“We can give Bayla a different role... Let the star role go to someone who deserves it”

“I still think Bayla Davidson would make a great Rachelle. She’s dramatic, she’s fun, she would do the exaggerated parts beautifully, and she has the presence to hold an audience all the way through.”

Sheva Handler is the perfect play director: tall and charismatic, flashing eyes and dramatic intonation, and a knack for turning every sentence into a Speech worthy of the stage. But I’ve worked with her for enough years to know I can stand my ground, because not always is drama everything.

“I agree that Bayla could do it. I just don’t think she should,” I say calmly. “Chavi Bergman did an excellent job in the tryouts, and she’s a hardworking, solid student who never had a chance in the limelight. She deserves the main part.”

Unlike Bayla Davidson. I let the words hang in the air, unsaid but obvious.

“Chavi Bergman doesn’t need it as much as Bayla does.”

“Who says?” I’ve always hated this bias, that the good, quiet girls don’t need the important roles; that the girls who are struggling get promoted to the forefront because they need the boost. Maybe because I spent too many years as the good, quiet student myself. “Maybe she does need it, and she just doesn’t rebel in order to get attention. And I know we’re looking to help girls who are struggling, but giving the majority of the major play parts to girls who ‘need it’ is just giving the wrong message to everyone else. It’s literally rewarding negative behavior. We can give Bayla a different role, make her one of the Friedman kids or something. Let the star role go to someone who deserves it.”

I sit back, glancing around the table. There are too many teachers involved in this; besides Sheva Handler and myself, who run the school production each year, there’s Michal Tessler who directs the drama segments, Goldy Gerkin who manages the choir, and the mechanchos of each grade, here to offer their opinions as we cast the leading roles. And we’ll be running it all by the principal for her approval afterward.

So far, the room seems to be fairly divided over the issue of the starring role. It was Bayla’s mechaneches who had requested that she be assigned a major part in the play — “You don’t realize how much she needs it” — and yet when I’d mentioned sweet, well-behaved Chavi Bergman, a couple of teachers had agreed that she would make a fabulous choice.

Maybe it’s unpopular thinking, but honestly, the whole boost-the-squeakiest-wheel thing makes me nervous. We’ve come so far in the 12 years since I started teaching, and of course I understand that a girl who’s struggling in school, in Yiddishkeit, whatever, could be helped by a positive boost, but sometimes I think it’s gone too far. Bayla Davidson may be troubled, but she also causes trouble — in class, in the hallways, in the principal’s office. Giving her the main role would be a huge boost to her self-esteem, and maybe that would be a step in the right direction, but it also might just give her the message keep doing what you’re doing, and we’ll keep throwing more prizes at you.

Rina Taub, Bayla’s mechaneches, gives me a sidelong glance. “You seem a little… set against giving Bayla a big role,” she says, saccharine-sweet. “Is something going on with her in your classes?”

Oh, the nerve, trying to insinuate that my petty biases are at fault here. Rina Taub wasn’t even in high school when I started teaching, but she has a sparkly diamond ring and a baby, so she’s obviously more of a chinuch expert than I am.

Okay, Malka, don’t go down that route now.

“No, Bayla’s doing great in my classes, actually,” I say calmly. It’s not exactly true, because Bayla doesn’t do much of anything, but she’s not acting out, and that’s definitely saying something. “But having seen the tryouts, I think Chavi would do a better job on the lead, and she isn’t a girl who’s ever gotten to be in the limelight. Bayla had a nice role in drama last year, and she had that solo in the Chagigah choir. Why can’t we give someone else a chance?”

“Because this could literally change Bayla’s life,” Rina says, earnestly. Wow, this conversation could totally be a scene in the play in its own right.

Sheva taps her pen on the table. She’s getting impatient at the stalemate; we need to finish casting the lead parts and call it a night already.

“Mrs. Reich? You teach her Chumash, no? What do you think?”

Laylay looks up, baby blue eyes slightly blank, and tosses back the curls of her blonde sheitel to buy time. I glance down at the table; she’s been scribbling a grocery list, bless her.

“Sorry, I missed that. Go again?”

Sheva fills her in, Rina Taub muttering something to the teacher next to her. I look away.

“Hey, I agree with Malka,” Laylay says, airily. “Have to say that, or I’d be the worst sister ever, huh?”

Well. Nice of someone to back me up, but I have the funny feeling that Laylay actually hadn’t followed the question at all.

And now that the vote is solidly 50-50, we’re at a stalemate for real.

“Ladies, I think we’re going to sleep on this, and Miss Lehrman and I will come to a final decision tomorrow. We’ve kept you long enough,” Sheva says briskly, and the meeting breaks up with no one satisfied, just the way it should be with production casting.

Why do we do this to ourselves?