousse.” By the time I got to my closing line, “Remember, whether you’re flipping burgers at McDonald’s”—don’t make eye contact with Ron Gude . . . don’t make eye contact with Ron Gude—“or you’re the CEO of a big business, give it all you have,” I was convinced I’d ruined graduation for 950 teenagers. As I stood on the podium, it all came back to them—“Wait a minute. That’s not the crazy funny girl. That’s the girl with the twenty-two-year-old stalker boyfriend who waits for her in the parking lot after school threatening to kill himself. That’s the crazy crazy girl.”
Nobody knows anything about my past here in Amsterdam. That’s the beauty of living overseas. Today, I consider myself the luckiest manly girl on the face of the earth.
Miss Fortune Page 6
