We Don't Have to be a Tragedy

Juliet’s Point of View

Another two weeks passed without incident, and that’s when I truly began to get nervous. We now already had our parts down most of the way, and we’d ran through the whole play once now with no screw ups, and twice with a minor mess up - this being Rob, who forgot to add in his little wink in Act II, Scene II.

But the fact that we had it down was in no way, shape, or form the reason I was so nervous.

No.

The reason I was so nervous was that the following Monday, Wednesday, and Friday were our performance dates. It was early November, and we were already nearing performances. I could see the nerves starting to break through the calm façades of my cast mates now, and with exactly one week to perfect the play entirely, I wasn’t feeling too good. Of course, Romeo, the invincible Romeo, didn’t seem to be showing any signs of weakness whatsoever.

That made him even more interesting to watch than he already was.

Romeo’s Point of View

Five days. Five days left until the first rehearsal date. I’m in my room, after classes, staring at the ceiling and breaking out in a cold sweat.

Five days.

We’d finally gotten through the play perfectly for the second time last night, Rob adding in his little wink with no effort at all. Sometimes I thought he just left it out to drag the practice on longer and watch how it tortured me.

Was it good or bad that I was now starting to become slightly aware of my lines around the scenes where kissing Juliet is involved?

I remember the whole ‘kissing the dead Juliet’ thing quite clearly, as morbid as that may sound. I can still just float through my lines with relative ease, but I’m more aware of Juliet than ever before. And I can see quite clearly that she’s getting more and more nervous by the minute, which is entertaining to watch.

This means I spend more time than usual watching her, and I would swear up and down that I’ve caught her sneaking a glimpse of me occasionally, too.

Juliet’s Point of View

Four days. There were just four more days left until our first performance. Everyone in the cast has been showing nerves today, if you can count a nervous twitch once just an hour or two ago on Romeo’s behalf as nerves.

Even the professors involved have been kind of on edge. So on edge that last night was our only night off rehearsals until Sunday. Saturday is a nearly all-day practice, and those that have classes have already been given permission to miss them. We are going to be doing costume rehearsals all day Saturday. Cathy already has the gorgeous blue dress laying out, and they’re debating whether to use it for when I first meet Romeo or when I sneak out to be married to him.

I couldn’t care less which scene, but I was extremely astonished to find a red dress with gold trim and a deep purple dress had been made especially for this purpose by Darcy, who had taken to attending practices with the teacher she was an assistant to, Professor Wellborn.

They were also perfect fits, but it just made me even more nervous.

Romeo’s Point of View

Two days. It’s Saturday morning, dress rehearsal day. After today there’s no more practice, no more room for errors…just the play.

Having a love for acting like I do, I’ve been on stage many times before, once even in a musical with a very minor part due to my absolute lack of singing abilities. Juliet’s admitted to being in most of her high school musical productions, due to her love of singing.

This isn’t really helping me prepare.

It’s six in the morning, and we start the nearly all-day rehearsal in two hours. I think Mom and Joan are bringing donuts and other similar breakfast foods so we don’t have to rush to breakfast before coming to the auditorium.

We’d held the last two practices in the auditorium, and let me say that it is a large room and it brings my nerves crashing around my ears. But once on stage, I regain just a little of my confidence, and it’s all okay. This dress rehearsal should go smoothly, I think, because we all know our lines and actions and now it’s just a matter of changing costumes in time to get out there. So, sure, there may be a few mess ups early on, but we have until six o’clock tonight to perfect it…okay, so maybe it is an all-day rehearsal.

I stare at my ceiling for about ten minutes thinking through all of this, glance at my clock, groan, roll over, and start running through the lines in my head.

Juliet’s Point of View

My phone rang. It was Sunday morning at nine o’clock, and my phone is ringing.

I roll into a sitting position, having been staring at the ceiling reliving the fairly smooth costume rehearsal yesterday, but nerves began boiling as soon as I broke out of that trance.

“Hello,” I said, after checking the id to see ‘Mom’ flashing at me.

“Rise and shine!” Mom said in a bubbly, happy, awake voice. “We’re having a party at the Davis house to celebrate how far we’ve come in such a short time!”

“Will you be so chipper tomorrow night if we completely and utterly fail?” I asked bitterly, and if anyone was to screw up I had a strange sense that screamed it would be me.

“You won’t!” Mom just laughed. “That rehearsal yesterday was flawless! All we need are three more performances like that!”

“So when’s this party?” I asked sullenly.

“In an hour!”

“Mom!” I groaned. “This is the same short-notice type of thing as Applebee’s!”

“Yes it is, because you’re telling Romeo and then you’re going to be here on time!” Mom laughed, then said a quick, “Got to go, bye!” and hung up.

I slumped back into my pillows and stared at the ceiling before rolling out of bed, going to shower, and getting ready to retrieve Romeo.