To Flee or Not To Flee

(January 04, 2001)

"Your brother's doing Shakespeare now you know."

"Oh yeah, which one?"

"Which what?"

"Which Shakespeare play is Mike doing?" A single, weighted beat of silence. It could be that she hung up the phone on her cheek again, but more likely she mistook my question as a challenge.

"Mom?"

"He plays this guy," she says, "he told me all about it. Wait, I have the thing somewhere," followed by sounds of rummaging through papers for, I'm guessing, a casting call or a script. Her voice has taken on a reedy thinness that I recognize as her own special brand of preemptive defensiveness. Any innocent question or inquiry about Michael can transform a normal conversation into an argument. It's worse since Uncle Pat has been at the house every day with his small crew of workmen. Uncle Pat is one of the most skillful carpenters around, but with all the rigidity and exactitude of his trade, he only puts value in sure things. Building codes. Reinforced beams. Definable jobs that bring, if not fulfillment, at least a regular paycheck. His younger son is a cook, the older a landscaper. A constant simmer of hostility frequently bubbles over regarding Pat's opinions, both spoken and implied, over a 27 year old would-be actor whose parents are footing the bills. The "Why Doesn't Your Son Get A Job" accusation is always aimed at my mother, always turns into a brawl, and it's usually a two parter followed by, "My Brother Should Never Have Married You."

All I asked is which Shakespeare play Mike is doing, but she's like a shark that's tasted blood. I surmise that she's tried to tell Pat all about this new play today and is fresh off the battlefield. Caution is in order.

"Is it funny?" I ask, with an extra lilt my voice in an attempt to get her guard down. I can hear saws screaming in the background, and men's voices. Pat's definitely there. I think they're cutting floorboards this week. The boards were delivered two weeks ago and have been stacked in the soon-to-be-living room waiting to be installed.

"Funny. What's so funny about it."

"I am asking," I say quietly, "if the play is a comedy or a drama."

"Oh. You know, it's got all that Shakespeare language," she rushes on. "But they're changing it, the director is-- " I half-listen through a long diatribe describing how the seven actors and actresses doing the play are re-writing it themselves, mostly on the spot during rehearsals. I make a joke about "Perchance, Be It Thy Line or Mine Own?" . She says, "Uh huh," and rambles on, not getting the joke and not asking for clarification. At least she seems to understand that I'm not nit-picking or judging. Slowly, I establish, through process of elimination, which play Mike's doing.

"Romeo and Juliet?"

"No."

"Ophelia?"

"Nnnnoooo, I don't think so."

"King Lear?"

"No�something about�two guys�."

"Twelfth Night?"

"That sounds familiar�" I let the moment pass without reminding her that I'd done Twelfth Night years ago, that the production was a milestone in the history of my drama club, consumed three months of my life and moreover, that's how I met Hub, who'd helped design the lighting. "Twelfth Night might be it. Is that about two guys?"

"Well, it's about a boy and girl that're identical twins and the girl disguises herself as a boy---"

"No, that's not it. No girl disguises herself as a guy. This is about two guys."

"Two Gentlemen of Verona?"

"That's the one!"

It's not worth pointing out that a girl disguises herself as a boy in Two Gentlemen of Verona, too. She'll find out when she goes to see every performance of the show