Built for Others

 The ghost light was a lonely sentinel in the center of the stage, its single bulb casting long, dramatic shadows into the empty house. For Jill, it was the truest audience. Every night after rehearsals, she would return, sit on the lip of the stage, and whisper her lines to the hollow dark. It was the only time the words felt like hers.

Rehearsals were a different beast. They were a place of direction. Of Roland’s hands shaping the air, sculpting her posture. Of Marcus, the playwright, scribbling in the margins, muttering, “More anguish, Jill. Think of a lost love.” Of her scene partner, Richard, whose breathy intensity demanded a specific, reactive energy. They saw a Jill who was a vesselfor Roland’s vision, for Marcus’s text, for Richard’s performance. They saw clay.

In the daylight, she was a collection of reflections. To her mother, she was the “struggling artist,” a fact underscored by every care package of groceries. To her barista, she was “the theatre one,” always ordering a black coffee with a distant look. To the critics (whose past reviews she’d memorized), she was either “promisingly raw” or “overly technical.” She lived in a hall of mirrors, each reflection a different Jill, none of them whole.

Opening night arrived on a wave of nauseous adrenaline. As she stood in the wings, listening to the murmur of the packed house, the chorus of opinions swelled in her head. Roland’s voice: “Bigger gestures, Jill, they need to see it in the back!” Marcus’s: “Find the melancholy in the comedy!” Her own mother’s worried smile flashed in her mind.

Her cue came. She stepped into the light. And for the first two acts, she performed a compilation. She gave Roland his grand sweep, Marcus his poignant pause, Richard his fiery retort. She was competent, precise, a living mosaic of other people’s expectations. And it felt hollow. A beautiful, empty shell.

The pivotal scene arrived. Her character, Eleanor, was alone on stage, holding a letter that revealed her entire life was a polite fiction. The script called for a silent, tear-streaked breakdown. As the spotlight narrowed, the noise in Jill’s head reached a crescendo. More anguish, think of a lost love, be bigger, be smaller, be real, be theatrical…

Then, a fracture.

In the silence, she looked down at the prop letter, the words blurring. She didn’t think of a lost love. She thought of the ghost light. She thought of whispering to the dark, unseen and unjudged. She thought of the exhausting weight of all those reflected Jills. A deep, quiet sob escaped her, one that had nothing to do with the director’s notes. It was a sound of pure relief.

She let the letter fall. She didn’t weep prettily. She crumpled, her face contorted not with staged grief, but with the raw, ugly fatigue of finally setting down a burden she hadn’t known she was carrying. The theatre was so quiet you could hear the rustle of a program in the back row.

In that utter silence, Jill-built-for-others dissolved. What remained was just Jill. Present. Real. And for the first time, truly powerful.

The curtain fell to a thunderous, standing roar. Backstage was a chaotic scene of flowers, hugs, Roland’s ecstatic “You found it!”, Marcus’s tears. Jill accepted it all with a calm smile.

Later, she slipped back onto the stage. The crew had already turned on the ghost light. She walked to the very center, standing where its glow pooled around her feet. She looked out at the empty seats, no longer a void to be filled, but a space she had finally, authentically, occupied.

She didn’t bow. She walked out to the seats, if only to feel some more. The feeling shared by everyone including herself. A calm rushed over her. She simply sat there, in the quiet, solid truth of her own making. The performance was over. The person had just begun.