The Rehearsal Read Online Free PDF Page B

toward the foyer, the fabric of the fallen arm dragging his shoulder painfully down. The War Minister. Hal. Thesolemn procession of costumes down the wall was like an eerie trickle of spirits from a leak in the bounds of the underworld.
     He shivered. Perdita. Volpone. The Toad.
November
    “They’ll do terrible things to you there,” Stanley’s father said. “You’ll get in touch with your emotions and your inner eye
     and worse. I won’t recognize you this time next year. You’ll just be this big pink ball of feeling.”
    “Look at all the famous people who’ve come through,” said Stanley, taking the brochure off his father and pointing to the
     list inside the back cover, where all the television and film stars were asterisked in red. The pages of the brochure were
     already soft from being turned and turned.
    “I look forward to seeing you on daytime television,” said Stanley’s father. “That’s my son, I’ll say out loud, to nobody.
     There on screen with the airbrushing and the toupee. That’s my son.”
    “Did you see the photos of the grounds?” Stanley said, flipping back through the brochure until he found them. “It’s in the
     old museum building. It’s all stone and mosaic floors and stuff, and big high windows.”
    “I see that.”
    “Three hundred people audition.”
    “That’s great, Stanley.”
    “And only twenty get in.”
    “That’s great.”
    “I know it’s just a beginning,” Stanley said.
    A waiter arrived and Stanley’s father ordered wine. Stanley leaned back and looked around. The restaurant was starched and
     shadowy, full of murmuring and quiet laughter and cologne. The ceiling was strung with little red lanterns glinting back and
     forth above them.
    The waiter bowed and moved off. Stanley’s father shook out his cuffs and smiled his therapy smile. He pushed the glossy brochure
     back across the tablecloth.
    “I’m proud of you,” he said. “It’s going to be great. But you know, we’re working for opposing teams now.”
    “What do you mean?” Stanley said.
    “Theater is all about the unknown, right? Theater has its roots in magic and ritual and sacrifice, and magic and ritual and
     sacrifice depend on some element of mystery. Psychology is all about getting rid of mystery, turning superstitions and fears
     into things that we can understand.” He winked and speared an olive with a toothpick. “We’re practically at war.”
    Stanley felt stumped, as he often did when his father said something clever. Each year after this meal was over Stanley lay
     in bed and thought for hours about what he could have said back that would have been cleverer. He chased the oily bubbles
     of vinegar around his dish with his finger.
    “Do you disagree?” his father asked, looking at him sharply as he chewed.
    “Sort of,” Stanley said. “I guess I thought… I guess for me acting seems like a way of finding out about a person, or getting
     into a person. I mean, you have to understand sadness to be able to act it. I don’t know. That seems kind of similar to what
     you do.”
    “Ah-ha!” said Stanley’s father with the unpleasant greedy quickness of someone who likes to triumph in an argument. “So do
     you think actors know more about ordinary people than ordinary people know about themselves?”
    “No,” Stanley said, “but I’m not sure that psychologists know more about ordinary people than they know about themselves either.”
    His father burst out laughing and slapped the table.
    “Aren’t you supposed to be giving me life advice and passing on a torch or something?” Stanley asked, to change the subject.
    “Shit,” said his father. “I would have come prepared. How about you just tell me all the new cuss words, and we can swap dirty
     jokes. I’ve never been to drama school. Don’t ask me about my feelings.”
    “I don’t know any new cuss words,” said Stanley. “I think all the old ones are still current.”
    There was a small