I audition for the role of Ophelia.
Ophelia might be 18. She might be 25. We donât know. We know sheâs young and pretty. Iâm 27 and fairly pretty. Iâm not young.
The director says he wonât cast someone who âlooksâ older than 25. I know this means he wonât cast someone who looks older than he thinks 25-year-olds look like.
The truth is, your face when youâre 27 is the same face as when youâre 25. The truth is, your face when youâre 25 is usually the same as when youâre 23. It changes sometime in the night when youâre 21.
Your face when youâre 20 is your face when youâre 18 is usually very close to your face when youâre 16. But when you audition for a 16-year-old when youâre 16, you lose the role to someone whoâs 25.
You realize that all of those teenagers you watched in movies growing up were adults. They needed to be beautiful. They needed to be desired. Not awkward, growing, acne, baby fat cheeks.
Thatâs why you never looked like them. You wanted so badly to look like them.
Now 27 is too old for 25 and you spent your life waiting to look old enough to look young until youâre too old to look your age.
I lie. He canât tell whether Iâm 23-25-27 or whatever age at which a woman is disqualified.
I get the role. I meet the actor playing Hamlet. Heâs 45. I meet the actress playing Hamletâs mother, and sheâs 30.
God forbid a woman looks like she was born before she gave birth.
Imagine if she looked like a mother.
Would Ophelia like to be a mother?
Would she have to look like one? With stretch marks and tired eyes from late nights nursing her baby?
Would she have to grow up?
Luckily for Ophelia, she drowns before she gets the chance.
Luckily for me, I still look young enough for the audience to care.
Ophelia and I leave behind a perfect corpse. And happily, because who leaves flowers at a grave with crows feet and smiles lines?
The play is a tragedy, so we donât smile much, anyway. Luckily.
The people will cry because Iâm worthy enough to die,
and happy Ophelia will never become too old to play herself.
Opheliaâ a somewhat lazy poem I recently found buried in my notes app.
