Page 36 of Potion Sickness

The first cast member through the lobby doors is Moonbeam, an hour early, because she likes to ‘acclimate to the room.’

She’s delighted to be interviewed. She’s been waiting to be interviewed. She settles onto the yoga mat she’s spread in the aisle, crosses her legs, and closes her eyes.

“First Witch,” I say. “How did you find the role?”

“I didn’t find it. It found me.” Her eyes stay closed. “I’d been doing a lot of work on my throat chakra this year, and then a play arrives that’s entirely about speaking things into being. It can’t just be a coincidence. The universe is doing casting.”

“Well,” I say. “Englebert did the casting, mostly.”

“Englebert is one of the universe’s instruments.” She opens one eye. “You should tell him that. He should sit with it.”

“Walk me through your process,” I say. “The cauldron scene.”

“Okay, so, the text gives you the ingredients, right? Eye of newt, toe of frog. And my first instinct was, this is dark, I don’t want to put this energy into the room. So I did some journaling, and what I realized is… It’s just a recipe. The witches are cooking. We’re making something, while everything else is about destroying. Everything else is stabbing. We’re in the kitchen.” Both eyes are open now. “The witches are a collective.”

I write that down, because it’s going in the blog word for word.

“Do you believe the production is cursed?”

“I think the building is holding a lot right now,” she says, after a pause. “Grief. Ambition. A lot of cortisol. That has to go somewhere. But cursed?” She shakes her head. “A curse comes from outside. Whatever’s happening here lives here.” She rolls up her mat and stands. “Do you want to do a group stretch before you do your next interview? You hold tension in your jaw. It’s very loud.”

“I’m good,” I say.

“Your jaw isn’t,” Moonbeam says, and wanders off toward the stage, leaving me alone in the aisle.

* * *

Tiffany is my next interview.

“Is this being recorded?”

“It’s being handwritten.”

“Good. Recordings can be edited.” She smooths her skirt. “Ask me anything.”

“What drew you to the role?”

“I auditioned for Lady Macbeth,” she says. “But the witches are honestly the better part, if you understand the play, which most people don’t. The witches run Scotland. They’re the only ones who know how everything ends. Everyone on that stage is scrambling around making plans, and we’re standing in the fog watching them do exactly what we said they’d do.” She recrosses her legs. “I relate to that. Professionally. You’d be amazed what I know by Thursday that this town doesn’t figure out until Sunday.”

“I thought you weren’t a seer,” I say. “Your family aren’t psychics.”

“No, not magically knowing. From the salon. Duh. People tell their hairdresser things they don’t tell their lawyer.” A nod across the gym, toward the wings, where Pru is running lines with her back to us. “Some people should keep that in mind.”

“How do you prepare? Walk me through a rehearsal day.”

“I open the salon at nine. I close at five. I eat dinner standing up, I’m here on time, and I run my track and hers, every night, both, because that’s what a professional does.”

She’s warming up now. This is her aria.

“You can put in the blog that the Third Witch knows the sleepwalking scene cold. Every line, every move. ‘Out, damned spot.’ All of it. I could go on tonight.”

“Hopefully that won’t be necessary.”

“Hopefully,” she says. “But this play doesn’t care what we hope. That’s the whole point of it, actually. People think Macbeth is about ambition, but it’s really about how the person everyone overlooked was right the whole time.”

“I don’t think that’s what it’s about.”

“It’s open to interpretation. That’s what makes it art.” She stands. “Was that everything? I have to go get ready. Some of us don’t get a private dressing room.”