Lucky Break Read Free Page A

that you may not know. At Drama Arts you’ll be learning to Inhabit your Characters. You won’t be performing. You won’t be prancing around in fancy dress. There will be no public shows until the third year, and in the first year you’ll only be seen by the staff. In the second year, if we think you’re ready, we’ll let the other students watch your efforts, and no one else, and this is because we want to do everything we can here to rid you of the desire to perform. We want you to learn to Be. To exist in your own world on the stage.’
    Patrick shook his head. ‘Now I’ll let you into another secret. At other drama schools, however renowned, they don’t Teach anything. At other drama schools they put on a series of plays and hope that somehow, through pot luck, something will Sink in. But Here, and I hope you all realise how lucky you are to be here, You will Learn. You will be taught Stanislavsky’s method of acting. You will learn to create a fourth wall. When you walk on stage you will have an Objective and a series of Actions, and these will be the secrets of your trade. You will be clothed with these tools, and you will cling tight to them like treasure. Never will you go ahead without them. Just as in life you walk into a room for a reason with all your thoughts and needs, your vices, your weaknesses and strengths. So you will walk out on stage. If you go to the theatre tonight, or on any night,’ he continued, ‘in our famous West End, you will see no end of vacuous performances, actors with no idea where they are, or where they’re going, really just attempting to speak and not bump into the furniture, but a student of Drama Arts will stand out from this colourless troupe. A student from here will have a purpose, an energy, that will drive him forward, so when you are still here, rehearsing late, night after night, complaining you’re cold or hungry or tired, remember how lucky you are. You are actually learning something. You are being Trained!’
    Patrick looked around. All eyes were gleaming at him. Every face was on fire. Yes, Dan thought, this is what I came for! And then to his surprise, Jemma put up her hand. ‘I wanted to ask, I mean, I do sometimes see really good plays, with actors, well, not from here . . . and so, is that just luck then, that they’re good?’
    Dan saw the girl opposite him – Nell – look up as if she too had seen actors she admired, and might be about to name them. But Patrick Bowery was frozen to the spot.
    He took a deep breath and held it like a child in shock. ‘LUCK?’ he bellowed.
    Jemma visibly began to shake.
    â€˜No. It is Not luck. It is your inability to tell what is art and what is interpretation. And in future if you have nothing intelligent to say then PLEASE, unless you’re asked, keep quiet.’
    There was silence in the room. No one moved or spoke.
    â€˜Right.’ Patrick Bowery had recovered himself. ‘If there’s nothing else, no other questions . . . you are free to go.’
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    That afternoon Dan changed, with the other boys, into ballet clothes, forcing his legs into the unfamiliar tightness of tights, hopping and laughing, and attempting to avert his gaze from the awkward bulges and dents revealed by Lycra. Eventually when they were all ready, they shuffled out to meet the girls, their ballet slippers scuffling, hoping for camouflage in the matt-black studio at the back of the building. ‘Please,’ Silvio Romano’s voice was gentle, his dancer’s body moulded into muscled planes. ‘Please, tell me your names.’
    He nodded as each one spoke, his eyes running over them, drinking them in, gliding in his whispery dance shoes up and down the rows. He was older than Patrick, with a worn face and dusty, dyed brown hair, but when he moved he was agile as a boy. The slight, fair girl with the broad Manchester accent was called Hettie,