Libby Lawrence is Good at Pretending
By Jodi McAlister
Wakefield Press
Nineteen year old Libby Lawrence has finally scored a major role in the university amateur theatre group after treading the boards in the chorus. Apart from studying drama and law, working at the local bookshop and throwing herself into her first lead role, Libby is trying to come to terms with her sexual awakening.
It had been a bad move to allow herself to be seduced (in the Swamp where old costumes go to die of all places) by the previous all too charming theatre director just before he disappeared with the group’s money. Now she finds herself attracted to her brooding on-stage love interest Roarke as well as sparking chemistry with the new director Will.
After being in social Siberia, Libby is now amongst the ‘cool’ people but it’s a complex social rodeo of backstage gossip, group chats and drama on and off the stage. Being the star in the gender-bending Shakespearean play As You Like It, means that Libby can pretend to be smart, tough and certain just like Rosalind, but inside she is filled with uncertainty as to who she really is … and who she wants to be with.
Libby laments, “I got this idea in my head at some point that the world is playing an elaborate joke on me and if I ever reveal how I really feel about something, someone’s going to rip the carpet from under my feet and everyone will laugh at me.”
A casualty in all this is Libby’s best friend Ella who had come with her to university from their small country town, and who she has nursed through all the nightmares. Ella is embracing her new life while Libby feels suffocated by all the secrets she is holding from her life-long friend.
Currently a lecturer in Writing and Literature at Deakin University in Melbourne, Jodi McAlister grew up in community theatres and finds parallels between the thrusts and parries on stage with those in real lives.
Libby starts off not knowing what she wants in life, how to get in touch with her needs and how to communicate them to others. Using Rosalind’s strengths, she manages to take control of a life that hasn’t come with a script.
Lezly Herbert
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