A LACK OF STAGING

It wasn't what I expected. At the very least, I expected a stage. There wasn't one. Instead of a stage the performers danced and sang on a piece of wood dirtier than the floor around it. The lights are dim as you push a heavy wooden door open. You walk down a musty flight of stairs and you find yourself in a room that may have at one point been called a studio. Now it is half dressing room half performance space, lonely and forgotten with only a cracked vanity mirror, dark and lightless, to watch the theatricalities.

I watch the performers prepare with far too much hope. I want nothing more than to be blown away by power and strength and technique.

"Put that chair there."
"Sure."
"Thanks."
"No problem."

I return to my space to watch. The lights dim as a middle-aged woman takes center stage. She is beautiful, though something about her prevents me from truly believing her to be so. There is something in the high angle of her nose, the proud way she looks at her audience. There is in her eyes a drive to become something better, an intense nostalgia for some top note once hit on the better side of thirty. Her performance is very nearly good.

Next is a younger woman. Singing and dancing are new pursuits to her, and it shows in the way she carries herself. Her movements have none of the sharpness and vigor of the women standing beside her. She casts sidelong glances at the audience when she thinks no one is watching her, and she looks sillier for it. But she is beautiful. Unlike the woman before her, the beauty is there. It is self-evident. There is an honesty to her voice.

Finally, a duet. It is a song I already know, a song I love. I whoop and cheer as the two begin to sing. The first one is, also, very nearly good. She moves with a confidence and fluidity not easily found. But the second. Oh god, the second. My enthusiasm dies with her pitch.

"I need you to strike that chair."
"During intermission?"
"Right after. When the house lights are down."
"Will do."
"Thanks."
"No problem."

I am disappointed. I wanted so much to be in the presence of those far beyond my reach. I wanted to be dwarfed in power and strength and technique and experience. I found none of those things that night in the studio-dressing room beneath the musty stairs.

"It's ten. You ought to get going."
"Is there anything else I can help with?"
"No, we should be okay."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
"Alright. Have a good night."
"Good night. See you on Friday."
"Thanks."
"No problem."

I walk up the musty stairs and push the heavy wooden door in the opposite direction. Cheap music, cheap light; they litter the street. I turn around to see the building I came out of. I am again disappointed: it has not become the Apollo Theatre. A dirty wooden sign with the letters "TMS" painted in black letters hung on a peg above the door, behind which I could still hear voices, proud of their owners' musical progress. I turn around once more. Cars veer across the street, becoming blurs of metal. There is chaos here, larger than me, larger than any life. I close my eyes and step out onto the world, so that it might take me.