The best actors in the world, either for tragedy,
comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical,
historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-
comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or
poem unlimited; Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor
Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the
liberty, these are the only men.
— Polonius, Hamlet, II.ii.396
After the play, Rebecca wanted to go talk to Pete, the guy in the dress. But Willie wasn’t comfortable with other people’s backstages. He never waited to meet guys in bands or actors in shows or — well, once he waited to meet an actress in a show, but he was trying to stay focused. “I should really find Jacob.”
“If he’s here, he’ll be backstage. Come on,” Rebecca said, and took Willie by the hand. They made their way through the hay bales as horns and noisemakers razzed about them. Short Sharp Shakespeare had been followed by a men’s vocal group singing lusty versions of already bawdy songs while wearing fishnet hose and G-strings.
“My man John put his thing that was long
Into my maid Mary’s thing that was hairy . . .”
With a nod and a casual “hey” to the security guard, Rebecca strode past a sign saying ACTORS ONLY, and through a burlap curtain. Backstage, the costumes were a blur of color and freakiness. Willie had a vague impression of Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet meeting a John Waters movie.
Rebecca walked up to Pete, who sat on a hay bale, taking off his miniskirt. “Hi, handsome!” Rebecca said, and ran toward him. “Great show! What a great show. Ohmigod, drugs in Shakespeare, where did you get that idea!? I was dying! This is my friend Willie, he’s looking for Jacob, have you seen Jacob?”
“Um, thanks . . . hi . . . no, no, I haven’t,” Pete replied, trying to catch up with Rebecca’s flurry of questions. “He was here, but I think he went to actors’ camp.”
Willie remembered Todd’s instructions: He has a joker flag flying over his tent. “And which way would that be?”
“That way . . .” said Pete vaguely, then did a double take at Willie. “Do I know you?”
“I was your heckler in Berkeley yesterday. Fuck you, Romeo.”
“Right, right! That was really funny. How’s it going? How’d you like the show?”
“Hysterical. Especially the digs at Reagan. I thought you missed a couple of obvious drug references, though.”
“Really? Like what?” Pete asked, genuinely curious.
Willie shrugged. “I thought for sure you were going to do a gag of Cleopatra getting off on the asp poisoning.” Willie mimed holding a wriggling snake in front of himself and shrilled out in a piercing falsetto, “Come, thou mortal wretch! With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate of life at once untie! Where art thou, death?” He mimed putting the snake to his nipple, and faked a breathless orgasm, “Come hither, come, come, COME!” and finally made with his lips a credible sound effect of a balloon bursting and a breast deflating. He gestured to Pete’s balloon breasts. “Wouldn’t be too hard to put a pin in a rubber snake and pop one of those babies.”
Pete looked Willie up and down. “You an actor?”
“Not professionally. I’ve done some Shakespeare.”
“Hunh.”
“So,” said Rebecca to Willie — she was clearly bored of the Shakespeare chat — “if you go out to the main road, back the way we came, but when you see the security guard on the right, you go up the hill. Actors’ camp is at the top.”
Willie’s time with Rebecca was apparently done. She was sitting on the hay bale next to Pete while he undressed, and it didn’t look like she was leaving.
Feeling suddenly like a third wheel, Willie said, “Okay, thanks. Nice meeting you. See you around.”
“Okay, bye,” said Rebecca sweetly enough, but she was already making goo-goo eyes at Pete.
“See ya,” said Pete.
Actors, Willie thought, get all the pussy. He followed Rebecca’s directions, out the burlap curtain and past the singing troupe.
“Beneath the spreading chestnut tree
The Village Idiot sat,
Amusing himself by abusing himself
And catching it in his hat . . .”
Willie heard the cheers and the shouted choruses fade as he walked around the corner. He saw a group of actors headed up the hill and fell in behind them. He showed his paperwork to a security guard, who examined it closely and looked suspiciously at Willie’s street clothes and small bag. Willie felt his heart race.
“You staying in camp?” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Already got a site? It’s crowded tonight, because of the night show.”
“I’m hoping there’s a girl waiting for me in her tent,” Willie lied. Then he added, for credibility, “Rebecca.”
The guard smiled slightly at the name. “If you can get her to stop talking, maybe you’ll get lucky,” he said, and let him pass.