“I know so well what becomes of unmarried women who aren’t prepared to occupy a position…”
Eleanor began.
Yet here she was, clutching a worn copy of the play, her knuckles white. The hallway was lined with them: the mature auditioners. A silver-haired man in a cardigan ran lines under his breath, his fingers trembling slightly. A woman with a chic grey bob and a velvet scarf sat perfectly still, her eyes closed, lips moving silently. Another woman, larger and louder, was recounting her triumph as Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? ten years ago, her voice a little too bright. matureauditions
“Thank you, Ms. Vance. That was… unexpected.”
“Well,” the young man said, clearing his throat. “Don’t wait that long again.” The cast list went up the next day. Eleanor didn’t check it. She was in her garden, pruning the roses Harold had planted, telling herself that the audition itself had been enough. The doing of it, the being of Amanda for those three minutes, had been a gift. “I know so well what becomes of unmarried
“Name and piece?” a reedy voice asked.
Eleanor stared at the screen. Then, very slowly, she smiled. She brushed the dirt from her knees, went inside, and pulled her old acting journal from the attic. The pages were yellow, the ink faded. On the first page, in her younger hand, she’d written: “Acting is not about being young. It’s about being true.” A silver-haired man in a cardigan ran lines
The audition notice had caught her eye in the grocery store, pinned beneath a flyer for a lost cat. “The Glass Menagerie” – Auditions. All roles open. Mature actors strongly encouraged.
Her voice, at first a dry rustle, gained weight. She wasn’t reciting; she was unspooling a lifetime of cautionary tales. She moved with a stiff, tragic elegance, her hands fluttering to an imaginary hairpin, her eyes scanning the darkness for a gentleman caller who would never come. She wasn’t Eleanor, the retired widow. She was Amanda, clinging to her blue mountain. She was every woman who had been told her time was up and had refused to believe it.
She set the journal on the kitchen table, next to Harold’s photograph. “Well,” she said to his smiling face. “Looks like I’m back.”