Through the Looking Glass

I was on my way back to the dorm with a hot ham and cheese sandwich from Avanti’s, when I stopped at the door to the campus theater. It was the door off the parking lot between the dorms that led into the side of the theater in the round. Auditions were going on, so I figured I’d have entertainment while I ate. I had more than a passing interest in theater. I just hadn’t mustered the nerve to go there. I wasn’t a theater major. I figured I would be less than welcome.

Actually not being a theater major had nothing to do it. I usually figured I’d be less than welcome most places.

I stood near the doorway in my washed out jeans and denim shirt, my long blonde hair held back by a blue bandana, looking bored while I pulled out one of the few foods I didn’t mind eating. I took a bite while I stepped up onto the doorstep and leaned back against the open door to watch the audition. No one seemed to mind. No one seemed to notice. I was practiced at being invisible.

What I saw made me put the sandwich back in the bag. Food wasn’t that interesting, and it couldn’t distract me from what I was seeing. They were auditioning for Alice in Wonderland and the child—I call her a child. She was a freshman in college—was a roly, poly young woman about 5 feet tall, who had no idea what it was like to be an intelligent female child on the brink of puberty. I didn’t spend time trying to figure out how this might be. I found the portrayal of Alice as a six-year-old too disconcerting.

I felt myself leaning in the doorway. My skin was itching to protect Alice. I couldn't stand to see her so misunderstood. It wasn't fair.

I set down my self-consciousness with the white paper sandwich bag on the blacktop just outside the door and went in. I signed up to audition. Gone were thoughts of not belonging—not forgotten—gone. They were replaced with soft feelings of a job I knew how to do that needed doing. No one took much notice of me, which was good. I got my chance to read—first as the dormouse, then as Alice. Shortly after that auditions were over.

On the way out I met the director. He asked my name. I told him. I asked if he had a problem with a six-foot tall Alice. He said no. Where I got the nerve for that question I’ll never know. The next day when the cast was posted, next to Alice’s name was my own.

I don’t stand in doorways anymore thinking I won’t be welcome. I’ve learned to like the person that I see when I look in the mirror. I think I started to know her that day when I set down that sandwich and my self-consciousness for Alice.

Alice took me through the looking glass with her.

—me strauss Letting me be