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Peter was so proud we’d remembered every line and the blocking that we went full steam ahead into Act Two.
Meredith blundered an entrance with the blocking—sitting on the sofa instead of the chair downstage—but still knew all her lines, so we kept going.
It was when Bennett made his second entrance in Act Two that we started having trouble. Or actually, Bennett did. He jumped ahead a line in our dialogue. After a short pause, I kept going, trying to make up for the little mistake.
Then he overstepped one of Meredith’s lines, which was a cue for me.
“Wait, did I miss something?” Meredith asked frantically, breaking character in the scene and looking out at Trish.
“My line was coming up where she tells her mom about the man living in the attic,” I added.
“Oh, I thought that was after…?” She trailed off, looking at Bennett.
Bennett frowned. “Oh, sorry.” Then he bellowed, “Line!”
Trish was our line-deliverer as assistant director, but she’d only give it if we got lost and couldn’t figure out where to pick back up. It was often better for us to struggle through the scene and work through it on our own.
Trish called out Bennett’s line that we skipped, that he’d forgotten.
“That’s right,” he murmured to himself, then jumped back into character and delivered the line, frustration apparent in his voice.
We moved on, making our way a little more roughly than we’d rehearsed Act One. Then we came upon a scene where I got mixed up, thinking I’d missed something.
I turned to Trish. “Line? Was that me?”
“No,” said Trish, looking down at the script in her hands. “It was Bennett.”
“Shit,” he muttered.
It wasn’t the cursing that made me wince; it was the obvious aggravation in his voice and the tightness of his jaw and mouth. I barely heard what Trish was saying, recalling that part of the scene. But Bennett was in obvious distress.
“Can we take a short bathroom break and look at our scripts really quick before we continue on?” I asked.
Bennett’s expression softened on me, a look of gratitude washing over him before he exited the stage without a word toward the lounge, or Green Room as we called it.
“Sure, let’s take five, then we’ll back up to Mrs. Banks’s entrance,” said Peter before turning to Trish.
Frank grabbed his script and sank onto the sofa on the stage while Meredith did the same, pointing out something to him.
I didn’t wait another second. I immediately strode backstage to find Bennett.
He was sitting on the loveseat in the Green Room area, his arms at his sides, his head back on the sofa, his eyes closed.
Oh, boy.
After sitting quietly beside him, I put a hand on his knee.His muscle tightened beneath, but he didn’t open his eyes.
“You okay?” I asked softly.
He swallowed hard, his throat working before saying, “Sometimes, things just trigger my anxiety, and I can’t think past it. Through it. It fucks my head up so bad.”
Brushing my hand on his knee comfortingly, I asked, “What triggered you this time?”
“My dad,” he answered quickly.
“You’ve never talked to me about your dad,” I said softly.
He’d mentioned Hale in several conversations and talked about his mother admiringly, such as how she was a Broadway actress in New York when she was young. And he’d told me about his Pop, but I don’t think he’d ever mentioned his father to me.
