This is a day/week/month of BLARGH.

[ifreet]

... at least, it seems that many people I know are not having fun simultaneously. It's like an anti-party. /o\

My own complaints are relatively minor and largely self-inflicted. So instead of worrying (ha! okay, in ADDITION to worrying), I'm stealing calathea's meme and offering fic. Kindof.

Give me a pairing and the title of a story in this format

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[ifreet]

Most people assumed the now-legendary duel at university was somehow Darren's fault.

This was not true. It was entirely Geoffrey's fault.

Well. Perhaps some blame adhered to Professor Dekker, too, for assigning them both to the same workshop unit.

But mostly Geoffrey.

Geoffrey--though even then Darren would've been damned before he'd admit it aloud--was a bit of a genius. Acting came easily to him--or at least, he made it seem as though it did, which was a fine bit of acting in itself. Geoffrey seemed instinctively to know what worked, what didn't, how to fix it. He was born for the stage.

Darren had made himself over for the stage. He liked it, and he certainly enjoyed having every eye in the house on him. But it never came easy. In those early days, though, he was convinced that theatre could Do Something. What that something might be was admittedly hazy, but important. He could feel it. So he threw everything he had into figuring it out.

Darren studied theatre, its history and theory. He took literature courses-- the obvious Shakespeare classes and Elizabethan Drama: Issues of Gender and Sexuality, of course, but also Literary Interpretation, Feminist Theory, and Postmodernism. He picked up a psychology class on the effect of light and color on the human psyche. He poured himself into his studies. Anything that might get him closer to understanding that Something.

Even though he and Geoffrey were sometimes in productions together, they'd rarely shared a class before they were assigned to the same workshop group in Stage Direction: Theory and Practice. Though it was little consolation at the time, Dekker threw out the course's experimental format after that single, disastrous semester.

Darren quickly learned that Geoffrey really was working on instinct most of the time. He had clear ideas of what "worked" and what "didn't," but he lacked the vocabulary--and the patience--to explain why to his co-director. Eventually, Darren figured out the problem. Darren wanted to put on a performance; Geoffrey wanted to make it real.

Darren was disappointed, of course. The department idol was now brought low, revealed as incapable of rising above mere plodding realism to Art. After a long night spent in his favorite coffeehouse and hours of internal debate, Darren decided to let Geoffrey have his way. It would be enough for a passing grade; deeper interpretation of the text could wait until his name stood alone.

During the next workshop meeting, Darren opened his script to the third act--only to find it missing, replaced with a second first act.

"What the hell? What happened to my script?"

Geoffrey glanced over. "Switched it with mine. I only just noticed the misprint, and the bookstore wouldn't take it back this late in the semester."

"So you decided you'd just stick me with your problem?"

"You said you'd memorized this play."

"Practically memorized, thank you. And that's not the point!"

Of course, then Jane interrupted with a problem with her blocking, and Shawn needed Darren up in the booth, and with one thing and another Darren never did get his book back. The next day, he spent most of his laundry money running photocopies of his missing scenes. It seemed easier.

***
continued in Part II