Opening Night Read online

  ‘I just signed on with Whittle and Reade. I really like them so far.’

  ‘Listen, just stop talking, okay? I am not with any agency right now. There just aren’t that many roles. Which is why I need to focus on this audition. So please stop talking.’

  I shut up. I felt a bit embarrassed. Not to mention really, really sad. For him. For the rest of them. For that audition. I got up and walked out. I don’t know why, but I knew that I couldn’t be in that room. I crossed my name off the sign-in sheet, called my agents and told them I was unwell and so wouldn’t make it to the audition, and then walked all the way down to Soho. I was on the brink of depression. I had reasons galore. I didn’t have a job, no real friends, and my bank balance was entering dangerous territory. So I walked straight into Anthropologie and spent some money I wasn’t earning. Of course, the red wraparound dress that I bought that day is now sitting in a stupid box in my father’s basement.

  Some of the days started to get a bit lonely. I romantically imagined my life as a Murakami character, except the reality wasn’t that romantic. Most of my friends were still in high-pressure jobs, so they rarely had time to hang out and walk around. And when they did, they wore suits and checked their Blackberries incessantly. They didn’t have all that much to say. They had been filling out more excel sheets while I had been sitting in the dark comfort of a movie theatre. Every once in a while I began hating watching movies alone. Walking alone got a bit tiresome. Eating every meal alone began to bring me down. I found myself wandering the streets thinking that if I were to drop dead, nobody would cry except my father.

  But then Whittle and Reade called me with the first exciting theatre audition in a while. Bollywood Nights … a faux-musical that was going to be staged first at a popular experimental theatre in Soho but was sure to be picked up for Broadway for next fall. They needed a lead girl who could act and dance. The singing, like in Bollywood, would be playback. I was happy and decided to hobble back to life. I prepared and prepared and prepared. The audition was in the theatre itself. There were several Indian, or Indian-looking, women waiting to audition. Who were all these people? I had absolutely no idea that NYC had such a large population of aspiring Indian actors. There didn’t seem to be that many roles. And most of them definitely were not nearly attractive enough to be on stage or on screen, nor enough to just be trophy girlfriends who had their indulgences funded. So what on earth were they planning to do with their lives?

  It was there that I first met Nal. She was pretty, but more in a hunt-for-the-beauty kind of way. She was … what are we calling it these days? ‘Curvy’? ‘Voluptuous’? Certainly not ‘in shape’. Her eyebrows were in desperate need of plucking and she could also use an upper lip wax. She was dressed a bit frumpily but I won’t deny it, she had something. We got chatting while waiting to audition and I realized that one of the somethings she had was a personality.

  She sat down heavily next to me, smiled warmly and said, ‘Hi. I love those boots.’

  ‘Thank you. I like your … handbag.’

  ‘From Target! Under twenty bucks!’

  I had never heard anyone admit to shopping at Target before. I even went as far as buying generic Target-brand pain-killers and then putting them into an old Tylenol bottle.

  ‘Wow. That’s a good bargain,’ I said.

  ‘I know. Amazing! I haven’t seen you around before. What have you been in?’

  ‘Oh. Not too much, really. I’ve just started acting.’

  ‘Really? That’s so fabulous! You’re so pretty. You’ll do well. I can just tell.’

  How could I not have fallen in love with her? ‘Thanks. I’m a bit nervous. I don’t really know much about how this whole scene works.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. You’ll get the hang of it. Who’s your agent? Are you doing ads? I can send you the contact information of some great advertising agents. Ads really help pay the bills.’

  She was amazing! I couldn’t believe she was willing to share contacts with me. Plus, since I didn’t really see her as a threat, I enjoyed chatting with her. She knew NYC’s theatre scene well. She didn’t seem to have huge aspirations, and was finally someone I could speak to about my new interests. And she kept telling me I was really pretty. It’s hard not to be friends with people who find you really pretty and are willing to repeatedly tell you so. Anyway, before she got called in to audition, we exchanged numbers and I was pleased to have a new friend – one who, I was pretty certain, would not steal this role from me.

  ‘Good luck with the audition!’ she called out.

  ‘You too,’ I said weakly.

  When I was called in, I walked into a huge, intimidating rehearsal space with a row of six people sitting in the distance near a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto the L’Occitane Store on Broadway and Wooster. At this point in my mental movie, I think it would be apt to have Gershwin playing loudly as the camera lingered slowly on the façades of the buildings in Soho. I had to walk from the door to them – it felt like at least a mile – to hand them my pictures and résumé (which didn’t have too much on it at this point), and then walk back to the middle of the room to audition. I did. I delivered the lines, danced up a little storm and auditioned better than ever. The people seated clapped, thanked me for my time and said they’d be in touch. I smiled and walked out. I had been eyeing a navy blue dress at Bebe and, as a treat for a good audition and consolation for not having anyone to share that with, I went and got it for myself. It also went into the box in the basement.

  Within forty-eight hours, I had a call-back for a second round of auditions. I went again, met with eight people this time, delivered a few more lines, danced some more, chatted with them, and felt great. I walked out, and into The Body Shop. I wanted some pampering. I realized that working in Soho would result in all my money vanishing in a month.

  The whole process moved so efficiently! Jon Reade called me, thrilled, in another forty-eight hours, and told me I had the role. ‘They loved you, gorgeous. I knew they would. You’re going to rock this. Rehearsals start next Monday morning at nine a.m. I’m sending over the script and details. You’re going to be a star, love. Muah, muah.’

  Jon never left room for me to speak. Rehearsals in a week’s time! A New York City week is just a handful of those famous New York City minutes. Things were moving fast.

  The next week, I was back in the same intimidating room where I had auditioned. Except this time it wasn’t that intimidating. There were about sixty or seventy people milling about. A few of them looked like actors – you could tell because the actors were being ignored. The rest of them seemed to know each other and were friendly enough with me. We sat and drank coffee and chatted. Then the first rehearsal began. The director introduced everyone. There was the stage designer, the lighting designer, the assistant directors, the music producers, the stage manager, the assistant stage manager, the costume designer, the prop manager, the sound designer, the assistant sound designer, the publicist, the publicist’s assistant, and so on and so forth. There were about eleven actors. Despite being a production about Bollywood, I was one of only two Indians on the set. The male lead was a gorgeous Egyptian with deep-set eyes and cheekbones so sharp, you could cut yourself against them. The rest of the cast consisted of actors from all over the world, ranging from Brazil to Turkey to the Philippines. The director was half-American, half-Vietnamese and had studied in England and the choreographer was Canadian and had spent two seasons choreographing for Dancing with the Stars. All in all, it was about as perfect a New York City production as was possible.

  Nal wasn’t part of the team, by the way. But she was genuinely and fantastically supportive of me. We became manically fast friends. It was a best-friendship at first sight and I didn’t mind at all. I needed a friend and I really liked Nal.

  That first day, I felt as though I had walked into a bustling Hollywood set. This was certainly not how I had envisioned the theatre world, but I loved it! I didn’t see a lot
of the crew again until opening night, but I just loved knowing how huge and significant the behind-the-scenes was. What I loved even more was the knowledge that in front of the scenes was me.

  We rehearsed like mad. It was a more professional set-up than I could ever have imagined theatre to be. We rehearsed twelve-hour days and it was the most fun I have ever had. We danced, we improvised, we accidentally fell into bed with each other, and we became friends. I was itching to start performing, and impatient for fame and glamour. After the initial weeks of rehearsals, our show went into previews. I had never heard of the preview concept before. It was a four-week period during which we had shows and also had rehearsals so the director could tweak things while gauging audience reaction. And then, four weeks later, came the night I had dreamt of, been waiting for – OPENING NIGHT!

  There was a buzz in the green room that day. There were rumours about who all were in attendance. Anna Wintour, Steven Spielberg, Matthew Broderick, Gwyneth Paltrow … the adrenaline was pumping. I was thrilled and terrified. Though we had already been performing for four weeks, opening night was different. That night there was press, the next morning there would be reviews. My father, my harshest critic, was in the audience, ready to see what I had given up my stable career and income for. His being in the audience was especially important since he rarely drove long distances after my mother’s death.

  The show went smoothly, though. The audience laughed when we wanted it to, swelled with excitement when we expected it to, and stood for the applause when we desperately wished it to. As I took my final bow, I felt smug with satisfaction.

  After the show was the after party, but before that was the backstage celebration. Champagne bottles were uncorked; costumes gave way to backless dresses, super-skinny jeans, stilettos, and fashion statements of all sorts. I had had a legitimate excuse to shop for that night and so was wearing a classy yet just-slutty-enough purple knee-length dress from Banana Republic. I had combined it with a pair of dark brown Guess slingbacks and the whole look was very polished and sexy. I also had a green faux alligator-skin clutch from Aldo, but as long as nobody opened it and checked the label, it looked much more expensive. The night was ours! Except it wasn’t, really. We got to the after party and did the stroll down the red carpet. I loved it. My first red-carpet experience! I posed and preened and even did the turn and look-over-the-shoulder bit. We posed individually and as a cast, and then got ready to party. I was all set to give some clever bytes to journalists, but they didn’t come to me for any.

  Some of the rumours turned out to be correct. Anna Wintour, queen crazy at Vogue, was there with her trademark thick bangs and zillion-dollar trench coat. I only saw her from a distance, but her presence could be felt everywhere. Even my father, who had no idea who she was, was mesmerized. He nodded vaguely when I told him that she was the inspiration behind The Devil Wears Prada. Spielberg was there too, and he’s surprisingly short. Gwyneth Paltrow wasn’t there, but someone who looked a lot like her was, so I knew that when I told people about the night, Gwynie would have been there. A lot of other NYC names and faces that I felt I ought to know were there. Shimmering dresses, sky-high heels, beautiful hair, perfectly done make-up and intoxicating perfumes – I loved it all. I strutted around feeling like a princess. Except, I realized, once the cast had finished posing for pictures, we were somewhat irrelevant. Nobody on the cast was a ‘name’ and we were left to our own devices while the cameras continued following the others. All of us seemed to realize this, but nobody mentioned it. Instead, we sat and drank wine and felt special. And tried our hardest to ignore being ignored.

  The reviews the next day were a bit less loving than we had hoped for. Well, I got lucky. The New York Post was fairly cold about the show, calling it indulgent and uninspiring, but it did lavish some praise on me. According to them, the show ‘belongs to Naiya Kapur. Ms Kapur, who looks every bit the beautiful Bollywood star, thrills with her histrionics and perfect dancing ability, right down to the chest heaves and hip thrusts. If Bollywood doesn’t steal her away, this is a talent to look out for.’ I was thrilled. Didn’t matter if they didn’t like the show, at least it belonged to me. The next day nobody mentioned the review all morning even though we all knew we had read it over and over again. Well, I had read it over and over again. In fact, one framed copy of that review is now on my father’s mantel and one travels with me everywhere I go. The rest of the cast probably growled at it and tossed it aside. When someone did finally mention it, it was only to say that the review was garbage and that the reviewer was obviously biased. I personally thought it was fair, but I kept my mouth shut. We knew then that we weren’t Broadway-bound any more. The show would have its regular run and close. I can’t say I minded. My attention span was a bit short and I planned to do other, bigger things once the show got over.

  I was sure that other offers would just come flooding in once the regular run began. I mean, I was one of the leads in a hugely successful off-Broadway production, Anna Wintour came to our opening night, and the NY Post liked me. I should have been on the cover of Vogue but found myself on three different occasions in three different rooms with middle-aged South Asians, waiting to audition for bit parts in various TV series instead.

  I started going to fewer and fewer auditions. I can never make myself do things I don’t really want to. That worries me since I know I can’t have my way all the time, but I still don’t make an effort to change it. I’d rather just watch TV or go and shop.

  The NY Post review had sown a seed in my mind that was beginning to sprout branches. I had a cousin who had lived in Michigan for a few years after college and then moved to India in search of love and spirituality. Then there were a few older male friends who went back to India and came back with a sari-clad, allegedly virginal wife. That seemed to be what a lot of Indians did. Moved to India in search of some outdated definition of love. But I wasn’t looking for love or a spiritual high. I was looking for something much bigger – a career. Gradually, the Bollywood idea became stronger and stronger and I could hear Bombay calling out to me.

  Bollywood Nights closed with great hoopla. There was a party, there was drunkenness, there were celebrations. But at 3 a.m., when the festivities ended, I was sitting alone in a taxi, going back to my apartment. I imagined my NYC camera now on the right, outside the taxi window, recording my pensive face behind the reflections of the lights of the city.

  The next morning I had no idea who I was, let alone what to do with myself. I had played a role every single day for the last twelve weeks and suddenly I was expected to go back to reality. What was my reality? Who was I if not a lip-synching, dancing superstar who fell in love every single night? My own life had nothing. It definitely didn’t have a Bollywood-on-Broadway soundtrack and flashing lights. I had nothing to go back to after that last curtain call. I had loved taking on someone else’s persona so much, I had forgotten that some day I would have to give that persona back and find my own. I didn’t know where to turn. Even Nal was off in Connecticut for some silly local theatre. She suggested I join her there and consider working in regional theatre, but there was no way I was wasting time doing anything ‘regional’.

  I decided that very morning that I would go to Bombay and find my reality there. I wanted to wait until the end of my lease. I only had another month to go and felt I could use it to do some more walking around and shopping. I wouldn’t go to any auditions I didn’t really want to go to. I ended up not going to a single one. I visited Nal in Connecticut and it reaffirmed my belief that regional theatre is soporific. Nal looked happy, though, and that was nice. I tried to convince her to come to India, but she didn’t seem to want fame and fortune all that much. She was happy living day to day and refused to be separated from James, her equally curvaceous boyfriend. The month passed, I packed, and the next thing I knew, I was on a British Airways flight to a city I had never been to in my entire life. I knew that I was going to land in a place where I would look like everyone else but
would still be an outsider. But I was about to step into the city of Bollywood! Forget the Anna Wintours and Steven Spielbergs. I was about to be in the same town as Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan’s sixth finger. I half expected to bump into Aishwarya Rai while waiting for my luggage at the airport. Bollywood was going to be mine!

  Naiya Kapur is falling in love. With Bombay. on Sunday x

  I moved in to a small three bedroom apartment in a decrepit building in Bandra. We had huge, gorgeous new high-rises on both sides. I wanted to truly feel like a struggler. Not enough of a struggler to move to Lokhandwala, but still. I moved in with Jess and Dino.

  Jess, a half-Indian aspiring songwriter, fascinated me since the morning I laid eyes on her. She was half-Indian, half-British, and grew up in San Francisco. She came out of the closet and embraced her sexuality in college. She then went in and out of the closet a few times and ultimately decided to not define herself by her sexuality. Soon after college, she had a four-year live-in relationship with a Japanese American woman named Jess. Jess and Jess were the ‘cool lesbian couple’ that went to queer art show openings and showed up at pride parades all over the world. Jess and Jess were seemingly universally adored. I had heard about them through the variety of South Asian Women’s Creative Empowerment and such listservs that I was on when I lived in New York and thought I would become the minority creative woman who did yoga, watched experimental theatre and waxed eloquent about feminist politics. Fortunately, I didn’t turn into one of those little terrors.

  One summer, seemingly out of the blue, Japanese American Jess walked out on Indian American Jess. Indian American Jess fell into a disastrous downward spiral, left her job as a gay rights lawyer in San Francisco, packed her tears and her bags, and moved to Bombay to become a songwriter. A few months and less baggage later, I made a similar decision and posted on one of the feminist listservs for a place to live in Bombay. Sitting in NYC, I got a reply from Jess, and by the time I arrived in Bombay, I had a place to live and ready-made friends. Jess was neurotic and secretive, but oozed confidence and a laissez-faire attitude that I coveted. She drank like a fish and never apologized for anything. She intimidated me but I harboured a bit of a girl-crush on her. Jess single-handedly changed my views about life since I landed in Bombay. I asked her once, ‘How long do you think you’ll stay in India?’