Method Acting: An opposites attract, found family romance (Center Stage Book 2) by Adele Buck (web based ebook reader txt) 📕

She looked back at him, a quizzical smile quirking up one side of her mouth. “What do you want to know?”

He shrugged, spreading his hands wide. “What’s the work like?”

“You’ve seen me do it. Twice, in fact.”

“I’ve seen the results of the work. I’m not sure I’ve seen the work itself.”

She picked up her napkin, unfolding it slowly before putting it on her lap. “That’s definitely part of the work. The performance.”

“What don’t we see? It seems like the tip of the proverbial iceberg.”

“Of course it is. Most people are interested in the results, though. Not the process. They appreciate the duck gliding across the surface and don’t want to think about the feet paddling away under the water.” She reached out and traced the back of his hand with an exploratory fingertip. It felt like an attempt at a distraction. He turned his hand over and captured hers, holding it steady. Her fingers were cool.

“So…rehearsals—what are they like?” He asked.

“You’re really dogged about this, aren’t you?” She pushed her fringe out of her eyes with her free hand. “Why do you want to know so badly?”

“Because you fascinated me from the first.”

“You didn’t recognize me,” she said with asperity.

“I know. Your performance fascinated me.”

Her eyebrows crimped together. “Why? Most people hardly notice anybody outside the leads.” She said this in a matter-of-fact voice, without frustration or anger. Colin marveled that someone whose very job was getting people to pay attention while they spoke could take being overlooked so easily.

He rubbed his thumb across the back of her hand. “Why did you fascinate me? Because you were angry.”

Alicia blinked, caught off guard for a moment, then chuckled. “You noticed that, did you?”

A smile lurked in his eyes, though his face didn’t seem to change. His hand was warm and large. If she were the type of woman to be reassured by a big, protective man, she would have felt safe.

She wasn’t that kind of woman.

“I did notice it,” he said. “And it made me wonder.”

Panic fluttered under her breastbone. She pulled her hand away to lift her water glass and take a sip. “Did it? Did you come up with any reasons?”

He leaned back, seeming unconcerned by her retreat. “I may have. But I’m more interested in hearing yours. It was startling, given that the Nurse usually breaks down helplessly at Juliet’s supposed death.”

“Yeah, well. That’s part of the process you don’t see as it happens. It’s called making specific choices in context.”

“Go on.” His big, dark eyes stayed fixed on her.

She shifted restlessly in the hard metal café chair. “You decide how you’re going to react in character, in that moment. It’s based on the script, what the other actors are giving you… Given all of those factors, anger made sense to me.”

“It was very powerful,” he said as the waitress came with their food. “But how did you come to that reaction?”

Alicia picked up her fork and poked at some green beans. She hated talking about productions that were done. She thought about Wendy, dreaming of still performing in that childhood play that had long since closed and had a pang of sympathy. Bemused, she realized she even missed the old age makeup. Well, almost. She glanced up at Colin and saw concern in his expression.

“Are you all right?”

She chewed a mouthful of green beans slowly, nodding. They tasted fresh and clean. Swallowing, she said, “It’s…when a play is over it can be hard to let go. There’s a feeling of loss.”

“We can talk about something else. I didn’t mean to pry.” Colin focused on his own plate and perversely, Alicia wanted to tell him everything.

“No. It’s okay. You wanted to know why I decided the Nurse was angry. Well, first of all, what’s her name?”

Colin’s face softened to a puzzled frown as he thought. “She…doesn’t have one, at least not in the text. Does she?”

“No. No, she doesn’t. So, think about it from her perspective.” Alicia leaned forward, stabbing her fork at Colin. “Here is this woman who raised Juliet. Nursed her, quite literally. She was a wet nurse, remember. She probably had more to do with the girl’s upbringing than Juliet’s own mother. She doesn’t even get to have a name.”

Colin’s mouth worked as he thought this through. “I admit, I had never thought about the play from any viewpoint other than the tedious teenagers and their doomed love story.”

“That’s what separates the professionals from the amateurs.”

“Touché. So, she’s lost a child she feels is her own. That explains grief and helplessness, but anger?”

Alicia put down her fork. “The Nurse knew about Romeo. She knew how important he was to Juliet. And yet she let herself get co-opted into supporting Juliet’s father’s scheme to marry her off to Paris.”

His eyes widened as he thought about this. “And it ended with Juliet killing herself. So far as the Nurse knew.”

Alicia’s teeth gritted. “Exactly. For the Nurse, her own child—the girl she considers to be her daughter—is dead. And Capulet not only forced the child into it, he convinced the Nurse to help.”

Mouth dry, Colin reached for his water and took a long drink. He imagined the crushing guilt that someone would feel under the circumstances Alicia described. Imagined living with that, reproducing it night after night. It was nearly impossible to contemplate. “I had thought it was simply anger at Capulet for creating the circumstances where Juliet felt she had to take her own life. I hadn’t considered that angle,” he admitted.

“Well,” she said, lifting her own water glass and taking a drink. “It’s kind of my job to think about this stuff. But guilt and shame can intensify other emotions pretty powerfully.”

She said this with a disarming matter-of-factness, but Colin noticed her attention was focused down on her plate. He wondered what made her so reticent.

“I noticed it the first time I saw the play. It was compelling and unusual,” he said.

She flashed him a