Chapter Text
Erin glares at the clock, like she can will it to move faster by sheer force of will. Five minutes left in the meeting, and she’s bored out of her mind and ready to eat a horse, but when Professor Michael schedules a meeting, she spends every second of it.
“It’s Macbeth, Professor, it shouldn’t be that hard,” she says vaguely.
“You took my advice, well done,” Professor Michael says.
“Well, I was really hoping to premiere a work –”
“Miss Quinn, I don’t care how they do things on Broadway,” Professor Michael says, with a grimace that manages to convey every word of her famed rant about the state of the industry these days. “While you are in this program, you will write a play or direct it, not both. Surely you’ve written enough plays by now.”
Erin’s written seven plays, and she’s cajoled other student directors to put on six of them. The seventh is her magnum opus, and at this rate she won’t even get a chance to have it performed here, and she’ll have to get an agent and try her luck out in the real world. The real world is the last thing Erin wants to face.
“Yes, of course,” Erin says meekly. A modern playwriting prodigy, the greatest in a generation, at her disposal, and instead she’s doing more bloody Shakespeare.
Macbeth’s alright, though. Those Scots had some bright ideas.
“Do you have a production team put together yet?”
“Yes, I do. I’ve got Clare Devlin as my stage manager, and I convinced Orla to do costumes.”
“She’ll have time for costumes along with her other project?”
“Of course she will. She’s doing a dance show! How long can that take, if they’re not even memorizing lines?”
Professor Michael sighs.
“And I suppose you’ll be casting Michelle Mallon as well.”
“Aye, obviously.” Professor Michael raises one of her terrifying eyebrows, and Erin realizes her mistake. “If she reads well, I mean.”
Professor Michael doesn’t actually care if the students form cliques, but she objects to being made aware of them, because that would require her to intervene. Peter, the young, charming new acting professor, is on a mission to reform the department, but Professor Michael has been teaching the same classes on dramaturgy and theater history for twenty years and she takes poorly to change.
“Very well. When are your auditions?”
“Well, we were hoping for Saturday afternoon –”
“Miss Quinn, in this department one does not ‘hope’ for schedules.” Professor Michael flips through the ancient planner resting on her desk. “The studio theater is booked all day Saturday. You can have – let’s see, how about Thursday from twelve to one?”
Erin makes a noise of protest. Professor Michael ignores her.
“I’ll have some flyers printed. Good day, Miss Quinn.”
…
“What did she say?” Clare asks, leaning in over her plate. It’s deafening in the dining hall, and even Erin has to raise her voice.
“We have department approval and a budget. Three hundred quid.”
There’s a chorus of groans from around the table, and Erin shushes them.
“She said two at first, and I managed to get three, so that’s not half bad.”
“Thre hundred quid’s barely enough for the sequins,” Orla says mournfully.
“Orla, we talked about this. No. Fecking. Sequins. It’s Macbeth, not Cabaret!”
“Don’t say it!” Clare hisses, looking around frantically like the sky’s about to fall on them. “We’ve had enough bad luck already!”
“Fuck the budget, who’s trying out?” Michelle asks. “If you can’t get a good cast I’m going out for that Russian shit instead.”
The other production this semester is The Seagull, directed by Professor Michael. She’s well known for mercilessly upbraiding actors who come in late, driving crew members to tears, and on one occasion cutting every song from A Chorus Line because she doesn’t believe in “meaningless frivolity”. Michelle’s making empty threats.
“We just got our audition time, we don’t know the cast yet,” Erin says.
“Except for me. I’m Lady Macbeth, motherfuckers!” Michelle crows, throwing her arms out and hitting a first-year at a nearby table.
“You need to audition just like everyone else,” Erin says, because this is her show. Obviously Michelle’s going to be Lady M, though, and not just because she’s her best friend. Michelle is the best actor in the department, aside from that cow Jenny Joyce.
“Who else do you think you’ll cast?” Clare asks.
“Aye, who’s my Macbeth?”
“Well.” Erin runs through the list of actors in their year with any dramatic chops who don’t hate her, and comes up with worryingly few options. “Could be Charlene Kavanagh.”
“Boke,” Michelle says succinctly. “She can’t do Shakespeare. Remember Midsummer?” Their first ever acting class, they’d done scenes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Charlene had stumbled over every other word, delivering the verse lines like they were Gregorian chants. She’s good with realism, but not much else.
“David Donnelly.”
“Boke. He’s a singer, can’t act for shit.” That’s a bald-faced lie, David Donnelly can do anything, but Erin moves on.
“Mandy?”
“Boke-o-rama,” Michelle says. She doesn’t bother with more, which is fair.
“Who else is left?” Clare asks. “Isn’t it just Jenny?”
“No.” Michelle stands up and makes her way around the table until she’s right in Erin’s face. “Erin, if you make me act the role of my dreams opposite Jenny Joyce, I will kill us both.”
She doesn’t sound like she’s joking.
“Then who do I cast, Michelle?” Erin snaps, getting to her feet so she can look Michelle in the eyes. “Because I’m not hearing any useful suggestions from you.”
“Um, hello.” There’s a boy next to them, with curly brown hair and an English accent, who looks very lost. “Mind if I sit here?” He points at the empty chair at their table.
“I told you not to talk to me, you dick,” Michelle says, which makes no sense, because Erin’s never met the boy.
“I know, but the rest of the tables are full, so…” He sits down, and Michelle glares at him.
“Girls, this is James Maguire. My cousin.”
James waves at them.
“Your cousin’s English?” Clare asks incredulously.
“I transferred here from Trinity College,” James says. He looks very apologetic.
“He’s English, and he transferred from our greatest rival, and he’s your cousin,” Erin repeats.
“You have a voice for the stage,” Orla says, sticking her hand out. James goes in for a handshake, but she pinches his cheek instead.
Well, he doesn’t seem like much.
…
Auditions are fun for Erin. Three different actors are breaking down in tears outside, and Clare is rushed off her feet sorting audition forms and making sure new arrivals are on the sign-up list, but all Erin has to do is listen to monologues and take notes about how shite they were.
Jenny Joyce is the first one in, and she smiles her aggravating little smile at Erin before delivering her monologue. Juliet, the balcony scene. Boke. It’s good. It’s the best Erin’s ever seen, really, and even though it’s an overdone monologue she’s seen before that’s not remotely on theme with the show they’re doing, she has to fight the urge not to throw her notes aside and beg Jenny to be her Macbeth.
“Thanks,” she says, when Jenny’s done. “Clare will take your form, and we’ll let you know if we want you in callbacks by tomorrow.”
“Oh, callbacks.” Jenny snickers. “You really still need those? I can always tell who I should cast just from the auditions.” She flips her hair back over one shoulder and leaves before Erin can respond.
Right, that’s why Erin isn’t casting her. Erin scribbles a note, just as a reminder.
A few unremarkable second-years, who she makes a few notes about. There’s plenty of messengers and side characters she’ll need, and they’ll be grateful she even notices their existence. Aisling has a Henry V monologue prepared; she’s usually the stage manager to Jenny Joyce’s overbearing director, but when she does act she’s not half bad. Charlene Kavanagh has gotten better, though she does pronounce “appall” like “apple” and butcher a few place names.
David Donnelly shows up on time, which is odd. It’s odd that he’s showing up at all, really, since he usually just does the musicals.
“Come on in,” Erin says, waving at him. “What did you prepare?”
“Well, I was thinking about Shakespeare,” David says, and Erin leans toward him. David Donnelly doesn’t say much in classes, so his every word has clearly been thought over. “Looking at all these monologues, you know, trying to pick the right one.”
“Oh, yes?” Erin says, waiting. He’d be a good Hamlet, or Romeo, a thinker, a romantic lead.
“And I thought to myself, these monologues have all been done before.”
“Well, aye, this is Shakespeare, they have been done before,” Erin babbles, then shuts up when he looks at her.
“And so I decided to do something that had never been done before.” David steps out into the room, revealing a guitar slung over his back.
“This is my Macbeth.”
He plays two chords, then begins to sing.
“Is that a dagger I see before me?”
His voice is good, of course, he’s David Donnelly, he couldn’t sound bad if he tried, but the tune is sodding awful.
“Come, let me clutch thee, girl, you’re like a fatal vision to me.”
Erin sinks down in her chair and prays that it’s a short song.
After seven minutes of appalling rhymes and tortured analogies between the dagger and his penis, David Donnelly plays one last chord and then bows. Erin claps, because she doesn’t know what to do with herself otherwise, and he leaves with a smirk.
Christ. Well, Erin’s feeling a bit embarrassed about all of his shows she went to.
The rest of the auditions pass fast, Erin already putting together callback lists in her notes. Dee would be good as Macduff, or Mae, a transfer who does a monologue from Othello with so much suppressed rage that even Erin’s impressed. The witches, and especially Hecate, are tricky, and then there’s Banquo …
She’s aware she’s avoiding the most important issue, but Erin is excellent at ignoring her problems. So what if, without a Macbeth, she doesn’t have a play? Everything will be fine.
“Last one!” Clare calls in.
James steps into the room. He looks like the floor’s going to kill him if he steps wrong. Which isn’t a bad assumption, him being English and all.
“Hi.” He waves at her. He looks a right idiot, but Erin waves back. “I signed up last-minute, sorry, is it alright if I’m not memorized?”
“Ach, it’s an audition, I don’t mind.” It won’t make much difference. He seems nice, and Erin might as well spend a minute listening to him before she doesn’t cast him and the theater crushes his soul.
Here’s the trouble. James is good. He’s more than good, he’s fucking incredible. His monologue is Antony’s from Julius Caesar, which Erin’s always had a soft spot for, and he hardly glances at the paper in his hand. Every word brings her closer to the edge of her chair, waiting for his proclamation. He seems every inch a king.
James ends triumphantly, then smiles nervously at her and scuttles out the door. Erin scribbles down a few frantic notes: he can deliver fire and bombast, commands the stage with his mere presence, she’ll want to see him do Act 1 in the callbacks, to make sure he can portray uncertainty and moral dilemma, see how he shares the stage with Michelle, but she really doesn’t think he can disappoint.
God bless Michelle and her weird English cousin, because she’s pretty sure she just found her Macbeth.