Patricia Adelstein

When I was 9, I won the lead in the local high school play, entitled, The Bad Seed.  In the play, my character, Rhoda, is revealed to be a psychopath.   Dire events happen as a result, including a shocker ending. 

I wore these red shoes throughout the play.  The shoes had metal taps on the tops and bottoms of their soles.  It is presumed that Rhoda killed a little boy by hitting him with her tap-laden shoes and pushing him off a dock.   

I give credit to my mom for helping me learn my 200+ lines despite my reluctance to sit still.  She would trap me while I was taking a bath each night. It felt so strange saying some of the lines in front of my mother! I occasionally worried that I too was a psychopath!  But I was old enough to draw the distinction between reality and fantasy.  I loved being on stage and had no problem saying these terrible lines to everyone but my mother.  

When the play concluded, I flew down the main aisle of the theater to my family, screaming, “I’m glad it’s over!”  But I wasn’t glad.  Later as a teen-ager, in that same high school, I got on stage as often as I could. 

I did not become an actor, of course.  When I look at these shoes now, I think less about my lines and Rhoda, and more about how I learned some lifelong lessons on that stage.  I still think, at 65, I learned more on that stage than in any of my high school classes.     

I learned to look people in the eye when you want them to pay attention to you.  I learned how to become comfortable in my own skin when I didn’t feel comfortable in my own skin.  I learned that exposing yourself honestly, even though the guise of a role, is power and real intimacy.  And I learned that they eventually take the away the playbook from you, so you better hurry up, do your homework, and memorize your lines.