Mr. Martin Character Analysis

It wasn’t that I wanted to be an actress, it was that I knew I could do a better job. Name the form said. Stage Name if Different. I printed my name: Laura Kenison. Other than my address, phone number, date of birth, I had nothing to offer, no way to turn my after-school job at Stitch-It into theatrical experience. I listened to the audition behind me. “Well, UP unTIL a YEAR ago I USED to like YOU a LOT,” Emily sang. I folded up the registration form and put it in my copy of Pasternak, then took a fresh sheet and started again. This time I spelled my name L-A-R-A, tossing out the “u” my parents had given me at birth because I believed this new spelling to be Russian and worldly. I decided Mr. Martin had been right. I decided that I would be the diamond.

We passed Mr. Martin in the parking lot one night […] I could tell he was trying to calculate the potential for damage.

“Fifteen will get you twenty, Mr. Haywood,” he said finally, his voice neither leering nor scolding, just a helpful piece of information passed along. […]

Jimmy-George removed his hand from my waist and laughed, so I laughed too, even though I had no idea what Mr. Martin was talking about. Years later, I heard the expression again on a set and it made perfect sense. Mr. Martin had been concerned for Jimmy Haywood’s safety. […]

I blame myself for what happened. I was hideously disloyal to the person I loved in order to be with a person I didn’t love at all. But I was also sixteen, and as sure as fifteen will get you twenty, sixteen doesn’t stand a chance against twenty-two.

I had believed that Tom Lake was more enlightened than the average small town in Michigan, but the longer I stayed, the more I could see how it operated like the rest of the world. The directors and the choreographers were men. The men chose the plays, made the schedule, and ran the lights. The women made the food, styled the wigs, and glued false eyelashes onto eyelids. Cat was the woman with the needle and thread.