The “How” & “Why” Of Acting
Before you get too excited, I want to say right from the kick-off – “I don’t know”. In this entry, I want to explore the How?… how some people seem to achieve seamlessly what others struggle and never accomplish, and the, perhaps most important, Why?… why do Actors do this thing instead of say, writing, or hitting a ball across a net, or whatever.
At this point, I’m immediately daunted by the scope of the answers to such questions, and I want to abort the whole exercise. As I’ve said, I don’t know the answers, all I can really do is give answers pertaining to my own experience. In a sense, this entire website is exactly that. It’s my experience of this life, and the journey I’m taking each and every day. It may have absolutely nothing in relation to you and your experience, and it may be totally wrong for you. You may think, “Yes, but who cares about how his life is?”. This is fair enough. I can only assume that if the title of this entry interested you and you got this far, perhaps what I have to say, as my own experience only allows me to speak at all, that what I’ll speak of may hopefully have some value. Read more
Michael
I was asked today if I was going to write something about the passing of Michael Jackson. I’ve thought about the news and initially, I was going to leave it alone. I’m reluctant to say much because I’m more comfortable talking about what I know. I don’t know much about Michael Jackson.
But, having been asked, I thought why not, what do I think about the news?
I first heard about it as I glimpsed the morning news on television, at about 8:35AM Perth time, I think. I did a double-take, thinking I’d heard wrong and sat down to check it out. I think I said to myself, “God, Michael Jackson’s dead”.
As I took it in, I was thinking how big this was; how it was going to carried around the world, and I was trying to take in the size of it. Read more
Bon Voyage, Paula
This is an entry that is at once easy to undertake and yet quite difficult. Easy because I’m talking about a woman who has been the very soul of the word ‘friend’, and difficult because she is so remarkable that words fall so short of how much she means to me.
Paula is leaving Australia for England next week, and I want to wish her the very best for her future, and the same goes for her family. I have been very fortunate to have been befriended by her. She has taught me, and sometimes challenged me about envy, love, friendship, relationships, action, depth, confidence, spiritual pathways and many other things. In other words, she’s shown me myself. Read more
Home Again
It is a well known maxim that practise makes perfect, that nothing succeeds like success. There is something re-assuring in that. I’ve been working at some lines in some scenes in some acts in a play lately and I’m enjoying it very much.
I was sitting in the back stalls at rehearsal recently, watching my comrades go through their paces, and a feeling came over me. It was close to recognition, but not nostalgia. It was more immediate. I quickly jotted down in an empty page of the script I had in my hand…
Status, Acting & Tanzania
It’s been a while. Things have been jumbled up around here lately. I recently finished reading a wonderful book called Status Anxiety by Alain De Botton. I’m now reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau.
I’m currently working with a community theatre in a play called Get Smart from the iconic 1960’s sit com and it’s hoot. It’s also helping me with getting back to the stage. It’s been a while with that as well. Good troupe, and I’m feeling stronger and more confident with every passing day.
I have lines to learn, so I have that niggly feeling that I’m running late all the time. That’s one thing that has always been a feature of Acting for me, the constant feeling that I’ve got more to do, more to find and more to learn. Do you know that feeling? Like you’re five minutes behind where you ought to be. Read more
Crisis… What Crisis?
Not belonging to a club of which you wouldn’t want to be associated might seem okay. But what happens if the ‘club’ is everywhere and all pervasive and if you’re not a member you’ll suffer for it? Sounds Orwellian, doesn’t it?
I thought life was supposed to have a way of sorting this stuff out; that the older we got, the more comfortable we became in our skin. Naive, perhaps.
Does all this sound obtuse? Let me explain. I feel like… well… let’s just say I am not at my best. I feel so much pressure from so many different quarters that I’m not operating very well. I feel, in a word, destroyed. Another term might be that cheery little thing they call… Read more
Blame It On The Bossanova
I was driving to a new acting assignment today when I heard the song “Blame It On The Bossanova” on my radio. It’s the sort of song I would have abhored in my teens or twenties, but this time I kind of thought, “they don’t write ‘em like that anymore”. I actually used it, by singing it, whistling it and dancing to it as I played it over and over in my head. It was a job, the likes of which I’d not encountered before. These assignments are ones we’ve all heard of, and I for one always said I’d never do. Not because they’re unethical. They’re not… well come to think of it, I think they are actually quite unethical, but that’s not why I made this unwritten vow. It’s just that I always hoped I’d never have to be this desperate. Read more
Joe Egg
Every once-in-a-blue-moon a production comes along… “A Day In The Death Of Joe Egg”. I went along on Friday night to the Subiaco Arts Centre in Western Australia to see a show that, when I first read it, was less than impressed. Shows what I know.
To see this production was, simply put, a privilage. It was, in my humble opinion, the best show I’ve seen in years. Not because of the play, written by Peter Nichols, was good. It wasn’t, it was Brilliant! Not because the direction by Stephen Lee was adequate. It wasn’t. It was Masterly!! Not because the Actors were competent. They weren’t. They were Incredible!!! It was because this production was all of these things beautifully combined… Brilliant, Masterly and Incredible. Read more
Lateral Thinking
Hello everyone. I was thinking about “Lateral Thinking” today. I have no idea where the term came from, but I suspect it’s been bastardised over the years to mean imaginative, creative thinking that is sometimes spontaneous or impulsive. I’m not sure I really know what it means, so if I use it in a form that is not the literal sense of the word, please forgive my ignorance. I’m not very bright, but I can lift heavy things.
Lateral, as opposed to (or in conjuction with, perhaps) linear thinking. Is this something that is intinctual? Is it something that can be taught, or are we just born with it? Is it the old “nature / nurture” thing?
I know that there are hundreds of websites that purport to testing your thinking, but I find my imagination doesn’t really want proof. Maybe I’m afraid of what I might find.
When I was a kid, there was this fad (actually there were a lot of fads). The one I’m thinking of was the ‘Mood Ring’. Girls would wear this rather bulbous ring (boys wouldn’t dare) and it would change colour, depending totally on her mood. Amazing! Read more
Rant-ina
This is my 100th entry! Here goes…. If there’s one thing that ticks me off, it’s when the cafe I go to plays music that is A. Inappropriate and B. TOO LOUD!!! There is no time when I’m ok with it. Two days ago it happened. The music at the Cantina in Beaufort Street was both A. and B. I asked 4 times for this to be rectified – yes folks … 4 TIMES – and the waiteress made every motion like she actually gave a damn, however after this I noticed not a change in the music or it’s volume. So I left.
I thought I’d go back there today. I entered the cafe, listened to the music that was playing, which was playing oh-so sweetly in the background, and decided to stay. Two minutes later, after I’d ordered something, crap nightclub boom-boom. Well, it sounded like it to me. I don’t frequent night-clubs these days, but you get the idea. Read more
