Reading vs. Acting

This semester, in a effort to cram a bunch of classes in, finish up all my requirements, and get the hell out of this place, I somehow got signed up for a Theater Arts course (U101 for anyone reading this from Northeastern). I read the syllabus, and although the teacher is a director (a generally pretentious occupation), has an annoying attendance policy, and habitually cold-calls his students, I thought it might be an interesting class. It seemed like a lot of reading plays, watching movies, and possibly going to a production, all of which I'm fairly interested in.

I was wrong. First up on my list of complaints is the fact that, at some point this semester, I'm going to have to get in front of the class and act out a scene (with a few other people).

This is a problem for three major reasons, which I will lay out below:

1) I hate group work.
2) I hate acting.
3) I hate watching other non-professional actors stumble through lines, or worse, ham it up in order to show that they really were born actors.

As if that weren't bad enough, the teacher tried to make an example of me in class today. He asked for anyone who had never acted before (other than my co-starring role in Chicken Little in kindergarten, I haven't), so I foolishly raised my hand. I gave him my best, "Please don't call on me," stare, and so of course, he called on me.

I walked up to the front of the room where he handed me a monologue from "Six Degrees of Seperation," a play which I actually have read, and enjoyed. Those of you movie buffs out there might remember the stirring rendition given by Will Smith in a movie with the same title.

I'm not generally a public speaker, but I felt I had to try to disprove his point, that nervousness is a part of acting on stage. My heart pounding in my chest, I began to read.

A short aside here. In high school I had two classes with a man known only as "Stevie." I'm pretty sure his name was actually Steve Stevenson, which is a pretty cruel thing for a parent to do to a child. He would call on me constantly to read out loud in class. I still can't quite figure out why, but I know that everytime he did, I loved it. I have this odd part of my brain or my psyche that just loves reading text out loud.

The reading went great. But I kept shuffling around, unsure of what to do with my body. The words, I'm confident, sounded great. Even though it was a woman's part, I think I got the tone of the paragraph down.

What is it that makes the difference between acting and reading? He told me I looked nervous, shuffling around and what not. I suppose if I hadn't had my face buried in the book, if I had actually memorized my lines, I might have been able to do a bit more movement. But really, I had trouble imagining what the woman would be doing while she said this. Would she have a drink in her hand (the play involves a lot of drinking)? Would she pace back and forth? Would she just stand and stare at her intended listener, maybe gesticulating in a fashion that only the most Italian of us recognize? I really couldn't say.

I'm not sure what the point of this is. Really, I'm not sure what the point of this whole blog is. But I guess I'm just wondering why I have such interest in reading things out loud, and almost no ability to properly act out those same readings.

As a side note, I'm going to try to post in this every week day (at least). This may mean that some of my updates are stupid, pointless, and boring (as I'm sure this one was). However, I hope that by confining myself to that sort of schedule, maybe I'll pull some stuff out that I didn't know was in there.

Also sorry this was so long. Anyone who knows me knows I'm a pretty verbose fellow.

Bis später,
Good night and good fuck. (I'll try this one on for size)