Happy Birthday Patsy Rodenburg

emme hendrix

Friday, September 2nd, 2022, otherwise known as my 20th birthday, occurred during the second week of my sophomore year. I no longer have the excuse of childhood behind my actions. I feel like my life has slipped out of my hands and into the mouths of the people who claimed to love me. In the two short weeks I have been back on campus, I have read approximately 170 pages of Patsy Rodenburg across two books. Her books are the first pieces of homework assigned to me that I feel I’ve actually learned from. Two semesters, three plays, four breakdowns, a million late assignments, half never even turned in. One failed friendship, a bunch of little lessons and one giant one I learned very much against my will. Still, none of those lessons were formal college homework assignments (unless you consider them assignments from the universe, but that’s personal preference.)

Truly, sometimes I feel like my life didn’t begin until I got to college. Looking back on my freshman year, I can’t imagine my life in high school in relation to it. Maybe it’s because I spent my senior year working three jobs, entirely numb to the world of academia. Maybe it’s because I spent a month on the road the summer after I graduated, on my own in the middle of nowhere with complete freedom.

Whatever it was, it put a cap on all possible development from high school. I like to imagine myself walking onto campus like Venus stepping out of her seafoam birth. Fully formed and sentient, I was ready to have my life and loves picked apart by others. I wanted to be beautiful, desired, admired, and entirely perfect. I expected sorrow, but I would deal with it gracefully. Think Victorian woman dying of tuberculosis or Anna Pavlova’s Dying Swan. Much to my surprise, that was not to be. 

I dealt with grief like Dido or Niobe or Ophelia, all screams and suicidal actions (minus the actual actions.) I had a complete breakdown after Hamlet closed in the fall and spent a whole week having an eternal panic attack. My grandpa died at the end of January, fulfilling my strange annual requirement of having a tragedy at the beginning of the year. My roommate, the beloved Ashlin, moved out just before The Revolutionists opened and with her she took her friends who popped in and out constantly. Suddenly, I was lonely, stressed, and addicted to wallowing. At least she left her minifridge. 

At the end of April, I slumped back to Birmingham, Alabama, my dignity not entirely intact. Jeff Buckley’s cover of “Just Like a Woman” played as I drove down University Avenue, crying for the first time in three months. A close friend told me I had accomplished more in two semesters than most do in four years. I didn’t feel like I had. I felt like I had failed every class, let down every friend, and that even my dad, who could never be disappointed in me, was secretly saddened by my depression-mess bedroom. 

My summer was spent shelving books in the children’s department of my local library. Library paging is very peaceful. All I had to do was sort by age and genre and then put them on the shelves. I listened to the Magnus Archives and sorted a million Elephant and Piggy books. They never stayed on the shelves long. It was monotonous, but I loved it. It helped me focus on myself and gave me time to reflect on my horrific first year of college. At least, that’s how I viewed it at first. Now, I look back and realize what a triumph I had. I was in three plays, one of which I was the lead in. I submitted my first story to be published here at the Mountain Goat. I got to take classes I truly enjoyed. I went to a theater conference in Memphis. I stopped letting people walk all over me. I set boundaries. I established myself as a person in my own mind, someone worth love and respect. I stepped onto this campus as Venus and came out as Athena, battle worn, but stronger, wiser, and victorious nonetheless. 

Patsy Rodenburg talks about the years of training it takes to become an efficient and excellent Shakespearean actor in her work. You cannot act Shakespeare well until you learn to speak it. You cannot begin to speak his work well until you know how to properly use your breath. Just being able to breathe properly takes quite some time. These years of our lives are not our final performance, they are us just learning to breathe. Mistakes are expected. They’re in our nature. We cannot focus on all our faults and expect ourselves to thrive. 

September 2nd, 2022. My twentieth birthday, occurring on the same day as Patsy Rodenburg’s sixty-ninth. I take her with me into my twenties, hoping she’ll be a reminder for me during my many mistakes to come. I am learning to breathe. I will soon receive my script. One day, I will stand on the world’s stage and recite my monologue. But for now, I can take my time. Happy Birthday Patsy, and thank you for teaching me how to breathe.