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..
No comments:
Post a Comment