The ACT...Part 2

McIntosh calmly waited for us to finally calm down, watching his students with a half-hidden air of amusement. Food was distributed: cookies, candy, bottled water, chips and French onion dip. As we all settled back to watch the performances, Emily, our narrator, volunteered us as the first group to present. Kelsey (that is, ‘my little Pearl’) threw everyone a panicked look, but rose to the area of the room designated for our stage, pulling on a magenta cloak and bonnet as she did so. The script in my hands shook uncontrollably as I found my place amongst my fellow actors. It was awkward at first, to get things set up: our painted backdrop of the woods, the log (a brown pillow), Mylar sparkling stream, the autumn leaves and red poppies strewn about the ground. After a brief argument, a few lights were turned off, to shed a shadowy effect upon us actors. In the half-dark, I cast my eyes towards Dimmesdale, and found that he had finally donned the large black cloak; my heart, (or was it Hester’s?) softened at his appearance.

We all introduced ourselves, and then our narrator began in monotone, speaking softly. I stood a little ways off with my Pearl, and after her first and last line, she skipped off to the brook to play with the flowers. Here, Dimmesdale slowly moved across the floor; I say moved and not walked, for he seemed to hover.
“Arthur Dimmesdale!” I cried. Then louder, “Arthur Dimmesdale!”
“Who speaks?” he murmured. He stopped short, and looked at me; our eyes met, and shiver crept down my spine. “Hester Prynne! Is it thou? Art thou in life?”
My transformation was complete at this stage, and I allowed my voice to match Hester’s: slightly husky, with a melancholy undertone. “Even so,” I answered him, the words flowing not from the ink and paper script, but from a much deeper source, from this separate force within me. “In such life as has been mine these seven years past. And thou, Arthur Dimmesdale, dost thou live?”

“It was no wonder that they thus questioned one another's actual and bodily existence, and even doubted of their own. Each a ghost, and awe-stricken at the other ghost,” Emily intoned. We froze at the sound of her voice, to simply make the acting interesting.
Dimmesdale stood at my right, looking upon me with a strangely piercing gaze that I found hard to meet. Slowly, he crossed behind me, to my left, almost whispering. “Hester, hast thou found peace?”
I sensed his body heat, and trembled a little more. I forced myself to smile wearily at him, as he took a seat upon the log. “Hast thou?” I asked hoarsely.
“None! – nothing but despair,” he cried, his voice breaking. I was awestruck by his emotion. “What else could I look for, being what I am, and leading such a life as mine? Were I an atheist, I might have found peace, long ere now. But, as matters stand with my soul, all of God’s gifts that were the choicest have become the ministers of spiritual torment. Hester, I am most miserable!” With that, he peered into my face, and the pain upon his features was real, and I found that it was hurting me too. I could no longer feel the nervousness; his agony seeped into me.