Don't Panic!

The Stage

Shakespeare said that all the world's a stage. He meant to say that life is a play but this was a thought I never truly grasped. Life is real; a play is fiction. This distinction should be clear.

After class the next day, I stayed back and made my way to the auditorium to meet the other actors. Most of them were seniors and a few juniors. We were sitting in a circle and I dropped into a chair with two others from my class.

"Good evening," our sir greeted us. "Everyone get their scripts out. We're going to do a script reading to start off."

For over half an hour, he made us take turns reading out each character. Sometimes he got irritated and switched actors immediately. Other times he seemed satisfied and let the actor read through for a few scenes.

In the break I checked my phone to find a missed call from my mom. I didn't bother to call back. I knew why she had called. The coaching centre would have sent her a text saying I was absent. Some of the seniors were having an animated conversation with sir and I decided to join in.

"Brecht believed that a play shouldn't seem real," Sir was saying. "He felt that people needed to understand the difference between fiction and reality."

"But sir, was he right?" asked a senior.

"That's debatable," he replied. "A play is after all a piece of fiction. But life itself can often seem like a play. Every action you take is just another business in a play. If you ask me, life is just a play at a larger scale. Everywhere you look you will be able to see the stage. That should be the vision of an artist."

Years later I gave the exact same speech to a group of my friends in college. They looked at me with the same curiosity I must have displayed back then. But of all the things I learned in high school, nothing ever went deeper into my heart.

After the day's practice was over, we were all standing around packing our bags.

"Hey dude," a senior asked. "We're heading down to the mall. Do you wanna come?"

A sudden horror seized my insides and I probably would have blushed if I wasn't the colour of a burnt potato.

"Um no," I said. "I gotta get home early. Maybe some other time."

Why can't I go to the mall you ask? Well that's a story for another time.