Backstage

I've always felt comfortable backstage, it was a place I could call home. The creak of the floorboards is almost musical after a while. It feels like stepping into a different world, stage and backstage separated by a game. A game to see how long someone can maintain audience immersion, while the magic happens behind the curtains. 

Hundreds of smells ranging from varnish and dust, to the stage make-up and aged paint. Even the humid air becomes  part of it all, in a poetically, dirty way.

I feel really at home backstage, feeling the curtains, touching the cloth, the wood, the cold stone in winter and warm bricks in summer.

Those who haven't done theater before have no idea how truly mundane, even oppressive the backstage is, so of course you have to make it your own.

Perhaps on Broadway there's more glamour, but all the local theaters I've been to have these small, tight spaces us cast members have to sneak around in during a play.

A form of camaraderie grows when we are left with no option but to squeeze past someone over and over for many weekends. Which is why even in an industry full of egotistical assholes everyone ends up, well, working as friends. We are all in this together after all.

I had done it hundreds of times, and it’s why the theater was my home. I knew it and it knew me.

It was late, very late. The play should've started a whole hour before and the public was, understandably, pissed. Thankfully plenty were relatives of the cast and production crew so they had no intention of leaving.

We were all crammed back there. Mercifully it wasn't too hot as it was still early spring. That meant the air was stuffy instead of suffocating. Not as bad, but not good either, and very uncomfortable.

I could feel the nervousness in the air, these technical difficulties were to be expected but not to this degree. The tension was palpable, in that awful way where you can't do anything about it, yet it is not the end of the world. You can't fully complain without looking like an ass. Everyone was irritated and anxious.

I was pacing, going back and forth in less than two meters of space. It was royalty treatment honestly, when finally the director came by to let us know people were taking their seats.

We sighed with relief, and then like a switch was flipped, immediately felt the pressure. The show was on, literally.

I took my position and waited, waited, then kept waiting. That anticipation before the start always filled me with an intoxicating electricity, the tension of expectation. I could barely hold it in. 

The people sat down in what felt like an eternity, then the director came out to introduce the play to the audience and apologized for the inconvenience. Just like that, the curtains were up and we were in business.

I moved, nerves alight while my mates went on. I was balancing on one foot, then the other, like a pendulum. It would be a couple of minutes before my part but I was feeling the build up in my gut go up, up, to my heart, pounding in my chest.

Then, just when I was about to take a step, to have my grand entrance, lights out. More technical difficulties, more delays.

I would have screamed, but of course I didn’t. I brought a hand up to my face, hiding my own disappointment to no one but myself.

So I took a step back, then another. It was dark, but I knew this place better than the back of my hand. I knew where to step to avoid the louder floorboards, where to pull and turn to not accidentally hit the props. I was merely a couple of meters from the stage when the lights were on again. I didn't even have time to process before I heard my queue.

I knew I had to move fast. Two meters in theater measurements, with all that was put between you and the stage, was akin to a light-year. I rushed, careful not to make too much noise.

But then, there I was. Perfectly delivering my lines, full of confidence, voice reaching the last row and giving the performance of a lifetime.

I mean, I was on the stage, acting, playing. But it wasn't me, it couldn't have been. I was backstage, sweaty already thanks to the wait, the dread and the hustle, rushing to get to my queue. I was looking at myself playing my own part, better than I ever had. 

It made no sense.

I took a step back, worried I might have been losing it. Perhaps the stress got to me, or it was hotter than I thought, making me dizzy and I was confusing someone else for me? Maybe I had misheard and it wasn't my entrance yet. 

But no, that was me, that was definitely me except it couldn't have been.

I heard a giggle, then turned to see myself, banishing around a corner, shooting a mischievous glance, lost amongst the props and the curtains. And I swear I could hear the echo of that uncanny laughter.

I cannot explain it, but for some reason I knew that I had to catch that…that…me.

They knew what was going on, what they were doing to me. If I had to I would drag myself along the splintered floor to get some answers. 

The other option was to go out on the stage and call myself out in front of everyone. But I didn't want to scare the audience by showing up and suddenly there were two of us. That would have been too much of a shock, they'd been through enough already.

So I pursued them- or, myself. It’s so hard to move through backstage quickly without making a mess or noise, I agonized with each creak of the wood, every pull or swing at the curtains. The director would kill me, so would my mates, what was I thinking?

It was pure chaos. I climbed over a wooden box, one leg after the other, maneuvered around a mannequin very slowly, ducked under an unused spotlight, tripped over some random pieces of clothing discarded on the floor.

At every setback I would see them, me, laughing at myself, just around a corner. I was waiting for me to fuck up, to laugh at myself and I hated me for it.

I moved past so many props, I'm sure I felt something plastic break but I convinced myself it was just the gels we used to color the spotlights. Cheap enough not to be an issue. On the other hand I could feel my body grow tired, sore and very uncomfortable, the costume sticking to my skin.

But I knew I was getting closer.

With every step, I was slowly getting within reach. 

All it would take was another turn.

Another corner, then another.

I got them!

We toppled onto the floor, pushing and shoving, fighting with myself, trying for all I could to be silent. I struggled, covered my own mouth and bit my own hand. I pinned myself to the floor, pressed a knee to my head, angrily demanding for answers.

I grabbed them, me, myself, by the collar. Fist balled up around the cheap fabric of their, our, my costume.

“Who are you?!”

I could barely speak, let alone yell. But I wasn’t going to let them, me, escape my demands.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

Then I clasped a hand on my mouth. I was being too loud, this would upset the public. What was I thinking?

That allowed me to slip from myself. With a blow to my free arm they, me, I fell and I, they, rolled on the floor, stood up, winked at me, then ran away.

I wanted to shout but I kept quiet, I had caused too much of a disturbance already. I stood up and saw that I was nowhere I could easily identify. Not because I couldn’t recognize it, but because it did look familiar. Every turn, every cramped corridor, every curtain, every lightbulb. I knew them all, I could recognize them by touch better than by sight.

And they were all in the same place, as if the space of the theater, no, of the backstage alone had folded in on itself and made all the parts that formed it loop, like a snake devouring its own tail. No, it wasn't a circle, or a spiral. I could take any direction and end up at the same place, the same destination, but they were all different.

I moved through a cramped corridor only to be next to the mannequin again, then went through a curtain and saw more wooden boxes painted in different colors, the nails sticking out. I moved through them like crossing a mine field and found myself staring back at the same mannequin. I went in another direction and stepped on a spotlight nailed to the floor,jumped over but lost my balance. I fell toward the curtains, ripping them off their tracks to regain my footing, dragging them down. I was wrapped in them, suffocating for an eternity.

I was drenched in sweat by the time I realized my legs were shaking,the movement creating that awful sensation of my costume becoming stuck, behaving like a second skin. It was so hot, yet I was trembling in fear and despair. 

Oh god, how long had I been there?

Finally, worn and tired, I did what I had been avoiding for so long. I screamed for help.

Or at least I tried to, but as soon as my head was out of the mess of curtains trapping me I covered my mouth and forced myself into silence. Hearing only my own struggle and the distant sound of me, playing my part on the stage. And then my own voice whispered into my ear.

“Shhhhh, we don't want to disturb the audience.”

I looked at myself in horror, seeing the orange hue of the lightbulbs crowning my head like a halo, lining up perfectly for an actor’s cue.

I tried to free my hands to fight back but the mannequins, all the same one, stepped on my limbs, pinning me down with impossible strength.

“Stop that, the director will be so upset if you keep struggling.”

I was screaming into my hand, squirming like a pathetic worm.

“Don't worry, the play is going perfectly, all thanks to you.”

I could hear the applause in the distance, my own voice filled with joy and pride. I looked at myself again, grinning like a madman.

“Can you hear that? That is why I do it, that is why it is so important to know your lines, your queue, your place.”

I looked down on me, my own hand squeezing my mouth.

“All the world's a stage…except in here. Here is where I ought to be, this is your place, my place. I belong here, where we do what we need to ensure everything goes according to plan.”

I let go of myself, gasping for air, desperate for answers.

“No, not answers, you have them.”

I tell myself, and I know it is the truth.

“We all have our part to play. The actor, the producer, the director. There's the technicians, sound designers, the lights, the props, the costumes. You understand right?”

I nod to myself and I feel like weeping.

“Good, now get up, we have a job to do.”

The mannequins pull me out of my cocoon and I take my hand to stand up.

“The show must go on.”

I look at myself, at them, the props, the lights, the costumes. I listen to the cast talking amongst themselves, around us but nowhere I can reach them. I can feel their steps on the creaking floor, I can practically taste the cheap perfume of the producers. I know, out there, the director is thanking the cast and the public.

Finally I turn to myself again, a confident smile on my face, and I nod with terrified acknowledgement.

“Welcome to the backstage.”

 

 

• The second submission is here! I had a loooooot of fun with this one, immediately I wanted to do something with the potential of backstage as a liminal space. I did 10 years of theater as a kid/teen and I have vivid memories of backstage as this cumbersome, liminal space (in the most literal sense) I have my own perspective on the topic of liminal spaces and how they're used, but that's for another post. I hope you enjoy it! See you for the next entry!