Meeting Power When You Have No Power

All ambition to forge a career when you are young and powerless comes with an element of humiliation. This is what I thought as I climbed the stairs to the Theatre Director’s office in the traditional theatre building. I knew I was not in a win-win position to offer anything. I had my nervous and sweaty youthful courage, but that was about it. My hope was that the Theatre Director would be able to identify more with the youthful courage than the nervous sweatiness. It did not help that his secretary′s office felt more like an official hall than an office, nor that after signing my name in a book I was told to wait on an ornamented gold-painted chair. A huge dark door opened and a small man with an indifferent and arrogant expression appeared. He waved his hand as if to tell me to follow him. Once inside his office, he pointed towards a soft footstool with no legs. I sat down and immediately sank down to the level of the floor, while the director placed himself on a chair, looking down upon me. It felt a bit like he was coming out of the ceiling. Needless to mention, if I had felt small in front of the building I was more or less flattened now. I was a pancake. However, a pancake with some guts. At least that was what I was telling myself. I started to tell him about the gift – the ticket to America. With PANAM. The ability to travel anywhere in the US. He looked intrigued, and wanted to know why I had come to see him. I gathered my remaining courage and explained that I hoped he would have contacts and that getting in touch with them would allow me to experience theatre in change and development on my journey. He silently got off the chair and went over to his table. Here, he picked up his contacts book and started to study it. Then he came over and began to give me names and telephone numbers. He might have been impressed with the way I had dared to come and see him and with my request, which was quite bold considering I was in no win-win situation. However, names came falling out of his sleeves as sun from the sky. I felt he was part of that sky as I was still down there on the floor. Finally, having jotted down the names and numbers, the Director asked why I wasn’t attending the stage director’s class at the National Drama School. I did not have a good answer. I wanted to explain that there was no point attending a school when I had so little experience. That was exactly why I wanted to go on this journey. At about 20 years old I felt like once I had experienced America I would have lived life. This was partly true, but partly untrue. 

He did not get up when I left.