SchulLV Logo
Lerninhalte in Englisch
Abi-Aufgaben eA
Lektürehilfen
Basiswissen
Inhaltsverzeichnis

Thema B

Trust Exercise

by Susan Choi

In this excerpt, Latino student Manuel is auditioning for the school musical, “Guys and Dolls”, an American musical romantic comedy from 1950. Among the audience are his charismatic drama teacher, Mr. Kingsley, and Sarah and Ellery, two of his classmates.
1
Manuel had come onstage, an apparition. Perhaps it wasn’t Manuel. He wasn’t dressed like
2
Manuel, in the slightly too-small and slightly too-youthful striped T-shirts you could tell, just
3
from looking, had been bought from the sale rack at Sears, or maybe from the Purple Heart
4
Thrift Store, by Manuel’s unknown mother, after being discarded by whoever had bought them
5
at Sears. The shirts Manuel wore every day had pills, and faint, ancient stains of the kind that
6
defeated all efforts, and they squeezed his upper arms and his neck. For pants, Manuel wore
7
corduroys that had almost no cord left. And regardless of weather conditions, Manuel never
8
took off his jacket, the same fake-wool-lined corduroy jacket they’d first seen him in, and that
9
seemed to them now as permanent as a turtle’s scuffed shell. The onstage Manuel was
10
missing this traditional garb, though not dressed any better. He wore a pair of black slacks that
11
were shiny with age, and a grayish-white button-up shirt that, despite being short at the
12
sleeves, was tightly buttoned at the cuffs, emphasizing the bony excess of his wrists. The feet
13
were encased in hard black leather shoes that looked too small, and the usual bushy brown
14
hair was combed back from the face exposing large, startled eyes, unfamiliar to all, beneath
15
an equally novel, creased brow. A sheaf of paper was gripped in the hands. The Manuel-
16
apparition looked like a waiter, an unhappy and poorly dressed waiter. Sarah realized with
17
amazement he was dressing, as well as he could, for the part. Guys and Dolls would of course
18
call for old-fashioned menswear: leather shoes, slacks, a button-up shirt. Not one other boy,
19
for the sake of the audition, had made the slightest alteration to his everyday clothes. They’d
20
all auditioned in their Levi’s and polos and dumb slogan T-shirts. [...]
21
Manuel again turns that mesmerizing color of a live coal. At length he says, barely audibly,
22
“I am going to sing the 'Ave Maria' of [a bunch of syllables Sarah can’t hear].” Strings seem
23
to be tied to his elbows, equally pulling on him from both sides, so that, in his tensile, motionless
24
state, he might fly to pieces. Then the stage-left string breaks, and he lurches toward
25
Mr. Bartoli, extending his music. Mr. Bartoli pages through it, nods. “Shall I begin?” he asks.
26
Manuel wrings his hands in a fretful grandmotherly way, abruptly drops them to his sides.
27
Mr. Kingsley, still standing, his back to the rest of the house, says, “Manny, I know you can do
28
it.”
29
He speaks as though he and Manuel are entirely alone. Yet no one in the house fails to
30
hear him, to the very last row.
31
It’s possible for silence to change quality. The silence had been enforced, the silence of
32
quashed merriment. Now it’s the silence of genuine puzzlement. Mr. Kingsley never uses
33
nicknames or pet names. To indicate an altered attitude he sometimes calls them, instead of
34
their given names, Ms. or Mr. and then their last name. This denotes bemusement,
35
disapproval, and much in between, but whatever the case there is always a distance implied.
36
“Manny” observes no such distance. “Manny” doesn’t even observe that there might be some
37
forty-odd people elsewhere in the room.
38
Mr. Kingsley sits down again. The back of his head, with its limited features, its expensive
39
haircut, and the ends of his spectacles’ temples hooking over the backs of his ears, is nearly
40
as expressive to them as his face – it radiates a peremptory certitude. “Come on. You know
41
what I want. Give it to me.” If the back of his head can say this, just imagine the front. [...]
42
Manuel – Manny? – seems to be in wordless communication with this hidden front of Mr.
43
Kingsley’s head. He gazes into it, receives something from it – he looked different when he
44
first came onstage, and he somehow looks different again. With what might almost be called
45
self-possession he nods to Mr. Bartoli. Mr. Bartoli raises his hands, brings them plunging back
46
down. Manuel sucks air into his lungs.
47
To this point in her life, Sarah has associated opera with Bugs Bunny in braids, PBS,
48
overweight men wearing tunics, shrieking women, and shattering glass. She’s never
49
understood, certainly because she’s never seen a live opera but also because she’s never
50
heard a half-decent performance, not even in part, on TV, that opera, in fact, is the highest
51
redemption of longing. [...]
52
Manuel sings. His Spanish accent, which he drags like a weight on his uncertain journeys
53
amid English words, is a bona fide now. Who else among them could sing this, even if they
54
were blessed with the voice? Who else among them is blessed with the voice? Manuel sings,
55
it seems, to horizons beyond the light booth. His eyes are cast up, anxiously, as if he’s aware
56
he is barely retaining the fickle attention of God. So plaintively does he exhort this remote
57
audience that Sarah glances back over her shoulder, expecting to see ranks of angels, their
58
feet floating just off the ground. Instead she sees the faces of her classmates, rapt with unself-
59
consciousness, the joyful respite from the problems of self. [...]
60
Her body twists forward again as if slapped, as Manuel, like a fountain, upraises his arms
61
and their glorious burden, his final note, into the air. As if they awaited this gesture, the house
62
detonates: clapping, whistling, foot-stamping, Ellery leaping up to shout, “Hombre!” Onstage
63
Manuel, streaming with sweat, grins while wringing his hands. We’ve all had this dream, Sarah
64
thinks. The dream in which, to the world’s surprise and our own, we turn out to be best.
(941 words)
Choi, S. (2019). Trust Exercise. New York: Henry Holt and Co. pp. 41-43.

Assignments

1.
Outline the information about Manuel and his performance.
2.
Analyse how atmosphere is created in this excerpt.
3.
Choose one of the following tasks.
3.1
“We’ve all had this dream […]. The dream in which, to the world’s surprise and our own, we turn out to be best.” (ll. 63–64)
Using the quotation and Manuel’s example as a starting point, assess to what extent educational institutions can help young people realise their potential.
or
3.2
You are taking part in a TEDYouth event on equality and social justice with live speakers and discussions for young people.
Write a speech, commenting on different ways to overcome prejudices in society.

Weiter lernen mit SchulLV-PLUS!

monatlich kündbarSchulLV-PLUS-Vorteile im ÜberblickDu hast bereits einen Account?