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Accidental Triumph
Jan. 10th, 2013 11:01 amI can now tell y'all that I am in a play.
There's a story, of course, to go with this.
A few months back, I was frantically trying to assemble a band to go into the studio, I was frantically trying to finish up story work for AmberCon NorthWest, and auditions came up for the latest production at CVP. There were two parts I was interested in. The first had one line and spent half of the first act dead on the floor. The second.... had many many more lines, and was onstage for all but like eight pages of the show.
And I had reservations. Memorisation has always been a bugbear of mine. Always. The first failing grade I ever received in school was in fifth grade when we had to memorise and recite a poem. Song lyrics, movie quotes, those I could manage. Possibly something about the small bites. But when we did a one act in secondary school called Actor's Nightmare, I was George and I was constantly struggling with the line burden until we closed.
But in the past twenty years, I've started looking at things I'm afraid of, reassessing, doing that whole zen midlife whatever thing. I don't like myself. I don't know why. (I spent a particular year in therapy focused on the question. After a year, the therapist told me that she didn't think I liked myself very much.) Given the chance, I will sabotage myself, fuck myself over, and then deride myself for being so incompetent. This memorisation thing looked like a pretty classic case of me throwing something under my own feet, and it had been pretty successful. I hadn't gone into acting, despite my passion for it, because of that and because of the uncertainty and high unemployment. (Financial stability is another pinning for my major fears.)
So I decided that this was my chance to put the lie to this, and leave a serious dent in it. I went out, I auditioned, and I got the part. What followed were two of the most miserable months since that first year here in Michigan. I couldn't get a band--I'm not in California, where I know a bunch of contacts. I managed to get enough story together to throw it to my players and let them tear it to shreds, at least. But I beat my head against those lines, and while I could get some of it to stick the lion's share of it just poured down my face and stained my shirt. I had a relaxing weekend holiday planned toward the end of rehearsal to see two lovely people, (Three, really.) and ended up spending a goodly chunk of it sequestered in my room and being unpleasant company.
There's a bit in Shakespeare in Love where the inimitable Geoffrey Rush talks about the natural condition of theatre as one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster. When someone exclaims concern and asks what's to be done, he shakes his head and dismissively says nothing, because it all works out in the end. They ask how this could be. He shakes his head and says "I don't know. It's a mystery." This became my mantra, trusting in the momentum of things and my own best efforts to land somewhere satisfactory.
But it was not at all promising. As late as last week, I had given up on the band project, and could dependably reproduce about eighty percent of my lines. Often not the same eighty percent. My main goal was to get to a level where my fellow actors could survive around me. Those of you on my friendlock got an earful of that period. And I had come to a sort of zen acceptance of the idea of cataclysmic failure. One of the coping methods that comes along with living with somebody who is actively trying to trip you up and make you fail is that you tend to play your hand with a minimum of risk. I haven't had a spectacular failure in my life, and I was kind of curious as to what that looked like.
This was all under friendlock because I didn't want to publicly say "Oh my god the new CVP show is going to suck because I've seen the lead and he doesn't know what he's doing."
And then something happened. Sunday's rehearsal was not awful. Where I didn't know my lines, we'd managed to slap up rough support beams and lay ad lib sturdy enough to bridge things. God knows it wasn't pretty, but it would have gotten us through the night. And Monday was better. And on Tuesday, I got calls from a bass player, a guitar player, and a drummer who were interested in taking the job. Last night was our performance for other members of the company, a tradition before a show opens. And it was *good*. I don't mean Sunday's level of 'we survived and that's good'. This was a good, solid, performance.
I'm still not happy with my performance personally. I spent two months on lines, and I have done no character work beyond "insert Woody Allen here, stir in two tablespoons of Ad Rock". But it's to the point where I will tell people I'm in a show, and I think they should come and see it. My fellow cast members are a delight, and there's comedy, love, and a bit with a bird.
There's a story, of course, to go with this.
A few months back, I was frantically trying to assemble a band to go into the studio, I was frantically trying to finish up story work for AmberCon NorthWest, and auditions came up for the latest production at CVP. There were two parts I was interested in. The first had one line and spent half of the first act dead on the floor. The second.... had many many more lines, and was onstage for all but like eight pages of the show.
And I had reservations. Memorisation has always been a bugbear of mine. Always. The first failing grade I ever received in school was in fifth grade when we had to memorise and recite a poem. Song lyrics, movie quotes, those I could manage. Possibly something about the small bites. But when we did a one act in secondary school called Actor's Nightmare, I was George and I was constantly struggling with the line burden until we closed.
But in the past twenty years, I've started looking at things I'm afraid of, reassessing, doing that whole zen midlife whatever thing. I don't like myself. I don't know why. (I spent a particular year in therapy focused on the question. After a year, the therapist told me that she didn't think I liked myself very much.) Given the chance, I will sabotage myself, fuck myself over, and then deride myself for being so incompetent. This memorisation thing looked like a pretty classic case of me throwing something under my own feet, and it had been pretty successful. I hadn't gone into acting, despite my passion for it, because of that and because of the uncertainty and high unemployment. (Financial stability is another pinning for my major fears.)
So I decided that this was my chance to put the lie to this, and leave a serious dent in it. I went out, I auditioned, and I got the part. What followed were two of the most miserable months since that first year here in Michigan. I couldn't get a band--I'm not in California, where I know a bunch of contacts. I managed to get enough story together to throw it to my players and let them tear it to shreds, at least. But I beat my head against those lines, and while I could get some of it to stick the lion's share of it just poured down my face and stained my shirt. I had a relaxing weekend holiday planned toward the end of rehearsal to see two lovely people, (Three, really.) and ended up spending a goodly chunk of it sequestered in my room and being unpleasant company.
There's a bit in Shakespeare in Love where the inimitable Geoffrey Rush talks about the natural condition of theatre as one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster. When someone exclaims concern and asks what's to be done, he shakes his head and dismissively says nothing, because it all works out in the end. They ask how this could be. He shakes his head and says "I don't know. It's a mystery." This became my mantra, trusting in the momentum of things and my own best efforts to land somewhere satisfactory.
But it was not at all promising. As late as last week, I had given up on the band project, and could dependably reproduce about eighty percent of my lines. Often not the same eighty percent. My main goal was to get to a level where my fellow actors could survive around me. Those of you on my friendlock got an earful of that period. And I had come to a sort of zen acceptance of the idea of cataclysmic failure. One of the coping methods that comes along with living with somebody who is actively trying to trip you up and make you fail is that you tend to play your hand with a minimum of risk. I haven't had a spectacular failure in my life, and I was kind of curious as to what that looked like.
This was all under friendlock because I didn't want to publicly say "Oh my god the new CVP show is going to suck because I've seen the lead and he doesn't know what he's doing."
And then something happened. Sunday's rehearsal was not awful. Where I didn't know my lines, we'd managed to slap up rough support beams and lay ad lib sturdy enough to bridge things. God knows it wasn't pretty, but it would have gotten us through the night. And Monday was better. And on Tuesday, I got calls from a bass player, a guitar player, and a drummer who were interested in taking the job. Last night was our performance for other members of the company, a tradition before a show opens. And it was *good*. I don't mean Sunday's level of 'we survived and that's good'. This was a good, solid, performance.
I'm still not happy with my performance personally. I spent two months on lines, and I have done no character work beyond "insert Woody Allen here, stir in two tablespoons of Ad Rock". But it's to the point where I will tell people I'm in a show, and I think they should come and see it. My fellow cast members are a delight, and there's comedy, love, and a bit with a bird.