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The stage is almost silent. The velvet curtains are drawn open wide, the spotlight shining down on the stage in a heady fashion: delicate, dense, and strong, and it was like he could almost touch it. The heat from it does, beading on his forehead from hours of practice, but he forces his feet into the beginning position and walks through his self imposed solo rehearsal again.
Ronald of Ness moves like he’s dancing across the scene, graceful with each click of his heels. While the practice for the latest performance had long since ended, he finds himself reluctant and his pursuit for perfection demands attention.
“Farewell base stooping low to the lordly peers!” He calls out, and the empty theatre listens to him in rapture, “My knee shall bow to no one but the king.”
He grips the prop letter in hand, and attempts to inject as much scorn into his voice as possible, “As for the multitude, that are but sparks, rak’d up in the embers of their poverty; tanti, I’ll fawn first on the wind that glanceth at my lips, and flieth away.”
He ends his steps with a flourish, finishing the soliloquy with a bow to the hall, and after a beat, a grimace.
He’s not as alone as he would like to be.
One of the grandiose double doors, the entrance and exit of the performance hall, is open, letting in the flickering candlelight from the outside corridor. He can’t quite see who it is, but there’s a figure cutting a sharp figure in the light, details obscured in the heavy shadows casted by the backlit.
Just as he notices them, the door closes, and Ronald is alone again. He tries to not give much thought to it.
Except, however, he ends up having to give it quite a bit of thought. He’s practicing again after hours, polishing his expressions to properly convey the emotions of the act, down to the angle of his body and fingers to emphasize the physicality of the language. The sound of the heavy entrance doors catches his attention midway through the routine. He doesn’t pause in the monologue, and as such, doesn’t particularly care in searching for the stranger.
They watch him until the end of the scene, then leave, the door closing behind them with a dull sounding thud.
This happens again and again, each night Ronald practices late, the figure shows, lurking in the back rows like some tenebrous phantom. Truth be told, Ronald is getting a tad miffed with the whole situation. Never has he cared for an audience watching him, stage fright being something he’d conquered long ago in his acting career, but whatever’s happening here feels panoptic.
It’s the fifth night when he finally acknowledges the stranger.
“You know,” he calls out, fussing with the few pieces of his costume he wanted to rehearse in, “it’s an empty theatre. I don’t see why you can’t pick out a front row seat.”
He absentmindedly adjusts his cuff links, and peers at the stranger through his lashes, head still lowered in a bow. The stranger stands there for a minute or two, giving no recognition to the fact Ronald had said anything at all. He frowns, and shakes out his wrist. It’s no skin off his back but still, how rude.
Rather than let it get to him, instead he starts on cue, stage left, and runs through the scene again, shaking out the letter and launching into his lines. “My father is deceas’d!” He cries with revel, ”'Come, Gaveston, and share the kingdom with thy dearest friend.’ Ohh, words that make me surfeit with delight!” Quickly, he loses himself to the monologue, and it is model in the technical sense. He doesn’t trip over a single word, doesn’t forget any lines, his blocking exquisite, the inflection and tone just right, the perfect opening, the perfect set stage for the life and decay of a play.
He finishes, and as a force of habit, bows to his sole audience of one, and looks up from it a little too early when he hears the applause.
The stranger had moved up towards the front rows during his part, silent and unnoticed to Ronald, like a fog descending upon the evening humidity of his greasy city. He’s an odd looking man, sharp and sitting in the chair with a nervously debonair air about him, dressed in a long green coat with a peculiar sawtoothed collar and a white mask situated fully across his entire face. Ronald would’ve thought him strange in any other scenario, but this was none other than the Golden Rose Theatre, and his own mask burns along his skin.
“Did you like it?” He asks, coming up to stand properly, the gesture more out of manner’s sake, he knows the answer already. It was perfect.
The stranger’s clapping comes to a natural end, and he cocks his head. “It was alright.”
“What?” Ronald’s face scrunches up, “You’ve been watching me for days and that’s all you have to say?”
He shrugs and leans back in the seat, gentlemanly in the most infuriating way possible, “I didn't take you for the type to want criticism.”
He stands there, disgruntled. “From what I’ve seen, you’re very unpleasant, you know that? Did Scrooge hire you?” That old bastard, of course he’d snatch up any crack job that’d get under his skin this easily.
“Something along those lines.” The mask covers up his expression, obviously not meant for the stage, maybe a set hand instead, and it catches Ronald off guard when the stranger laughs, a rich pretty sound that sets in his bones like spurs. “Would you prefer if I acted like some sycophantic coward instead?”
“You’re not an actor, I don’t know what kind of advice you could give me.”
“I could be an actor. An artist.”
“You’re not.”
“You’re very quick to judge.”
Ronald’s mouth pulls taught, and the stranger’s foot piano tinkers against the floorboards. The silence ruminates for a beat, before the stranger hoists himself out of his seat, and continues.
“For being the introduction to the play, I didn't feel very introduced.”
His tongue works wordlessly, before Ronald forces out a disbelieving laugh. “What? I read straight from the script. Cues and all.”
“Death of the author, dear,” he says, making his way up the stage steps, “Edward II, no?”
In any other scenario he would’ve told the stranger to piss off, but the pet name is fluttering obnoxiously in his chest cavity, and he’s oddly fixated on his gall. “Gaveston.” He responds.
The stranger looks situated on the stage, maybe not meant for the spotlight, but he doesn’t carry himself awkwardly. “Gaveston; bold, witty, and disliked by almost everyone, all but Edward and the audience,” he says, “Hubris at its finest, the obsession, the pride, the self importance. To look another man in the eyes and claim you’re untouchable together.”
There’s romance in his tone. Ronald folds his arms over his chest impatiently. “I know all this.”
“Really?” Ronald can’t see his eyes, but he’s sure the stranger is looking at him with a glint to them. “Then you should know he’s speaking to Edward. Tell the story, introduce dear, intelligent Gavestone, use him as a vessel to flatter, provoke the king.“
“I’m playing it like a soliloquy.” He says, walking a step closer to the stranger, “I like the challenge better.”
“Is a soliloquy not still a conversation with the audience? They’re quite voyeuristic after all.” The stranger- gentleman- follows suit in his provocation and moves into Ronald’s space, mask to mask and he wonders what’s under there: what mouth speaks such nettled words, if his eyes were as sharp as the rest of him, and he idly wishes he could touch his hair, if only to elicit a response.
“That’s still not any kind of advice,” Ronald says, unwanted smile creeping across his cheeks, “I hope you’re going somewhere with this.”
“I like to think I am. Over the past few nights I’ve noticed you’re missing the core to it- to titillate the audience to our two lovers homoerotic backdrop.”
Ronald raises a brow. “That’s obscene.”
“It’s the truth. I’m afraid you’re not acting from experience.”
They’re even closer now, forefront to the stage, dancing to their strange scene in front of an empty theatre. Their hands brush, and something maws in his stomach. “Are you meant to be the audience or Edward then?”
The gentleman’s voice goes soft, and Ronald likes to think it shy. “Something along those lines.”
“What a piss poor way of flirting.”
“I thought it was working. You’re very pretty.”
“You’d say otherwise if you knew me.”
“I’d like to. Know you, that is.”
“You’re very obnoxious.” Says Ronald, and yet he can’t pull away, something magnetizing him to the spot. “Give me a kiss then- for experience- and I’ll think about it.”
He watches the gentleman hesitate, fingers twitching. It’s the only crack Ronald has found to pick at during this whole performance. It’s a ruse, of course, if only to see his obnoxious face. He doesn’t pretend to nurse the idea of ever seeing him again.
But then the gentleman pinches the corner of his mask, between the whitening tips of his thumb and index, and Ronald catches a flash of a dark, neatly groomed beard and handlebar, the image of pretty lips framed attractively by the lines of age, and then he’s waiting for it. He’s waiting for it, waiting, and then he’s not. The ghosting feel of a kiss brushes against the exposed part of his cheek, cold like a misting fog, and an unbearable heat rushes to fill the chill.
“Break a leg, Gavestone.” He whispers, pulling away.
He stands stunned, mouth parting ever so slightly in turn, as the gentleman quickly adjusts his mask back to his face, and bows. Before he can focus again, he’s gone, like a phantom melting into the night, leaving Ronald completely alone in the theatre.
He tenderly touches his fingers to the spot he was kissed, and swears.