//------------------------------// // A lot of Tension // Story: A Stellar Performance // by AppleJTZ //------------------------------// The clock above the door of the theatre hall ticked as the rehearsal of the Shadowbolts went on. Sunny gave her actors strict and precise directions how to perform their roles, how to speak their lines, how to stand and what gesture they should make: Sugarcoat was supposed to play with more fury in her voice, as well as hints of smugness and arrogance. Indigo on the other hand should speak more calmly, acting more subtly instead of over-the-top-in-your-face-evil. Sour, as Sunny tried to formulate it, should try and be both nice AND mean at the same time, as if she was an evil jester, not a clown with a split personality. And for Lemon, she said she would simply be happy if she stopped behaving like she was on a party. For short moments, the four girls on the stage actually managed to follow her guidelines, performing more in the way the play writer was picturing their roles. However, no matter how many times they repeated the scene, in the end they all fell back into their usual patterns: Sour would eventually make her two-sided expressions as she spoke, Sugarcoat’s “passion” would bit by bit drop until she was back at reading out the script way too fast without any emphasis on the words, Indigo would do the vice versa and start overacting the further the scene went on, and Lemon, after stating her text normally for a while, would turn her text into a musical number at some point again. Sunny watched them with growing impatience, clenching her script and pen gradually tighter. More and more frequently she cut them off in the middle of the scene, scolding them for ruining her play before yelling how to do it right. The stern director didn’t notice that with every lecture she gave, her actors were becoming more discouraged and tired. Aside from not playing like Sunny wanted them to, the number of small mistakes they made in their performance was also increasing: Lemon began to stumble as she danced across the stage, or ran out of breath while singing a high note. Sugarcoat forgot to strike poses, even if she executed them lazily and without any vigor, or spoke so fast nobody understood what she said. Indigo kept screwing up her lines, while her overly exaggerated play made her affine for slip-ups – during her death scene she once actually rolled off the stage, needing a short break after she fell on the hard ground. For Sour, walking around in her costume was becoming quite a hurdle: One time she tripped and had to be helped up back on her feet by the others, while on another occasion she got caught up in the curtain when she stepped out on the stage. Again and again Sunny interrupted the scene and demanded to start over. With every repetition the theatre her frustration was increasing, while at the same time anger started boiling up inside of her. Eventually her patience snapped: From her seat Sunny watched them replaying the end of the scene for what felt like the hundredth time. Sour was switching between her two faces at almost every second word. Indigo was yelling over her on the ground when she was supposed to lie still. Sugarcoat was standing around doing nothing. And Lemon span on the spot so fast, just looking at her made Sunny dizzy. Seeing the disaster, unable to spot any sort of real progress from the first time, she finally couldn’t take any more. “ENOUGH!!!” Immediately everyone on the stage stopped. Turning towards Sunny they saw she had gotten up from her chair again, holding pen and script so tightly in her hands they looked like they were about to break in her grip. Her whole body was tense, her muscles strained as she glared furiously at them. She knitted her brows so far they almost looked like a V, while she was showing her grit teeth at her actors. “This is ridiculous!” she shouted, throwing her hands up in the air. “You guys are turning my wonderful and deep play about divine responsibilities into a farce! Half of our practice time is over, and we’re not even through the first scene! At this rate we will never get it done in time!” Still lying on the stage Indigo sat up, looking like everyone rather grumpily at her director. She picked up her script she had dropped earlier, giving it a brief glance. “Seriously, are you sure this is the first scene?” she asked skeptically. “It feels like we’re jumping right in the middle of the action!” “That’s a narration element!” Sunny told her, rolling her eyes. “Starting in the middle of the events aggravates the watchers’ imagination to think about what happened before and make their own story. If you guys would actually pay attention to English classes-” “Yeah, right, a narration element” Sour kindly cut her off, before adding more cynically: “Plus it’s a good excuse if the writer is too lazy to think up an introduction…” Startled Sunny took a step back. “LAZY?!” she shouted, her shock turning into even more rage. Offended she put a hand on her chest. “Do you have ANY idea how much work and sweat I put into this?” she loudly asked them. “How much I suffered to create this masterpiece?” “It’s not even close to being a masterpiece” Sugarcoat bluntly told her, looking over her script. “I’ve read it completely. Despite the fact it’s gonna take much more than fifteen minutes to perform, neither the plot nor the characters have real depth or meaning. It’s just a very simple story about the fight between good and evil and how power and envy can corrupt someone. It’s neither very well executed nor entertainingly written.” Sunny took another step back, bumping against the seat behind her. Staring with wide eyes at Sugarcoat she didn’t know for a moment what to respond. “Y-you girls wouldn’t know art if it slapped you in your face!” she eventually snapped back. Lemon put her hands on her hips. “Oh yeah?” she defiantly asked. She walked over to Indigo, holding her cheek up to the girl on the ground. With a big grin Indigo slapped her with her script. It wasn’t very hard, just so Lemon’s head was turned towards Sunny. “You’re right – didn’t feel like art to me” Lemon winked, sticking out her tongue at their director while rubbing her cheek. Sunny pouted, about to reply something, when the simultaneous giggles of her actors made her freeze. “And just look at this costume” Sour chirped, turning around as she presented the various parts of her outfit, from the pink flamingo wing to the “spikes” on her back and the attached cat ear on her dog head. “Doesn’t it just scream art out of every fiber? Or at least ‘look, I’ve been stitched together in ten minutes out of costumes that were thrown away after Nightmare Night’.” Despite saying this in her bad-tempered voice Sour smiled, alongside the other girls on the stage. “We’re not really much better” Sugarcoat remarked, smirking slightly as she looked down on her cheap plastic armor. “Yeah!” Indigo agreed, chuckling as she got back on her feet. “I mean could you imagine a more generic villain getup than this?” she asked, pointing at her black chest-plate and crown. The four actors laughed out loud. Sunny watched them goof around, making fun of their roles and costumes. At first she angrily knit her brows and grit her teeth further. But as they kept making fun on her play her eyebrows suddenly turned into the opposite direction, while the pressure of her teeth was lifted. Her lips fell down, the look on her face turning into depression. For the blink of an eye her anger then suddenly reappeared, even stronger than before. Furiously she held her script high above her head, before loudly smacking it against the floor. The laughter on the stage abruptly died off. The four girls turned towards Sunny, who was looking at them with a slightly wet sheen in her eyes. Turning away she ran towards the exit, the others watching as she skipped up the stairs. Her silhouette was becoming smaller the further she ascended the large hall, until the four could only vaguely see her silhouette as she opened the door on top, and stormed out. An uncomfortable silence fell over the hall. Sour, Sugarcoat, Indigo and Lemon looked at each other, all of them bearing somewhat guilty expressions. After a while Sugarcoat let out a sigh. “We’re idiots” she murmured, all of them staring down at their feet.