Waiting for Tilda Swinton

Abstract

Waiting for Tilda Swinton Bo Lewis (bio) The students are writing monologues to perform for Ms. Swinton. Her visit has been all but assured. “Sometime this week,” you were told, “so long as her shooting schedule permits.” You try not to tremble. She’s only an actor, you tell yourself. Only a human made of flesh and bone and possibility. She will most likely not even read your screenplay. After all, it is the students she’s coming to see. The good press, the photo op. “Oscar winner inspires urban youth,” the caption will read, the group shot snapped seconds before a team of handlers whisks her back out of your life. Almost certainly, this is how it will happen. And yet. Isn’t it possible—conceivable, at least—that she might be so impressed as to wonder who on earth could coax such gripping performances from this motley bunch? That, being so moved, she might take you aside, might extend some kind of overture? You are doomed to go on hoping. O, but Christ, these monologues. You don’t know whether to yawn or gnash your teeth. So essay-like, so painfully authorial. “Don’t build an argument,” you tell them. “Don’t offer proofs.” Empty stares, a popping of gum. “Don’t talk about your beliefs, tell us about old wounds that never healed. About, say, fathers who drink, who are ashamed of what their lives have amounted to, who turn this rage outward—who in the course of administering discipline lose control, dealing out punishments more cruel than just. For example.” But why such fussing over a two-minute monologue? they want to know. After all, this isn’t Broadway. This isn’t Hollywood. “Because,” you tell them, summoning the gravitas of a true plagiarist, “the greatest hinges lie hidden in the smallest moments.” On your mind’s screen a montage begins: Tilda Swinton beckoning from her limousine; you and Tilda on location, someplace craggy and severe—she wearing the cuirass and body paint of a pagan warrior queen, you sweatered and windblown in a canvas chair; the two of you on the red carpet at Cannes, arms linked, awash in flashes and adulation . . . A messenger arrives—a student monitor bearing a note torn from the secretary’s memo pad. Ms. Swinton could not get away this afternoon. With any luck, she’ll come tomorrow. Another day. You find yourself charmed by their unripe ideas. “Not there yet,” you say, “but closer.” What advice can you give? “Rehearse, revise, repeat,” you tell them. “A playwright listens, an actor prepares, a director shouts: ‘New choice.’” How will we know when we’ve finished? they ask. “Does it sing with forbidden poetry? Does it scrape the tarred bottom of your soul?” Silence, a subtle movement [End Page 36] of heads. Are they nodding with comprehension? You plunge ahead: “Find the discord in your being, and throw it under the lights.” Who would question your motives? Your cause is unimpeachably noble. How many teenage thespians get an audience with the paragon of their craft? Any benefit to you would be merely incidental. And why shouldn’t you benefit—you, who never claimed to be a martyr? “No cheese,” you warn. “Don’t go blowing kisses to all mankind.” And what of hope? they ask. What of our youthful optimism? Mustn’t we use every urge at our disposal? You cradle your elbow. You tap your chin. “What is it,” you ask, “that you must tell yourselves, again and again, to keep from slipping irretrievably into despair?” They watch you, listening for something more. One of them steps forward, pats you on the shoulder. Again the messenger. Again the promise of tomorrow. On the third day they have awakened. Their words erupt with a quality of blind impulse—found, not written. They speak reachingly, as if from forgotten caves. Even their titles draw blood. How to Be Invisible. How to Survive a Plague. This Skin of Mine. Everyone Here Hates Surprises. “Yes!” you shout. “You’ve mined your oldest scars, glimpsed the subterranean. Tilda will be floored!” But we’re not done, they cry. This is only the beginning! Give...