by Anne Eton
“Othello wouldn’t do that. He’s almost crazy at this point. He’s going to choose one side or the other without thinking about it. Him changing his mind about what side to approach her would be the last thing he would do.”
“Excuse me,” Dominika said.
Gina and the director turned. Dominika rarely spoke up.
“Why can Othello not stand at the foot of the bed, withdraw the dagger, and leap at Desdemona on this side”—Dominika indicated her side away from the audience—”and strangle her then?”
After a pause, the director said: “Maybe.”
Gina frowned. “If Othello does it that way, he will be really angry. Crazy angry.”
Dominika regarded Gina calmly. “Did you not just say he was almost crazy?”
Gina flushed, an unfamiliar sight. “Listen. I know you mean well, but you don’t want me to get like that. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I think I will be fine.” Dominika laced her fingers upon her stomach, completely at ease. “I shall be resisting, after all. Desdemona shall fight for her life.” She looked at the director. “No?”
The director shrugged. “It’s gonna be really intense if we do it that way.” She considered. “But that’s maybe not such a bad thing.” To Gina: “How about it?”
Gina glared at Dominika. “Okay, but let’s get this straight. If anything goes wrong, or I hurt you, it’s on you.”
“Of course. It was my idea.”
Gina looked at the director. “You’re the witness.”
The director nodded, then walked away, speaking over her shoulder: “Give it a test run. I’ll be back.”
Gina approached Dominika, looming over her. “You sure about this?”
Dominika gazed up with her most innocent eyes. “Perhaps I should ask, are YOU sure. I shall be struggling. I will have to place my hands upon you.”
The tall girl grinned, the first time she had ever offered her co-star a smile. “I think I can handle it.”
“Well then.”
Gina placed her hands gently upon Dominika’s neck. Up until this point, the experienced actress had not actually touched the blonde girl in this scene. She had always acted the strangulation with her fingers inches from Dominika’s throat.
Dominika slipped her hand over Gina’s. Her eyelids closed.
“You okay?”
The Polish girl opened her blue eyes. “Yes, I’m ready.”
“So we’ll just run it through at half speed, and see how it goes.”
“That is fine.”
The pressure of Gina’s hands did not increase, but the tall girl’s body grew tense. Her back curved as she directed her strength into her arms. Gina’s face turned angry. Dominika emitted a small cry and slid her hand slowly up Gina’s wrist, to her elbow, then to her shoulder. She made a strangled sound.
“Great!”
They turned. The director was behind them, beaming.
“Let’s try it with the leap. C’mon!”
Soon, they had blocked out the action. Gina’s strong legs lifted her body in a feral bound toward Dominika; Dominika screamed with terror. As Gina’s feet hit the boards, her hands flew around the blonde girl’s neck. “It is too late!” Gina thundered, the proper line from the play. Dominika thrashed—fighting, writhing, pushing her hands against Gina. She almost fell off the table as she performed her struggles.
“Whoa!” the director said. “Cut!” The action stopped.
The two actors looked around. The entire company was watching, wide-eyed.
The director grinned. “That was pretty good.”
“I don’t like this,” one of the bit players said. “It’s violence against women.”
The director rolled her eyes.
“What do you want Othello to do, Cindy?” sneered the makeup girl. “Strangle her with sweet words?”
“I’m just saying, it looks really intense…”
“Good,” the director interrupted. “That makes it controversial, and controversy sells tickets. Tweet and Facebook it up about the intensity when you get home, guys. We want a sell-out house on opening night.” She beamed at Gina and Dominika. “Nice work, you two! Okay, next scene.”
As Gina and the others turned away, Dominika noted to her surprise that the tall girl had barely applied any pressure at all—though the actress’s fingers had been rigid and shaking, Gina’s grip had been gentle. Dominika touched her throat, feeling where Gina’s hands had been. She felt a sudden, fierce tenderness toward Gina, who clearly was concerned for her Polish co-star’s welfare.
Two weeks before opening night, full dress and makeup rehearsals began. Dominika received a little powder on her cheeks to help cut down glare from the klieg lights, but otherwise nothing.
“That’s all?” she asked the makeup girl.
“That’s it,” the girl replied. “You don’t need much. Makes my job a lot easier. Especially since I have to deal with Othello. Which reminds me, that face paint should’ve dried by now.”
The makeup girl turned and walked toward the dressing room. Dominika followed her.
Inside the room, Dominika saw many of the cast and crew gathered around Gina, as usual. The Italian-American girl was leaning back in a chair. Makeup had transformed her into an African man. Dominika gasped.
Suzy, the black student who had been the first to see Dominika on the day she had walked through the audition door, grinned at the Polish girl: “Not bad, huh?” Suzy turned to Gina. “‘Sup, brotha.” She offered her fist. Gina smiled and bumped it with her own.
Annabelle entered. The happy vibe in the room vanished immediately.
“You all look so charming!” she announced, faking a broad smile. With her finger, she indicated Gina. “I’m sorry, but could we just have a quick moment?”
Everyone but Gina filed out. The tall girl’s expression was blank. She stared at the wall in front of her. Annabelle nodded and smiled to the theater girls as they left, then closed the door behind them.
Outside, everyone dispersed quickly as if they had pressing business. Everyone except for Dominika. She lingered, and soon heard raised voices from inside.
“… Put up with this any longer,” Annabelle screeched.
“Do we really have to do this here?” Gina replied. “What the hell? You’ll have me all to yourself for the rest of the night after rehearsal. Can’t you wait a couple hours?”
“That’s exactly the problem,” Gina’s girlfriend replied. Dominika imagined her drawing herself up and looking down at Gina with those cold eyes. “You’re all about wait, wait, wait! Well, I’m tired of waiting. What are we doing after graduation?”
“We’ve been over this…”
“Yes, and your plan seems to be minimum-wage employment doing summer stock in whatever farm town that will take you. If they’ll take you. Guess what. I’m not going to be driving to work, earning a living, and supporting you while you go off and have your fun. I don’t have the luxury of coming from a rich family.”
“Oh, my God.” A tone of weariness, of being beaten down, crept into Gina’s voice. “Let’s not get into this again…”
“And what? Just wait? Keep waiting? Right, that’s always your plan. Let me tell you this for the millionth time, and maybe it will sink in. Unlike you, I will have student debt to pay. Unlike you, I want a sound financial future—one that I’ve earned MYSELF. I’ve lined up a very good job in Dallas doing investment auditing. I’m happy to pay the rent, like I said, but I will not be sitting around like a chump while you go off on auditions and tours and who the fuck knows what. You need to be home with me. It is time to be an adult, Gina. This is real life, and this is what adults do.”
A long pause followed. Annabelle spoke again. “So I am asking you, right here, right now: are you ready to grow up?”
A longer silence.
“You are so selfish,” Annabelle said. Her sobs carried through in her voice. “You are the most selfish person I have ever known.”
It took all of Dominika’s r
estraint not to burst through the door and attack Annabelle. How dare you? the Polish girl seethed. Someone with Gina’s gifts? You want her to stay home and be your fucking HOUSEWIFE? Dominika gasped as she realized her language, in her head at least, was so vituperative. She had never once uttered the F-word in her life.
Annabelle stormed out of the dressing room, slamming the door so hard the walls shivered. She marched toward the exit, away from Dominika.
After many seconds had passed, Dominika rapped the smallest of knocks with her little-finger knuckle. “Hello?” she asked softly. “May I come in?”
No reply. She hesitated, then turned the knob.
Gina was sitting in her chair staring at the wall. An emptiness was in her eyes.
“Hello,” the blonde said, for lack of anything else.
“Hello.”
Dominika wanted so badly to hug her.
The director poked her head into the room, knocking on the door as softly as Dominika had. “Need a few minutes?”
“For what?” Gina rose to her feet. She seemed calm. “Work calls, right?”
Gina performed as brilliantly in rehearsal as she always did.
The following week, opening night arrived. Dominika strode up and down the corridor backstage, fighting a case of the butterflies.
“Do me a favor,” the stage manager told her. “Go pace somewhere else. Please? I’m nervous enough and with my blood pressure the way it feels tonight, you’re about to send me to the emergency room.”
Dominika walked away and around, toward the stage. The audience on the other side murmured a dull roar, like water rushing down a steep river.
The Polish girl approached Gina and the director, who were peeking through the red velvet curtain at the crowd.
“Full house,” Gina said. “You got what you wanted.”
“I’m kind of wishing I could take it back. We had to turn people away. I don’t remember the last time that happened.” The director paused, then asked in a casual tone: “Do you see her?”
“No,” Gina replied. She shrugged her shoulders, and her costume rippled with the movement. “She promised she would come, even so, but breaking promises is kind of her thing.”
“What do you mean?” The director turned to look at Gina. “‘Even so?’”
“We broke up Wednesday,” the tall girl replied calmly.
The director said nothing.
The brunette kept looking out through the curtain. “I guess it’s for the best. Who knows. I don’t care.”
The director tentatively reached a hand toward Gina’s arm, hesitated, then drew it back again. “I’m really sorry.”
“It happens.”
“You gonna be okay?”
“I’ll be fine. I won’t let it affect my performance.”
“That’s not what I meant—”
“Yeah, I know. Thanks. I’m fine. Really.”
Dominika turned around and walked toward the backstage area again, her brain spinning.
After the curtain had opened and Iago and Roderigo were strolling the boards speaking the opening lines, Dominika approached the director.
“What is it, Dom?” the director whispered. She was focused on the action.
“I’m sorry, but what is my first line?” the blonde whispered back.
The director turned to her, bug-eyed. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”
Dominika said nothing.
“‘My noble father, I do perceive here a divided duty.’”
“Right,” the Polish girl said. “Right. I’ve got it now. Don’t worry.”
The director kept staring.
Dominika’s first scene arrived. She played it perfectly. Kneeling by Othello, she kept her eyes on the floor and spoke:
“…And to his honor and his valiant parts
“Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.
“So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,
“A moth of peace, and he go to the war,
“The rites for which I love him are bereft me,
“And I a heavy interim shall support
“By his dear absence. Let me go with him.”
She looked up at Gina.
Later, at the beginning of the strangulation scene, Dominika tried to focus on her lines and not on Gina. The tall girl trembled with rage, her eyes shining wildly. In the script faithful Desdemona had just unwittingly made her husband Othello think she had been unfaithful; and, not comprehending his anger, Desdemona had become more and more afraid. On her bed (a twin-size purloined temporarily from a dorm room), Dominika snapped upright per the rehearsals, but suddenly realized to her mortification that her nipples had turned into pebbles and must be creating what Americans called “headlights” through the gauzy material of her nightdress. She withstood the temptation to look down and see, and instead cried her line:
“Kill me to-morrow: let me live to-night!”
“Nay, if you strive—”
“But half an hour!” Dominika wailed.
“Being done, there is no pause,” Gina uttered ominously.
“But while I say one prayer!”
Gina leapt. Her hands flew around Dominika’s throat; Dominika grabbed Gina’s sleeves and thrashed. In her contortions, the Polish girl’s breast brushed Gina’s arm, something that had never happened before. Dominika felt electricity sizzle through her body, stunning her; gasping, her eyes snapped open. She writhed an uncontrollable, wrenching jerk.
The bed capsized, toppling Dominika and Gina with it over and onto the stage boards and almost into the front row. This also had never happened before. Gina did not miss a beat; she kept her hands on Dominika’s neck and thrust her body upon the Polish girl’s, between her legs. “It is too late!” Gina screamed with a feral hatred.
The audience gasped; many jumped to their feet, ready to storm the stage or run for help. “Down!” screamed young women in the back seats. “Sit down, goddamn it!” The audience stood up en masse. They watched Dominika’s struggles gradually subside; Gina withdrew her hands. On cue, Dominika uttered a tiny sob.
“What noise is this? Not dead? Not yet quite dead?” Gina whispered. “I that am cruel am yet merciful; I would not have thee linger in thy pain: So, so.” Gina and Dominika performed the choreographed action where Othello snapped Desdemona’s neck. Dominika jerked, then moved no more. The audience gasped again.
And then Gina went off script. She began to weep. A small sniffling at first, then a gasping, sobbing, uncontrollable grief.
The audience watched, unblinking. Gina cried so hard that snot ran out of her nose. Dominika, lying motionless, wondered: What is happening? It took all of her self-control not to look. Is Gina crying because it’s good for the play? Is her grief because of Annabelle leaving her? Did perhaps Gina worry that she has hurt me?
The girl playing Emilia shouted off-stage, “O, good my lord, I would speak a word with you!”
Gina did not respond, keening. Emilia hesitated, and then screamed at the top of her lungs: “My good lord, I would speak a word with you!” After a moment, Gina rose, wiped her face, and spoke the next line.
At the curtain calls, the cast and crew repeatedly bowed, walked off, and then strode back in front of the applauding ticketholders. The audience would not stop clapping.
“This is nuts,” said the girl who had played Iago. She beamed, glowing.
Gina turned to Dominika. “Did I hurt you?”
Dominika offered a warm, radiant smile. “No. Your hands were as gentle as ever.”
“Cool.” Gina turned away.
Cool? That’s all? Dominika tried to keep a smile on her face when they trooped out onto the stage again for their umpteenth bow.
The play sold out for the rest of its two-week run. After much discussion, the troupe agreed that the bed falling over was a terrific touch. Gina and Dominika kept re-playing it to perfection.
Near the end of the run, the director ran in waving her smartphone as the cast and crew arrived for the night
’s show.
“Motherfucker!” she breathed. “I only just found out about this. Gather around, everybody! We got a review from the goddamn Boston Globe!”
The girls all clustered round. “And I quote,” the director intoned. She tapped her phone, and began scrolling through text: “‘It is not often that a drama critic works for free; however, when one has a daughter at Wellesley, and one is visiting said daughter for the weekend, and said daughter insists on attending an opening night show because of buzz on this new thing called “the internet,” well, what is a father to do?’” The reviewer went on to describe the production overall in glowing terms.
Then: “‘But it is the young lady in the lead, Gina Mantovani, who steals this already considerable show. In my twenty years of reviewing theater, I have never seen a better Othello; indeed, and I say this seriously, I may never have seen a better actor.” The crowd around the director gasped. Gina, trying to break the tension, remarked: “Wait. I’m not an actress? Somebody call this guy.”
“Shh,” the director said to Gina. She continued reading: “Mantovani’s range, depth of emotion, gift of craft, and yes I must say this (as a happily married man, I hasten to add), smoldering sexuality makes her the top pick for future international stardom, if there were such a fantasy league devoted to such matters. I, and soon many more I am sure, look forward to seeing her work again.”
A pause. “That’s it,” the director said. Everyone looked at Gina.
The girl smiled, bent her head, and rubbed the back of her neck. “Wow.”
“That’s all you can say?” someone asked.
The director turned her phone’s screen to Gina, so that she could read the text. “With this review, you can get auditions on Broadway. For real.”
“Just remember all us little people, okay?” another girl joked.
Gina smiled again, nodded, and made a self-effacing remark. At length, the company broke up to put on that night’s production, which was a smash as usual.
Long after the show was over and everyone else had departed, Dominika sat in the dressing room, still in her stage nightgown. She felt that a very precious time in her life was drawing to a close, and she wanted to linger and remember.
“Oh. Hey. I thought everybody had gone,” she heard behind her.
