Chapter Text
Stage is where the real art is, his grandfather used to say, anyone can act at a camera, but in front of a living, breathing audience? No do-overs, no room for mistakes, just the thrill of right here, right now. Real art.
He can't remember whether that was before or after grandfather won the Academy Award, but that never changed his tone anyway – in Thror's eyes, it had been just further proof that a real, proper theater actor could out-class a film actor any day. Thorin was fourteen, and they watched him march up that red carpet and accept his award with his trademark curt almost-politeness, and later on, sitting next to the two Tonies in his grandparents' large dining room for everyone to see, the golden statue served as a reminder, more than anything else.
A reminder of what, though, Thorin can scarcely remember these days. All that he remembers is the weight of it, 'borrowing' it one night with Frerin when nobody was home – it had been something incredible, larger than life, containing within the dim honey-colored reflections on its surface everything that all of them had ever been taught to strive for.
“An achievement is an achievement,” Dís had said, placing the statue in its carefully selected spot on her much less grand mantelpiece, “no matter what came after that.”
What came after that made most of the family forget about awards and glory for a while, made them reluctant to even really remind themselves or anyone else of what they once had been. But Dís valued memories, the same way Thorin valued the family name, and so eventually, she saw to it that the good ones were preserved. It was up to Thorin not to let the sight of their grandfather's last big break gathering dust alongside a couple of age-old photographs ruin his appetite for the regular lunches that Dís manhandled him into once or twice every week in the good – and probably correct – belief that he would starve to death without her supply of warm food.
His stomach rumbles very inappropriately, and he clears his throat to mask it, sinking even deeper into his seat. He definitely should have stopped to grab a quick something before this – but then his stomach would have something to propel in the general direction of the stage once he gets inevitably disgusted, he reminds himself, not without bitter amusement.
What is he doing here again?
Professional curiosity doesn't really cut it. No, he has a very distinctly unprofessional desire to see this all fail and collapse in on itself like the poorly constructed house of cards it is.
His fingertips travel over the sheen cover of the programme. 3, 2, 1, Hamlet! God, the name alone makes him nauseous. He leafs through it idly, frowning at every burst of bright colors, or a name in cast or crew he disapproves of. In fact, why not start and stop at the very beginning? Starring Bilbo Baggins as Hamlet. God, what was Gandalf thinking? Thorin is pretty sure he sent him the free tickets just to mock him.
'With no prior education in acting, Bilbo Baggins has quickly proven that it does not always require a scholar to master a craft. Most well-known from TV dramas and hit blockbusters such as Spring Fever, Head Over Heels, or even the critically acclaimed Silver Linings, Baggins has been stepping out of his comfort zone more and more, accepting a number of highly controversial stage roles over the past couple of years (Waiting For Godot – 2012, Angels In America – 2012, Noises Off – 2013). He pursues diversity with a vigor rarely seen in someone so young, and this lead presents him with yet another opportunity to prove his numerous doubters wrong.'
So, yes. Not only is he horrendously unsuited for a role of such magnitude, but he has the gall to think he's good enough to take it on.
“Diversity my ass,” Thorin grumbles to himself under his breath, readjusting his reading glasses slightly and glaring at the photo that accompanies the man's subpar bio – it seems like a candid, Baggins laughing effortlessly, looking back at Thorin with a vital spark and a sort of boyish charm he learns to despise immediately, a messy halo of light brown curls framing his tender features.
He's seen a dozen Hamlets in his lifetime, but never one that's so doomed to end up but a caricature of the character. Thorin cannot be the only one to see all that is wrong with this casting choice, surely – but then again, seemingly the whole wide world has been getting their knickers in a twist over this man, who, as far as Thorin knows, comes from somewhere rural and forgettable, and has built his career on nothing but one stroke of luck after another. Not that Thorin has been keeping up with it or anything, it's just been becoming rather difficult to ignore. It was all well and good when all Baggins did were those expendable, interchangeable summertime rom-coms, because Thorin could avoid those with a healthy and perfectly justified dose of disdain. But then came that dratted Silver Linings movie, gaining the man both appraisal and new offers, and it was only a matter of time before he would venture onto the stage.
Thorin would have been perfectly happy to place him as far from the spectrum of his interests as possible and keep on dismissing him for the rest of his life, but there he was, working with Gandalf of all people, doing Shakespeare of all things, and daring to do all that in Thorin's own hometown of all places. Absolutely unacceptable.
Thorin shuffles for a more comfortable position, his legs always too long for any seat in any theatre ever, and anticipates with some trepidation the beginning of what will no doubt prove itself to be yet another confirmation of the age-old, well-known fact – that there's no room for run-of-the-mill flick actors in classic theatre.
-
“Nervous?”
Bilbo glances up from his reading to catch sight of Gandalf leaning against the door, and opts for reciprocating the light smile, tugging at the collar of his costume.
“Excited. What's the turn-up?”
“Legendary.”
“Everyone thrilled to see me cock it up?” Bilbo chuckles, swiveling on his chair to face the director.
“Oh yes. Let's go prove them wrong.”
“Yeah,” Bilbo smiles, fingers brushing over the smooth surface of the pendant dangling off the side of his mirror one last time before he gets up and leaves his good-luck charm behind, “I'm planning on it.”
Being rushed backstage and swept off his feet by the whirlwind of his fellow cast members preparing and submitting themselves to last-minute readjustments from the make-up artists, all interspersed with the crew hurrying here and there and chattering in their own jargon, still largely unintelligible to Bilbo's inexperienced ears, does very little for his peace of mind.
“You don't have a home scene yet,” Gandalf told him a couple of days ago, as if it was explanation enough, “it'll be different then.”
He's been dipping his toes into the wonderfully strange world of stage acting for about three years, and has already had the pleasure of working in theaters he would have loved to call his own, but he soon came to learn that that wasn't quite how it worked. They didn't want you as a member of the family, never permanently – no, you were The Face, the newcomer, the star if lucky – like today – or just the spoiled movie boy playing thespian. Everyone either tolerated the intrusion easily, or voiced their protests when they thought he wasn't listening, but either way, that's what Bilbo always has been – an intrusion.
It's no different today – he's spent an intense couple of months with these people, rehearsing something all of them knew was going to be very special, Gandalf putting him in the spotlight with his brave take on the material, and it's been a challenge, will be a challenge almost daily for weeks after weeks after weeks now, but still... Bilbo isn't entirely at home.
He hasn't been entirely at home anywhere in the past couple of years, of course, but that's another matter. Every movie he would do, every red carpet he'd walk down, people would try to convince him to just buy an apartment already, settle down in this or that world capital, but the idea never had any particular appeal to him. No, he's always liked the fact that his work took him all over the world, and this desire to settle down and have some place to return to is very novel to him, and he feels it now stronger than ever, which is a bit ridiculous, because what he's a part of is... it's by far the biggest thing he's ever worked on, bigger in scope and effort required than any movie, but he has the nagging feeling that people would just laugh at him were he to bring it up. Gandalf knows he's good, and the cast know he's good, but the rest of the world expects yet another... what was it that The Independent had called it? Oh yes, yet another random outburst of unhinged creative energy, focused nowhere in particular, and thus lacking in any real value.
Some of the kinder reviews call him valiant for experimenting, or refreshingly unpredictable, but no one really expects him to stick to this. All they see is yet another overnight sensation trying to spice up his resume by a bit of stage work.
Well then, he decides, catching his reflection in the glass of a door leading to the nearest dressing room , barely recognizing himself under all the stern make-up and the somewhat decadently flamboyant costume, proving them all wrong might be the best course of action after all.
-
Thorin forgets how to breathe. Wonders briefly if the seat has a setting that would swallow him whole and never let him see the light of day again. But no, what's happening on stage is too mesmerizing for his eyes to stray but for a second. He can't wrap his head around it, won't be able to wrap his head around it for a long, long time, he suspects. The play is loud, and bright, and full of over-the-top colorful backgrounds and costumes, entirely too fast-paced and entirely too simplified at times, and it is so. Bloody. Good.
It's so good it makes him angry, really. He's always despised people trying to re-tell Shakespeare and straying too far from the original in the process – if you can't deliver the lines as they were meant to be delivered, if you can't handle the visceral heaviness of the text, then what's the point, really?
Nothing about this play should work. Nothing. And yet it clicks and turns like a well-oiled machine, and Thorin hates that he can see from the first moment why that is – it's him. Thorin has been waiting with bated breath for him to flub a line, to miss a cue, to show to everyone that the depth required for one of the Bard's most beloved and masterfully chiseled characters just isn't achievable for someone of his repertoire.
But no – Baggins shines. There isn't any other word for it. His Hamlet shows the whole plethora of emotions required, and then some. He's a brat and an obnoxious know-it-all one moment, an almost chillingly dark and despondent shadow of himself the other. He's quiet when he's expected to be loud, and loud when he's expected to be quiet, and the actor handles the changes, often almost violently sudden, with a flowing ease that Thorin can be nothing but envious of.
The man himself is tiny and nimble, but he owns the stage whether he whispers or sings – the play has very obviously been tailored for him and him only, and Thorin experiences a hot pang of jealousy more than once. To have such a material to work with, to have someone support your skill and advantages in such a beautifully effortless manner... He toys with the idea of swallowing his pride and contacting Gandalf Grey afterward, to try and see if he's still in his good enough graces so that the esteemed director might consider casting him in something of his own as well... No.
He's doing just fine, and besides, Dís would never let him hear the end of it.
He joins the standing ovation despite himself, eyes following the beaming Baggins across the stage as he accepts his flowers and mouths thank you's and all in all looks horribly pleased with himself, and doesn't manage to get the sight or the preceding performance out of his head until the lunch at his sister's place the following day.
The boys are loud as ever, but not loud enough to jolt him out of his deep thinking – he frowns at the table until Dís sets a plate of delicious-looking pasta in front of him, and even then his appetite is somewhat lessened, because they read the first reviews together, and they're all ridiculously good. Even the devil Azog is over the moon, calling Baggins 'exactly the fresh breeze Ered Luin has been craving ', and describing his performance as ' so unexpectedly terrific it warrants another look... and then another. And another.'
At the third another, Thorin groans loudly, stuffing his mouth full and mumbling 'Nothing' when Fili, ever so curious, asks him what's wrong.
“So how was he really?” Dís asks him, folding the newspaper away, and when he looks up at her, her face carries exactly the half-taunting, half-compassionate smile he'd expected, and it turns the food sour in his mouth.
He glares at her, and when she quirks her eyebrow, he sighs deeply, and stabs his penne with his fork, muttering unhappily: “Disgustingly good.”
Dís laughs.
-
He doesn't sleep very well, not after the first couple of nights anyway. He's always had trouble shaking off the leftover rush after a performance, but this is... god, so different. He finally understands what they always tell you about leaving your character behind when getting off stage – he's never had this problem with all the Ordinary Toms he's played in his countless profitable chick flicks. Not even Franck the dying professor from Silver Linings, his personal favorite, was such a challenge, and he'd spent ages obsessing over that one.
No, this is the bloody Hamlet, and Bilbo has found his way to the heart of the character, but now that heart is beating for him instead of his own.
But the results are exceptional, they are. There really is nothing quite like a standing ovation from a live audience, and Bilbo has been getting those non-stop. It's exhilarating, and invigorating, and new, and his experience from the movie business is never to read reviews, but Prim, his agent, all but forces a number of them down his throat, and he's left trying very hard not to let them influence him and let his ego soar sky high.
“Just enjoy it,” Gandalf suggests, patting him on the back figuratively and otherwise, “you deserve it.”
Bilbo isn't sure what he deserves , but he knows with utter surety that this is what he wants. He's already booked for a supporting role in this dystopian flick after Hamlet, but Primula has been getting offers left and right, for both plays and movies, and Bilbo would like to say yes to almost all of them.
But alas, that's why he'd made his own cousin, no matter how many-times-removed, his agent all those years ago – Prim has a healthy dose of the family resolve, as well as a sort of calm determination that has served them both well in the past.
“Look, I know it sounds great, but I'm not shipping you off to Africa any time soon. Do you even realize the expenses that would require? What if you contract malaria?! Who's going to pay for that?”
Bilbo regards his short firecracker of a cousin fondly as she devotes her attention to her smartphone, no doubt revising Bilbo's schedule for at least the tenth time just that day.
“Fine, alright,” he grins, “no Africa. Could've been the next Indiana Jones, but whatever.”
“You're no Harrison Ford.”
“Oh, how can you say that?!”Bilbo fakes indignation, bursting into laughter when Prim rewards that with a highly exasperated sigh.
Just then, they seem to have run short of their luck when it comes to hiding away from the bulk of the crowd – Bilbo's proven tactic of running to the corner of the cafeteria farthest away from the bar and turning his back to the people the second he's done talking to everyone important after each performance has apparently been discovered, because Gandalf is headed their way, with far too many people by his side.
“Journalists,” Bilbo hisses, and Primula's gaze jumps upright, but the crowd disperses, and by the time he reaches them, Gandalf is blissfully alone, save for...
“Bilbo!” the director waves cheerfully, “I'd like you to meet someone!”
“Jesus,” Prim peeps at the same time that Bilbo sighs: “Oh.”
“Bilbo Baggins, let me introduce you to Thorin Oakenshield of the Erebor Theatre Company. A great fan of your work, though he looks anything but.”
“It's an honor to meet you,” Bilbo says honestly, extending his hand to the man, “I admire your work so much, I mean...Your Faust last year was fantastic.”
Two piercing icy-blue beams size him up and down, and Oakenshield shakes his hand firmly and shortly.
“Charmed, I'm sure,” he says coolly.
“Thorin was just telling me he found your performance today... what was it? Outstanding, yes.”
“I believe I used the words 'a bit out there', but make of it what you will,” Thorin corrects him with a short, surly smirk.
He's a man of imposing stature, towering a good foot or more above Bilbo's tiny self, and his face is an amalgam of such striking and sharp angles that Bilbo worries he might cut himself were he to stare at it for too long. Has he been staring? Ah, better not.
“That's all me, I'm afraid,” Gandalf declares, “I've decided to play around with the pacing towards the end of the second act...”
“Yet again,” Bilbo adds.
“Hmm,” Thorin hums, “that doesn't surprise me. You've always been demanding, Gandalf. I just hope you've chosen carefully – not everyone can keep up.”
Gandalf opens his mouth to offer some no doubt jovial reply, but before he has the opportunity, Bilbo says lightly: “It's rather challenging, yeah. But there's no one I'd be more honored to be keeping up with. It's the opportunity of a lifetime for me, and I'm lucky and endlessly grateful Gandalf has chosen me.”
“Lucky indeed,” Thorin replies flatly, “it really is rather incredible, how much the source has been changed, and all to accommodate one actor.”
“Ah, you know it's not about that,” Gandalf sighs, as if suffering a small child, “I just love to experiment.”
“I wonder if Shakespeare is the right material for that.”
“What are you saying?” Bilbo demands rather harshly. God, the man's reputation might precede him, and Bilbo's respect for his craft might be holding him back a little, but it's swiftly becoming obvious that being a brilliant actor doesn't always come hand in hand with being a nice person. Bilbo should write that down, honestly, it shouldn't be so surprising to him after all those years in business.
“Nothing much,” Oakenshield shrugs, looking at him with something akin to a mild surprise, like he can't quite believe Bilbo's speaking up for himself, “I simply can't help but wonder what the result would be were this play approached in a more... traditional manner.”
“Boring,” Bilbo quips quickly, and Thorin's eyebrows arch up.
“Boring,” he repeats as if he takes it as a personal offense.
“Well... yes. I mean, come on, it's been done a billion times before,” Bilbo offers with a sincerity he didn't know he had in him, “putting a fresh spin on things doesn't mean the source material is being disrespected, surely you're not suggesting that...”
“Oh, not at all. I have nothing against putting a fresh spin on things, as you so aptly described it. I am, however, rather opposed to it when it only serves as a plaster to hide the mediocrity of deliverance.”
That meets with a quiet, but still perfectly audible, hiss of disapproval from Prim, no matter how far off she's standing, proving once again that she hears everything, always. Bilbo catches Gandalf rolling his eyes very discretely behind Thorin's back, in a tell-tale not again grimace, suggesting that this isn't the first time the director has witnessed such crudeness from Thorin. Hardly an excuse though, at least in Bilbo's eyes.
“Mediocrity of deliverance,” he repeats, definitely taking it as a personal offense, but simmering down a bit when he catches Primula out of the corner of his eye shaking her head at him in a vague warning and a plea not to start anything.
“Look, it takes a lot to throw me off balance,” he all but snarls at Oakenshield, “I've survived my fair share of horrible reviews and comments, believe me-”
“That's not difficult to believe.”
“Alright, you-”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Gandalf steps in, wedging himself in between the two, one hand heavy on Bilbo's shoulder, “this has rather strayed from the constructive debate I was hoping for. Thorin-” one razor-sharp, pointed look at the tall man, still seemingly unfazed by the whole situation, “thank you for your... input. We'll speak later, yes?”
Thorin peels his gaze away from Bilbo almost reluctantly, offering a curt nod to Gandalf.
“Hopefully,” he says, then, turning back to Bilbo with the most infuriatingly beatific smirk, “a pleasure meeting you.”
“The pleasure was all mine,” Bilbo sifts through grit teeth.
And then the man is off, sauntering through the crowd, avoiding any attempt at contact simply by radiating unpleasantness, and Bilbo only ever breathes freely once he loses sight of him.
“Wow,” Prim comments, reappearing by his side, “I heard he was difficult to work with. Didn't know it included just... generally being around him.”
“It's not entirely his fault,” Gandalf notes uncharacteristically fondly.
“Really? Was he born with the High-and-Mighty Disease?” Bilbo utters and regrets it the next second, but to his surprise, Gandalf laughs heartily.
“No, no. Caught it much later on, as it is.”
They laugh some more together, but the bitter encounter stays with Bilbo anyway. He tries his damnedest to remember what he knows about the man aside from his family name (which everyone knows, yes, but that's hardly anything solid), and is reminded yet again just how inadequate his knowledge of this whole part of the business really is. Of course, there's an Oakenshield somewhere in between the Academy Award winners way back when, and obviously everyone knows Goldlust...
“I was under the impression that you two used to work together?” he opts at last for what he's almost sure Gandalf told him about when introducing him to his past in this city.
“Oh, yes. A very long time ago. Though it included much more of Thorin's father, rather than Thorin,” the director explains.
“Oh. Oh, right! Wait, was he the one who...?” Bilbo lets the end of that sentence flutter idly in the air.
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
“M-hm. Nasty business. You can understand how that might change a person. Thorin is a terrific actor, always has been, but he just... doesn't really see the benefit of playing nice. One can hardly blame him, at times.”
“Hmm,” Bilbo muses, accepting the glass of wine Prim has procured for them both from god knows where, “still, I'm sorry about what he said.”
“Oh?” Gandalf blinks at him as if he forgot to listen for a while, and then he grins, “oh no. We got off easy, believe me. He actually rather liked it, I think. I don't think this is the first time he's seen it, either...”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes,” Gandalf sighs almost happily, and then he regards Bilbo with a new light in his eyes, as if he's just found something he's been looking for for a very long time smack in the middle of his face. His grin broadens, and Bilbo knows him well enough to adopt some suspicion.
“Oh, yes,” the director repeats, “it's perfect, in fact.”
“What is?” Bilbo asks a tad uneasily, but receives something very far from a satisfying reply.
“I just made a decision,” Gandalf announces somewhat enigmatically, “it will be very good for you, and... most amusing for me.”