Margaret Atwood - Hag-Seed

“Green Room,” says 8Handz, calling it up onscreen. “Music Room. Demonstration holding cell, the old one. Now the other one. I’ve got them all labeled here, see? There’s audio and video, and recording for both of those.”

“Exactly what I need,” says Felix. “My brave spirit!”

“You sure you got permission for all this?” says 8Handz a little anxiously. He doesn’t want to incur any penalties: that might delay his parole.

“You’re in the clear,” says Felix. “Everything’s part of the play. I take full responsibility. I’ve explained it to the authorities, they know what we’re doing.” Half true, but half will do. “Any questions, just refer them to me.”

“Cool,” says 8Handz.

Anne-Marie and WonderBoy have been rehearsing their scenes, creditably for both. She’s virginal and spontaneous, he’s puppy-eyed and doting. He’s puppy-eyed and doting offstage too, but Anne-Marie is affecting not to notice. She’s settled on a den-mother act, aiming to inspire filial devotion rather than lust among her fellow cast members. To that effect she’s taken up baking: she arrives with pans of caramel brownies, with chocolate-chip cookies, with cinnamon buns, and hands them around during coffee breaks. Dylan and Madison are awarded samples and make jokes about there being drugs in the goodies, isn’t that what theatre people are into? Wild, crazed orgies? Anne-Marie smiles indulgently at them, as if they are clever nine-year-olds.

Astonishing, thinks Felix, how someone so slender and girlish can appear so matronly. He wasn’t wrong about her those many years ago: she’s a fine actress.

She’s also taken charge of the goddesses. Snow White will be Iris, the messenger, she’s decreed; Pocahontas will be Ceres, goddess of fertility; and Jasmine will play Juno, patroness of marriage. “But they can’t wear this shit,” she’d told Felix when he’d handed them over. She’d begun to peel off their finery.

“I can see that,” Felix said, “but where will we get…”

“My knitting group can do it as a project.”

“I still can’t see you in a knitting group.” Knitting groups used to be for missionary aunts and World War One matrons turning out socks for the boys in the trenches, not for hip young actresses.

“It calms the nerves. Knitting. You should try it. Guys are doing it too.”

“I’ll pass,” said Felix. “You think your group will want to take this on? Doll-dressing?”

“They’re pretty rad,” she’d said. “They’ll love it. Rainbow colors for Iris; fruit and tomatoes and, you know, wheat sheaves and stuff for Ceres; a peacock-feather design for Juno.”

“Goddesses in wool?” Felix asked. “Won’t that make them look fat?” There was bad taste lurking somewhere in the vicinity, but not the kind of bad taste he favored.

“You’ll be surprised,” said Anne-Marie. “They won’t look fat, though. Promise.”

“The thing is,” he said, “my best speech in the entire play comes right after these goddesses do their thing. ‘Our revels now are ended,’ ” he can’t resist declaiming.

“Damn, you can still do it,” said Anne-Marie when he’d finished. “That’s why I always wanted to work with you. You’re the maestro. You almost made me cry.”

“Thank you,” said Felix, making a small bow. “It is rather good, isn’t it?”

“Rather? Fuck,” said Anne-Marie. She wiped at an eye.

“All right, skip the rather,” said Felix. “But don’t you think these wool-covered Disney Princesses might be somehow…” What was the word he wanted? “Might be somehow undercutting? To the speech? Don’t they risk the merely ridiculous?”

“I’ve searched online, plus I’ve seen three productions, and the goddess thing always risks the ridiculous even when they’re people,” said Anne-Marie. “They’ve used backscreen projections, they’ve used inflatables, they did it on stilts a few years ago. But ours won’t look like Disney Princesses once we get there. I’m face-painting them. Glo in the Dark, I thought, and some glitter. Give them a mask look. And since they’re sort of Ariel’s puppets anyway, why don’t we use that Japanese Bunraku technique, or black light — have them moved around by some of the guys in ski masks and black gloves? You’ve got those anyway. Do the voices with a voice-changer; sort of a weird spirit type of thing.”

“It’s worth a try,” said Felix.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013.

Two weeks to go before the day the planets converge and the tempest is unleashed. They’ve now recorded the initial tempest scene, with the sinking boat and 8Handz in the bathing cap and goggles: it filmed surprisingly well. Felix will do his own first scene with Ariel next week. 8Handz has been so busy with the tech that he needs more time on the lines.

Today they’re shooting Caliban. They’ll do the closeups of his speeches, add the far shots later. This is the first day Leggs has been in full costume: the scaly Godzilla headgear, its eyes and teeth obliterated, its edges altered to hang in tatters around his face; his face itself mudded with makeup; lizard-skin patterns on his legs, temporary tattoos of spiders and scorpions covering his arms. It’s no worse than some other Caliban outfits Felix has seen, and better than some.

“Ready?” says Felix.

“Yeah,” says Leggs. “Um, we added something. Anne-Marie helped us with it.”

Felix turns to Anne-Marie. “Is this any good? We can’t fool around, we’re running out of time, we need to get on with it.” He did encourage them to write their own extra material, so he’s not entitled to be grumpy.

“Three and a half minutes,” she says. “I timed it. And yes, it’s terrific! Would I lie to you?”

“I won’t answer that,” says Felix.

“Take One,” says TimEEz. “Hag-Seed. By Caliban and the Hag-Seeds. First there’s an Announcer bit, we can shoot that later. ‘Here comes Caliban, From his prison in a stone, Kept in slavery, Made to groan, But come what may, He got to have his own say!’ Like that.”

Felix nods. “Fine,” he says.

“Don’t forget to breathe,” Anne-Marie says to Leggs. “From the diaphragm. Remember what I said about anger. It’s like fuel — find it, use it! This is your chance to roar! Take off like a rocket! One, two, go!”

Leggs rears up, crouches, shakes a fist. TimEEz, PPod, VaMoose, and Red Coyote stand off to the side, clapping out the beat, adding a soft Uh-oh, Uh-oh in syncopation, while Leggs does his chant, his rant.