MADDY
New York, December 1991
‘Stop! Stop!
Stop!
’ The instructor’s voice cut straight across her monologue. Maddy froze mid-sentence. Nothing seemed to be going right. She
looked across the room nervously, her heart sinking. Bearing down upon her with all the wrath of an angry god was Mark Ryan,
voice and accent coach to the hapless first-year students. Or at least that was what he called them. ‘Hapless.
Completely fucking
hap
less.’ He was English, although there wasn’t an accent on the planet he hadn’t been able to master. ‘Look around you,’ he’d
said to them on meeting them for the first time at the beginning of the semester. ‘Take a long, hard look at each other. By
Christmas, the person to the right or left of you will be gone.’
Well, it was nearly Christmas and now he was glaring at
her
. Maddy’s heart sank, coming to an abrupt halt in the pit of her stomach. ‘Just stop! You’re
massacring
the bloody language!’ Her mouth remained open but to her horror, nothing came out. Not a sound. Not a single squeak. Across
the room, her fellow students looked on, not all of them sympathetically.
‘What the
fuck
do you think you’re reading?’ Ryan glared at her. ‘A
memo
?’
‘N-no, sir,’ Maddy stammered, her face on fire. She could see Sandy wincing.
‘Then why the
fuck
does it sound as if you are?’
‘I … it doesn’t, sir … I …’ Maddy could scarcely get the words out. She was absolutely petrified.
‘It doesn’t? Oh, forgive me, I must be mistaken.
Next!
’ His voice was dripping with sarcasm. Maddy looked at him uncertainly. ‘Next,’ he spat out, looking past her to where the
others waited at the rear of the studio. He bent his head to his marking sheet. She was dismissed. Just like that. She walked
unsteadily to the back of the room, tears burning behind her eyes.
‘Asshole,’ Sandy muttered as she took her place beside her. ‘Don’t let him get to you,’ she whispered out of the side of her
mouth.
‘Ms Zimmerman?’ Ryan’s voice rang out. His ears were as sharp as his eyes. ‘Care to show the rest of us how it’s done?’
Maddy looked away as a red-faced Sandy walked nervously to the front of the class. She blinked back the tears that were threatening
to spill out of her eyes. This was
torture
. How had she ever imagined this was what she wanted to do for the rest of her life?
At 5 p.m., almost three hours after it had begun, the humiliation was finally over. The students traipsed dispiritedly out
of the hall and disappeared as quickly as they could. Maddy and Sandy walked along the corridor in silence, Maddy too embarrassed
to speak. Suddenly she heard Ryan’s voice behind her. He was talking to someone, clearly about the class he’d just taken.
‘Christ, what a group. There ought to be a law against them. There’s one girl in particular. The Stiller girl. What a turnip.
Do they make ’em in a factory somewhere out there in the cornfields? A Midwestern actress. Can you think of anything worse?’
Whoever he was talking to snorted derisively. Maddy stood rooted to the spot, not daring to turn around. A door opened and
closed somewhere behind her and then suddenly there was silence. Maddy’s face was on fire. She couldn’t even bring herself
to look at Sandy.
A turnip-headed Midwesterner
. Was that what he thought of her? Was that what they
all
thought of her?
‘Come on.’ Sandy squeezed her arm sympathetically. ‘Let’s go get a drink. Don’t let him get to you, Maddy. He’s just an asshole.’
Still too stunned to think, let alone speak, Maddy allowed Sandy to lead her downstairs to the bar on the ground floor.
A turnip-headed Midwesterner
. How could she
ever
have thought she could act?
‘Here.’ Ten minutes later, Sandy slapped down two bottles of beer on the table in front of them. ‘Drink up. We’ve only got
an hour before it’s Loughlin’s class. And don’t waste a single moment thinking about Ryan. He’s just pushing you. He wants
you to quit.’
‘How do you know?’ Maddy asked, bewildered.
‘Oh, just trust me. I know his type. Don’t let him get to you. You have to learn to fight back.’
Maddy stared at Sandy enviously. She and Sandy were polar opposites – they couldn’t have been more different. Sandy was wealthy,
worldly, confident – everything Maddy wasn’t. Maddy knew just how wealthy and worldly she was. She’d been to
Sandy’s home. Twice. An enormous, spacious and supremely elegant apartment overlooking Central Park. Three long-haired dogs
that Maddy mistook for cats, half a dozen servants, summers in Europe and winters in St Bart’s, wherever that was. Sandy’s
mother, a rake-thin dark-haired beauty, was a psychologist; her father a lawyer. In that, too, they couldn’t have been more
different. ‘From
Iowa
?’ Sandy’s mother cried out when Sandy first brought Maddy home. ‘Iowa?’ She made it sound like the moon. Which it might as
well have been for all the relevance Maddy’s own home provided when it came to the Zimmermans. She’d wandered around the apartment-with-no-end
in a daze. There was more artwork in the Zimmermans’ living room than she’d ever seen in one place in her entire life. ‘Are
these
originals
?’ she’d asked in a whisper as Sandy led her through and up a flight of stairs. Maddy had never been in an apartment that
had stairs.
‘Of course,’ Sandy replied, genuinely surprised by the question. Maddy’s mouth remained shut for the rest of the afternoon.
Now she sat opposite her, nursing her bottle of beer, wondering why she’d even bothered to come to New York in the first place
and why, of all the things she could have tried her hand at, she had chosen acting. It was clear she couldn’t act. It was
all Mrs Steenkamp’s fault, she reasoned, taking another swig. She was the one who’d first put the idea into her head. It was
about a month after her father had disappeared. ‘Why don’t you come down and try out for a part?’ she’d asked Maddy, more
out of sympathy than anything else. Maddy had been so sick of people constantly asking her where her father had gone, why
he’d gone, who he’d gone with … Mrs Steenkamp’s invitation to join the after-school drama club had been a welcome escape.
The minute she got up on stage, however, something inside her opened up. She was no longer Maddy Stiller, the only daughter
of a man who’d upped sticks one afternoon and abandoned his wife and child; she was someone else. Another character. Someone
with an entirely different past and history. On stage, at least, she was free. From that moment on, acting was all she could
think about. At Tisch, however, she had suddenly grasped something else. It
wasn’t enough to want to
be
an actor – she had to prove she was good at it too. And that she seemed unable to do. ‘What’s wrong with me?’ she asked Sandy,
more rhetorically than anything else. She knew what was wrong. It wasn’t only Ryan who demanded more of her than she was able
– or even prepared – to give. All her instructors said more or less the same thing. Unless she was able to let herself go
– truly let herself go – she would always remain where she was. A competent performer, nothing more. She worked hard, learned
her lines, rarely, if ever, forgot her words … but she was certainly not someone who would ever set an audience alight. She
lacked what others seemed able to give – depth. Only she knew the reasons why. She couldn’t.
‘Come on,’ Sandy said, draining the last of her beer. ‘It’s Loughlin next. You sure you can handle this?’
Maddy nodded, hoping she looked more confident than she felt. If she was scared of Ryan, Wally Loughlin absolutely terrified
her. He was an intense man who’d worked with all the greats from Brando to Pacino, and his classes were a mixture of torture
and stunned amazement at what he managed to get out of his students, even Maddy. She spent most of her time in classes torn
between the longing to take part and the longing to just disappear. She drained her bottle and stood up. Sandy was right –
she had to learn how to handle the criticisms that were levelled at them almost hourly; she had to develop a thicker, tougher
skin. She had to learn how to fight back and not wind up in tears almost every afternoon just because Ryan didn’t think she
had it in her. How did he know? Feeling somewhat braver, she followed Sandy out of the bar and together they rode the lift
to the third floor, where Loughlin’s weekly improvisation studios took place.
The class was already full when they walked in. Sandy found a couple of seats towards the rear and Maddy followed her gratefully.
A few minutes later, Loughlin strode in. He wasted no time in organising the class. He picked out a handful of students, tossed
out a few words and gave them each five minutes to come up with a two-minute sketch of whatever it was he’d thrown
their way. There was a lot of nervous giggling as the ten students struggled, each in their own way, to think of something
that would not only satisfy Loughlin but hopefully impress him too. A tall order. In the semester she’d been at Tisch, Maddy
had never seen Loughlin impressed by anyone, let alone her. She sat with her chin cupped in her hand, watching, entranced,
as he put the students he’d selected through their paces. ‘Fear!’ ‘Envy!’ ‘Desire!’ Someone who’d been given ‘envy’ to perform
was suddenly required to improvise. ‘Give me hatred!’ Loughlin yelled. ‘Burning hatred!’ Suddenly the word she’d been fearing
all semester slipped out. ‘Stiller!’ Maddy froze. ‘Get up here. You’re next. Gimme grief!’ He glared at her as she made her
way unsteadily to the front of the class. ‘You’ve got two minutes, Stiller. Show us how it’s done.’
Maddy felt her throat go dry. As always when she was nervous, she felt her body temperature begin to drop. She shivered. She
closed her eyes briefly and tried to summon up the emotion he’d asked for. She couldn’t. She needed a starting point. Loughlin
coughed. She tried to focus. Grief. Sadness. Tears. She swallowed. Loughlin coughed again. The palms of her hands began to
itch. Grief.
Come on, Maddy
, she willed herself.
Get a grip
. ‘I …’ She opened her mouth but could go no further.
‘In your own time, Stiller,’ Loughlin drawled sarcastically. ‘But I’m not seeing anything that speaks of grief to me.’
Maddy willed herself to concentrate. Grief. When had she last experienced it? She stood there trying to summon it up, but
nothing came. She was sweating, despite the chill that had settled over her. She thought of the farm, of her mother’s face
the day she boarded the bus for New York … surely there was something there? But there was nothing; just the usual carefully
constructed wall she built around those emotions she felt she couldn’t handle. She could feel herself clamming up. Her mouth
suddenly flooded with water as the old, familiar feeling of panic began to settle in.
Loughlin slid off his stool and walked towards her. He was a tall, powerfully built man. He towered over her, saying
nothing, but staring at her intently. For a brief, absurd second, she thought he might actually hit her. ‘Stiller!’ he roared.
Maddy jumped. Someone in the class laughed nervously. ‘Grief! Anger! Fear!’ Loughlin roared, jabbing his finger at her.
‘I … I
can’t
…’ Maddy stammered, desperately trying to control her voice.
‘Can’t or won’t?’ His blue eyes flashed contemptuously at her.
She looked up at him, failure flooding her senses. She’d seen Loughlin give other students a hard time, but this was different.
She stood in front of him, trapped by her own fear – fear of him, of the class, of what he was asking her to do. She felt
her stomach turn over. She’d never experienced anything like it. There was a dull, metallic taste in the back of her throat
that she dimly recognised as tears.
Oh God … please, no
.
Please don’t let me start crying in front of him
. ‘I …’ Again she tried to get the words out, and again her mouth and tongue failed her.
‘Thought so.’ Loughlin looked down at her, the contempt in his expression all too clear. ‘Disappear, Stiller. You obviously
haven’t got what it takes. Next! Anderson. Come up here. Show the rest of us how it’s done.’ There was another embarrassed
cough from the audience.
Maddy stood still for a second, rooted to the spot, unable to take it all in. Todd Anderson, tall, impossibly handsome and
impossibly gifted, strode confidently to the centre of the stage. He ignored her as he prepared himself to take on the role
she clearly couldn’t. There was nothing for it but to exit the classroom as quickly as possible. She fled.
It took her less than half an hour to empty her closet of her possessions and stuff them in her suitcase. Tears were streaming
down her face but she couldn’t feel them. Her heart was racing. She had never,
ever
been so humiliated in her entire life. Loughlin’s words sang out endlessly in her ears
Clear out, Stiller. You obviously haven’t got what it takes. A turnip-headed Midwesterner
. They were absolutely right. She
didn’t
have what it took. Better to get the hell out now before she was humiliated any further.
Suddenly the door burst open. Sandy stood in the doorway. Her mouth dropped open as she surveyed Maddy’s suitcase. ‘What’re
you doing? You can’t be serious! You’re
quitting
?’
Maddy picked up a sweater, folded it and placed it in her case. She hoped her voice was steady. ‘Loughlin’s right. I’m not
cut out for this, Sandy. I don’t know what I was thinking—’
‘Maddy, I don’t believe you!’ Sandy was incredulous. ‘You’ve had a couple of bad days and you’re going to
quit
?’
‘They’re not just bad days,’ Maddy said defensively. ‘Loughlin’s right. I … you’ve got to have talent, Sandy. It’s not enough
just to
want
to act. I
can’t
.’
‘Bull
shit
. Maddy, we’ve only been here a couple of months! You can’t quit before the first semester’s even ended! That’s absurd!’
‘It’s not absurd!’ Maddy closed the lid of her suitcase with a snap. ‘I’m not like you, Sandy. I’m from a
farm
in Iowa, for God’s sake. I just wish I had your confidence. You grew up here, you’ve been all over the world … you’re
tough
. I’m just some country hick—’