A Little Matter of Saying "Sorry"...

Monday I did some backing vocals and a sort of speaky/poem-singy-thing for a friend at a charity gig. It's funny that sometimes the less effort and the less bothered I am about something, the better it apparently is. It went down a treat, with kind comments about having a 'good presence' whatever that means, and how well it worked. However it's easy to shrug off because it was only a little thing as a favour and originally I was only going to be reading it off a sheet of A4, but that didn't feel quite right and almost by accident I learnt it the day before, but was still at the stage where I was getting the words muddled. 

Now the first few times you rehearse something you think you know, you're all over the place, (obviously when I say 'you' I mean 'me' or 'I', but I reckon most people are the same in this regard). This is a normal part of the rehearsal process and to be expected. That is, if you have any rehearsal time, i.e. not five minutes beforehand in a broom cupboard under the stairs! It's normal for me in rehearsals to fudge up my lines and then swear and then immediately apologise. I get that out of my system before the performance, but here I started to feel freaked out as there was no time to work through this stage. It's bad enough fudging things up in front of an audience but it's far worse drawing attention to it by apologising - that makes the audience cringe with embarrassment and feel most uncomfortable. 

I'm pretty sure that if a performer remains in character, then any stutterings, false starts or line mix-ups or stumblings will probably go unnoticed. I've heard it said that one reason people go to the theatre is for the thrill of the possibility that something can go tits up. I'm not sure I agree. On the contrary, I believe that an audience likes to feel they are in safe hands and can relax; nerves may be a good thing for the actor's performance but it's not so great for an audience to smell your fear (particularly if it affects your bowels). A year or two ago I went to see a friend in a production of  A Midsummer Night's Dream. Right at the start, one of the actors stumbled over his lines and went "fuck". Had he continued in character, it would have been entirely forgiven. In fact I would have assumed it was a deliberate choice, but - shock horror - he felt the need to apologise. It was toe-curlingly awkward for the audience and we all collectively held our breath while the poor bugger found his place. Like a record played at the wrong speed, the play struggled to find its tempo for probably only a few minutes, but I've always remembered it. It was a good lesson: never apologise. 

Three Steps Forward...

Progress has been rather slow the last week or so. I had done quite well on the previous week's tasks and had had the rather satisfying realisation (almost shock!) that the front room was looking more sorted and tidier than it had in...well, years. Of course this was largely cosmetic, in that on the surface it was starting to look much better, but upstairs, the mezzanine floor was (and indeed still is) covered with reams of paperwork (which brings me out in welts just thinking about it) and miscellaneous bits and bobs as a result of tidying the bookcase, the mantelpiece and all the other surfaces. 


Last week's task was to begin to address what lies beneath the surface. I had two areas to sort: under the bed (eek!) and the chest of drawers. However two things occurred that thwarted me. I got some 'civilian' (i.e. not acting) work through the care agency I'm signed with which involved getting up super early, and secondly I got a visit from the snot fairy. I'm afraid these two things conspired to scupper any real progress and I've even slightly gone backwards. The kitchen table is teaming with crap and there's been one or two nights where I went to bed without washing up - shock horror! Don't tell anyone...


But I did eventually tackle the drawers (crammed full of lord-knows-what) and will enter the under-the-bed-vortex if not tomorrow then the day after. Well, certainly on Saturday.

Clearly not an tidy table. I mostly feel helpless against the Clutter Fairy!

Keeping it Fresh

I recently went to an audition for a spot of Fringe theatre. Unfortunately 99.9(r)% of these productions are unpaid for the actor. I often think it's funny how money is always found for the venue and a lighting technician but not for the poor actor. However, we are often lucky that 'profit share' doesn't also translate to 'loss share' and yet we are so desperate to 'practise our craft' that many, if not most of us will jump at the chance to perform, paid or not. This means that even though it's about as lucrative as trying to sell empty crisp packets, it is often still enormously competitive to secure a part. Leaving money aside, the benefits for the actor are obvious: 
To be an actor (or say you are an actor) you need to experience yourself as an actor
we love to perform and it restores our confidence in our own abilities (I find that after a production, I feel pretty good about things for up to six weeks and then I start to doubt myself again).
It prevents you from going stale:
It's that old adage: if you don't use it, you'll lose it.
It gives you more things to add to your CV:
Of course if it turns out to be a terrible production, you might not want to add it to your CV. The other negative side is that if all you do is Fringe stuff, then that's what you'll be classed as. If you have an agent, it makes them mad if you do 'free work', because they think you'll be unavailable for anything they put you forward for. In my experience they don't see the plus side of being 'audition ready', they just want you to be constantly available, waiting expectantly by the phone (that doesn't ring!). However, seeing as I currently don't have an agent or an up-to-date CV, neither of these things are a problem for me!
You can invite prospective agents and casting directors to the production:
Not that they'll come of course...especially if it's outside of London.


I'm sure there's many other points to include, but that's enough to be going on with. I think the most important one is: we do it because we love it. Even though we often hate it. Let's face it, there's not much to love about working - for nothing - on a production you know is beneath you, with a director who you think is an arse and fellow cast members who can barely walk or talk at the same time, let alone act and who make you look bad by their very presence. That's why you have to choose your production very carefully...


With that in mind, I went to an audition for a play I will call 'Make Mine A Bacon Sarnie' with some trepidation. It was, in my opinion, a badly written play about veganism, war and murder with pretty dismal dialogue and sketchy characters. However I had already committed to go before reading the piece and (rather unusually these days) the writer/director had requested an audition speech, so I thought it would give me the chance to dig one out and polish it up. As an actor you're apparently supposed to have about 8 audition speeches ready to go, but because I'm so seldom asked to perform one, I have in fact precisely one ready to go. This is something (along with updating my CV and getting an agent) I do intend to address at some point*


It's worth remembering that just as much as they're auditioning you, you are in effect, also auditioning them, and as well as finding the play, shall-we-say problematic, I was not entirely comfortable with the audition itself. There were a few people there, several who were auditioning for a second time and most of whom were meeting each other for the first time. However despite us all having to do our pieces in front of each other and working with each other, there were no introductions and no warm up. This is especially a problem when I was asked (as my character) to shout in this young girl's face. Acting goes so much on trust and energy (which is why any drama course worth its salt spends a huge amount of time doing trust exercises and warm ups) that it just feels wrong to go from cold like that. The director also had a somewhat troubling manner in regards to asking you questions about the piece you just did that suggested you'd made terrible choices and perhaps ought not to be there. It wasn't aggressive, just subtly undermining in a way that made you feel quite vulnerable and needy and I believe him feel powerful, like the proverbial 'puppet master'. 


That said, I do believe the play faired much better off the page than on, and I started to see the possibilities and the potential and to wonder if in fact it could even be good. I was asked back for a second audition but having considered it, as well as talking to a good friend and fellow actor who also auditioned; I decided that the negatives far outweighed the positives. It would have been a labour of love and I didn't even respect it, let alone love it. The director seemed to want the 'moon on a stick' in terms of commitment and time (and it would have cost to travel too) and the character I was asked to go for presented no challenge to me at all. Seriously, I could have called it in, it was totally in my comfort zone and easily a part of my repertoire, so I concluded that there was no point whatever in going to the second audition, not even so I could have the satisfaction of turning it down if I got it. I look forward to seeing it performed though; both prospects of it being either brilliant and unsettling or utterly shambolic and dismal are interesting to me. My search for my next project continues...




*Notice how nicely vague this is. One to add to the 'procrastination pile' me thinks..