Exit, Pursued By Bear
by Lisa
genre:
Literature & Fiction
description:
Trevor is twenty-eight, in his last year at a third rate theatre school outside London. Charming, funny, talented, he’s the most popular student at school. He’s also on his fifth career try, but who’s counting? And he won’t commit where he’s not assured of success – whether a career, or a lover. Or himself. Not a problem. Until an illicit, sexually consuming affair threatens everything Trevor thought he cared nothing about. Exit, Pursued By Bear addresses the way we regularly mistake the dancer for the dance, the actor for the role, and the way our snap judgments and preconceptions cause us to mete out casual cruelties in our closest relationships. And that true intimacy is the greatest risk of all.
chapters
chapter 1:
Act One: Chapter 1
Act One: Chapter 1
chapter 1
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updated 09/23/08
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5296 characters
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0 people liked it
I am born. No, just taking the piss. Anyway, that beginning line’s already taken. So, me. Yeah. I’m studying to be an actor. Wouldn’t you like to be me? Instead of working in some boring office blathering on about projected earnings when you could be declaiming Richard III? Complete with a limp and a prosthetic hump? What else? Well, there’re a number of people, just like me at this school, so we’ll start there, shall we? Why did we decide to attend Sherwood School of Theatre Arts, which no one’s ever heard of? Being honest and forthright, most of us fall into the following categories:
1. Didn’t think we could get into RADA, and so didn’t bother applying.
2. Professed to hate London, but were actually paralyzed with fear at the mere thought of entering the building at RADA.
3. Flunked the audition at RADA. (Usually multiple times.)
4. Preferred the anti-elitism position of a “smaller and more personal” school with a “more nurturing environment”. A phenomenon otherwise known as a decided preference for being a relatively big fish in quite a small pond.
* Any of the above rationalizations may be similarly applied to address the non-application to LAMDA, Bristol Old Vic, Drama Studio, or Guildhall. So.
* Please see the Appendix for a list of famous actors who hailed from the aforementioned schools. I will just say that Orlando Bloom was a Guildhall bloke. Became an elf straight after leaving school, didn’t he?
I know those things are all excuses, and I always tell the truth. At least to myself, if not necessarily to other people. Therefore, I say I’m a mummy’s boy, Sherwood’s close to home, and that I love the great outdoors, which of course are wholly irrelevant reasons to choose a theatre school, so everyone laughs and then don’t bother me for a real reason.
The real reason is I don’t like doing things I’m not good at and when I hit a hard patch I tend to swan off and try something else. I’d never’ve spent the money to go to RADA or any of those others, it would be a waste for me to commit like that.
Don’t get me wrong; I do actually love the theatre. My parents always took us to plays when we were ankle snappers. Simply a normal, expected part of life. Like skiing, or traveling, or reading D.H. Lawrence at age ten. They’d haul all of us to Stratford for a long holiday, and we’d take turns going. Those not waiting for the curtain to rise were playing football in a field.
I’ve had a fairly chequered job history – competitive skier (brother Joseph better than me), grammar school teacher (sister Laura better than me), writer (sister Angie better than me), and reading law (no one in family, just too lazy to keep on). So acting, yeah. I met a bloke in a pub, with whom I ended up being friends. Rupert was going to Sherwood to be trained in costume design and I was at loose ends. So.
Also, honestly, the stereotype tends to be true and there was the promise of a lot of very hot, very gay men. Of course this was not what I said when broaching the subject to my family - although I did happen to mention it at my entrance interview at Sherwood. And they still let me in. So, it’s on their head then, isn’t it? They knew what they were getting with me.
I was named after an actor in point of fact, Trevor Howard - my name’s Trevor, not Howard. Could’ve gone either way, I suppose. Although I don’t think I’ll be anything like him. I won’t act for four decades for a start since I apparently have the attention span of a hummingbird. Don’t look a thing like him either, just as you’d expect, unless there’s a whole lot to my parents’ story I haven’t been privy to.
I’m tall, and what they refer to poetically as “raw boned”. Just another way of saying, grew too fast and still, at twenty-nine I’m inclined to trip over the furniture. You’d never think I was coordinated enough to ski, much less ski well, which I do. I just don’t think about it unless I have to, and going down the side of a mountain, well it’s one of the few times I make an effort not to run into, or over things.
As for other physical features, eh, what’s to say? I’ve hair that’s on the red side of things, rather like the colour of bricks. Old, dusty, crumbling bricks. And blue eyes. I’m not leading man attractive by any means, but it hasn’t hurt me copping off any. And when you get down to it, I may not want to act forever, but I imagine I’ll still want to fuck when I’m ninety.
At the end of my second year at Sherwood - sweet name isn’t it? It is actually situated right up against a lake and trees. I suppose that qualifies as a forest? Sherwood Copse? Sherwood Hedge? Dunno. They’ll never be able to relocate though, will they? Hard to find suitable forests these days.
So . . . at the end of second year . . . you know I am capable of staying with something longer than a month or two. I exaggerate to make a point. Course now no one’ll trust a thing I say, unreliable narrator and all that. Tant pis. That’s French for too effing bad. Did I mention my time skiing in the Alps? Where the fuck was I? Crap.
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1. Didn’t think we could get into RADA, and so didn’t bother applying.
2. Professed to hate London, but were actually paralyzed with fear at the mere thought of entering the building at RADA.
3. Flunked the audition at RADA. (Usually multiple times.)
4. Preferred the anti-elitism position of a “smaller and more personal” school with a “more nurturing environment”. A phenomenon otherwise known as a decided preference for being a relatively big fish in quite a small pond.
* Any of the above rationalizations may be similarly applied to address the non-application to LAMDA, Bristol Old Vic, Drama Studio, or Guildhall. So.
* Please see the Appendix for a list of famous actors who hailed from the aforementioned schools. I will just say that Orlando Bloom was a Guildhall bloke. Became an elf straight after leaving school, didn’t he?
I know those things are all excuses, and I always tell the truth. At least to myself, if not necessarily to other people. Therefore, I say I’m a mummy’s boy, Sherwood’s close to home, and that I love the great outdoors, which of course are wholly irrelevant reasons to choose a theatre school, so everyone laughs and then don’t bother me for a real reason.
The real reason is I don’t like doing things I’m not good at and when I hit a hard patch I tend to swan off and try something else. I’d never’ve spent the money to go to RADA or any of those others, it would be a waste for me to commit like that.
Don’t get me wrong; I do actually love the theatre. My parents always took us to plays when we were ankle snappers. Simply a normal, expected part of life. Like skiing, or traveling, or reading D.H. Lawrence at age ten. They’d haul all of us to Stratford for a long holiday, and we’d take turns going. Those not waiting for the curtain to rise were playing football in a field.
I’ve had a fairly chequered job history – competitive skier (brother Joseph better than me), grammar school teacher (sister Laura better than me), writer (sister Angie better than me), and reading law (no one in family, just too lazy to keep on). So acting, yeah. I met a bloke in a pub, with whom I ended up being friends. Rupert was going to Sherwood to be trained in costume design and I was at loose ends. So.
Also, honestly, the stereotype tends to be true and there was the promise of a lot of very hot, very gay men. Of course this was not what I said when broaching the subject to my family - although I did happen to mention it at my entrance interview at Sherwood. And they still let me in. So, it’s on their head then, isn’t it? They knew what they were getting with me.
I was named after an actor in point of fact, Trevor Howard - my name’s Trevor, not Howard. Could’ve gone either way, I suppose. Although I don’t think I’ll be anything like him. I won’t act for four decades for a start since I apparently have the attention span of a hummingbird. Don’t look a thing like him either, just as you’d expect, unless there’s a whole lot to my parents’ story I haven’t been privy to.
I’m tall, and what they refer to poetically as “raw boned”. Just another way of saying, grew too fast and still, at twenty-nine I’m inclined to trip over the furniture. You’d never think I was coordinated enough to ski, much less ski well, which I do. I just don’t think about it unless I have to, and going down the side of a mountain, well it’s one of the few times I make an effort not to run into, or over things.
As for other physical features, eh, what’s to say? I’ve hair that’s on the red side of things, rather like the colour of bricks. Old, dusty, crumbling bricks. And blue eyes. I’m not leading man attractive by any means, but it hasn’t hurt me copping off any. And when you get down to it, I may not want to act forever, but I imagine I’ll still want to fuck when I’m ninety.
At the end of my second year at Sherwood - sweet name isn’t it? It is actually situated right up against a lake and trees. I suppose that qualifies as a forest? Sherwood Copse? Sherwood Hedge? Dunno. They’ll never be able to relocate though, will they? Hard to find suitable forests these days.
So . . . at the end of second year . . . you know I am capable of staying with something longer than a month or two. I exaggerate to make a point. Course now no one’ll trust a thing I say, unreliable narrator and all that. Tant pis. That’s French for too effing bad. Did I mention my time skiing in the Alps? Where the fuck was I? Crap.
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