Just One Day

Striding back to the whiteboard, Professor Glenny scrawls English 317—Shakespeare Out Loud on it. “The name of this class is not accidental. It is quite literal. For in this class, we do not read Shakespeare quietly to ourselves or in the privacy of our bedrooms or libraries. We perform it. We see it performed. We read it aloud, in class or with partners. Every last one of us will become actors in this class, interpreters for one another, in front of one another. For those of you not prepared for this or who prefer a more conventional approach, this fine institution offers plenty of Shakespeare survey courses, and I suggest you avail yourself of one of them.”

He pauses, as if to give people a chance to escape. Here would be my chance to go, but something roots me in place.

“If you know anything about this class, it’s that I coordinate our readings to go with whatever Shakespeare is being performed during the term, be it by a community group or professional theater company. I expect attendance at all the plays, and I get us excellent group rates. As it happens, this winter and spring bring a delightful selection of plays.”

He starts handing out the syllabus, and before one gets to me, before he finishes writing the order of plays on the board, I know it will be among them, even though Shakespeare wrote more than thirty plays, I know this one will be on our list.

It’s midway through the syllabus, after Henry V and The Winter’s Tale and before As You Like It and Cymbeline and Measure for Measure. But there on the page, it seems to jump out at me like a billboard. Twelfth Night. And whether I want to take this class or not is irrelevant. I can’t stand up here and read those lines. That is the opposite of tabula rasa.

Professor Glenny goes on for a while about the plays, pointing to them one by one with his hand, erasing the ink in his enthusiasm. “My absolute favorite thing about this class is that we, in effect, let the themes choose us by letting the plays choose us. The dean was skeptical at first of this academia via serendipity, but it always seems to work out. Take this sampling.” He points to the list of plays again. “Can anyone surmise this semester’s theme based on these particular plays?”

“They’re all comedies?” the girl up front with the Tootsie Roll twists asks.

“Good guess. The Winter’s Tale, Measure for Measure, and Cymbeline, though all have much humor, are not considered comedies so much as problem plays, a category we shall discuss later. And Henry V, though it has many funny bits, is quite a serious play. Any other takers?”

Silence.

“I’ll give you a hint. It’s most obvious in Twelfth Night or As You Like It, which are comedies—which isn’t to say they’re not also quite moving plays.”

More silence.

“Come now. Some of you fine scholars must have seen one of these. Who here has seen As You Like It or Twelfth Night?”

I don’t realize I’ve raised my hand until it’s too late. Until Professor Glenny has seen me and nodded to me with those bright, curious eyes of his. I want to say that I’ve made a mistake, that it was some other version of Allyson who used to raise her hand in class who temporarily reappeared. But I can’t, so I blurt out that I saw Twelfth Night over the summer.

Professor Glenny stands there, as if waiting for me to finish my thought. But that was it; that’s all I have to say. There’s an awkward silence, like I just announced I was an alcoholic—at a Daughters of the American Revolution meeting.

But Professor Glenny refuses to give up on me: “And, what was the main source of tension and humor in that particular play?”

For the briefest of seconds, I’m not in this overheated classroom on a winter’s morning. It’s the hot English night, and I’m at the canal basin in Stratford-upon-Avon. And then I’m in a Paris park. And then I’m back here. In all three places, the answer remains the same: “No one is who they pretend to be.”

“Thank you. . . . ?”

“Allyson,” I finish. “Allyson Healey.”

“Allyson. Perhaps a slight overgeneralization, but for our purposes, it hits the nail right on the head.” He turns to the board and scrawls Altering Identity, Altering Reality on it. Then he checks something else off on his sheet of paper.

Professor Glenny continues, “Now, before we part ways, one last piece of housekeeping. We won’t have time to read each play completely in class, though we will make quite a dent. I believe I’ve made my point about reading alone to yourselves, so I’d like you to read the remaining sections aloud with partners. This is not optional. Please pair up now. If you’re on the wait list, find a partner also on the wait list. Allyson, you’re no longer on the wait list. As you can see, class participation is rewarded in here.”

There’s bustle as everyone pairs off. I look around. Next to me is a normalish-girl with cat-eye glasses. I could ask her.

Or I could get up and walk out of the class. Even though I’m off the wait list, I could just drop the class, leave my spot for someone else.

But for some reason, I don’t do either of those things. I turn away from the girl in the glasses and look behind me. That guy, Dee, is sitting there, like the unpopular and unathletic kid who always wound up the remainder during team picking for grade-school kickball games. He’s wearing a bemused look, as if he knows no one will ask him and he’s saving everyone the trouble. So when I ask him if he wants to be partners, his arch expression falls away for a moment and he appears genuinely surprised.

“Just so happens my dance card is none too full at the moment.”

“Is that a yes?”

He nods.

“Good. I do have one condition. It’s more of a favor. Two favors, actually.”

He frowns for a moment, then arches his plucked eyebrow so high, it disappears into the halo of hair.

“I don’t want to read Twelfth Night out loud. You can do all the parts, if you want, and I’ll listen, and then I’ll read one of the other plays. Or we can rent a movie version and read along. I just don’t want to have to say it. Not a word of it.”

“How you gonna get away with that in class?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“What you got against Twelfth Night?”

“That’s the other thing. I don’t want to talk about it.”

He sighs as if considering. “Are you a flake or a diva? Diva I can work with, but I got no time for flakes.”

“I don’t think I’m either.” Dee looks skeptical. “It’s just that one play, I swear. I’m sure there’s a DVD for it.”

He looks at me for a long minute, as if trying to X-ray my true self. Then he either decides I’m okay or recognizes he has no other options, because he rolls his eyes and sighs loudly. “There are several versions of Twelfth Night, actually.” Suddenly, his voice and diction have completely changed. Even his expression has gone professorial. “There’s a film version with Helena Bonham Carter, who is magnificent. But if we’re going to cheat like this, we should rent the stage version.”

I stare at him a moment, baffled. He stares back, then his mouth cracks into the smallest of grins. And I realize what I said before was right: No one is who they pretend to be.

Twenty-one

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