Stratford Stage | NEON LIT

The Royal Shakespeare Company's costume department was organized chaos at the best of times, but during tech week it became full apocalypse. I had seventeen costumes to finish for Hamlet, three actors who'd gained weight since their initial measurements, and a Dame Judi who needed emergency alterations done yesterday.

"The new Hamlet's here." My assistant popped her head around the door. "He's early."

"Send him in. Might as well get his measurements done."

The man who entered my workshop was not what I'd expected. The Hamlets who'd come through this department had been uniformly of a type—slim, tortured-looking, the kind of handsome that photographed well but required careful costume design. This one was different.

"Marcus Webb," he said, extending a hand. "I'm told you're the genius who'll make me look princely."

"Viola Chen. I'm the one who'll make you fit the costumes, at any rate."

He laughed—warm, unaffected. "Fair enough. Where do you want me?"

I positioned him on the fitting platform and began my measurements. He was solid—broad shoulders, strong chest, the kind of body that came from stage combat training rather than gym vanity. Not traditionally princely, but interesting.

"You're not the usual shape," I observed.

"Is that a problem?"

"No. Just means I can't use the standard doublet pattern." I marked numbers in my notebook. "I'll have to build something specific. More work, but better results."

"I appreciate someone who takes the work seriously."

"It's the RSC. Everyone takes everything seriously."

Over the following weeks, Marcus became a regular presence in my workshop. The costume required multiple fittings—I wasn't lying about the bespoke requirements—and he used each one to watch me work, ask questions, understand what went into making cloth become character.

"Why theatre?" he asked during fitting three, standing in his half-finished doublet while I pinned the waist.

"Why acting?" I countered.

"Because nothing else makes me feel real." He met my eyes in the mirror. "When I'm performing, I'm more myself than any other time."

"Same. When I'm building a costume, I'm not just making clothes—I'm making a person. Helping them exist."

"That's beautiful."

"It's practical." I adjusted a pin. "Hold still."

"You're not very good at accepting compliments."

"I'm very good at my job. Compliments are unnecessary."

"Then consider this observation rather than compliment: you're the most interesting person I've met in months."

I looked up. He was watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read—intense, focused, the way he'd looked during the company read-through when he'd made everyone cry.

"That's not appropriate," I said. "I'm your costumer."

"You're a person who happens to be my costumer. I'm a person who happens to be your actor." He smiled. "The categories don't define us."

The show opened to rave reviews. Marcus's Hamlet was called "revolutionary"—a prince who could fight as well as think, a body that matched the mind. My costumes were mentioned in three reviews, which was three more than usual.

"Drink?" Marcus found me after closing night, still half in his grave-dirt makeup. "We should celebrate."

"I don't drink with actors."

"You don't drink with actors you're working with. The show's finished. Your job is done." He grinned. "Come on, Viola. Let me buy you one drink. If it's terrible, you never have to see me again."

It wasn't terrible. One drink became three, became a walk along the Avon, became standing on a bridge watching the theatre's lights reflect on the water.

"I leave tomorrow," he said. "West End transfer. I won't be back for months."

"Good luck."

"That's it? Good luck?" He turned to face me. "I've been trying to figure out how to ask you something for six weeks, and you're going to send me off with 'good luck'?"

"What were you trying to ask?"

"Whether I imagined it." He stepped closer. "Whether the way you looked at me during fittings meant something. Whether your hands lingered longer than necessary. Whether any of this was real."

I should have deflected. Should have maintained professional boundaries. Instead, I said: "It was real."

He kissed me on that bridge, tasting of champagne and paint and something ineffable—performance, perhaps, or possibility. His hands found my waist with an actor's precision, pulling me close enough that the months of careful distance collapsed into nothing.

"Come home with me," he said against my mouth.

"Your home or mine?"

"Whichever is closer."

Mine was closer. A flat above a bookshop, cluttered with fabric samples and costume history texts. He picked me up like I weighed nothing—I did not weigh nothing—and carried me to the bedroom like it was blocking for a love scene.

"You're beautiful," he said, laying me on the bed. "I've wanted to say that since fitting one."

"You shouldn't have."

"I know." He started undressing me with the same attention I'd given to his costumes. "But now I can."

We were good together. His actor's body, trained to express, found expressions that had nothing to do with audiences. My hands, trained to measure and shape, found new territory to explore. When we came together, it was like the moment a costume finally fits—everything clicking into place, character and cloth and body becoming one.

"Stay," I said afterward. "Miss your train."

"I'll catch the next one." He pulled me closer. "Or the one after that."

He caught the one after that. And the one after that became regular visits, then a long-distance arrangement, then—when his contract ended—a flat above a bookshop that barely fit two people but somehow fit us perfectly.

I still work at the RSC. He still performs—but increasingly in Stratford, where his partner happens to live. The costumes I build now include ones for his shows, and every fitting is an excuse for the kind of attention that started on that platform and never quite stopped.

Some relationships begin with attraction. Ours began with measurements—with standing still and being seen, with hands that touched for professional reasons and discovered personal ones. Shakespeare wrote about love at first sight, but what we have is better: love at first fitting, careful and precise and built to last.