Sunday, March 13, 2005
plays, or I get censored
Okay, I'm abandoning the subject of feminism for the moment, because I realise I don't have that much more to say about it.
My play runs in less than a week! I am scared! By the way Cait, if your parents want to come (or anyone else, for that matter!), it runs from March 18-19, doors open at 6:30, show starts at 7:00, in the Isabel MacInnes Lounge in the Gage complex. Tickets are $7 for students and $10 for the rest of the world. Tell them to call me and I'll reserve tickets for them!
We had a run-through of the show yesterday, and it was nothing short of craptacular. Two of the girls in our cast appeared to be suffering from some persistent form of tuberculosis (maybe due to the fact that they walk around in bare feet and miniskirts in the middle of winter!), so they could barely speak, much less act. No one, save me and one other guy, had their script memorized, which is SHITE when you're going onstage in less than a week! Don't they have any fear of looking like a total fool in front of a huge crowd of people? I would kind of understand it if they had to memorize great long monologues, but the only person with a long monologue is ME! The rest of them have short little paragraphs or poems in which they have maybe four or five lines each, at least two of which are ONE WORD! How fucking hard can it be to memorize ONE WORD?! GAH!
The only two people other than me who were even in the general region of memorized (a girl and a guy I'd never met before) were these two apparently seasoned actors in the cast who laughed throughout other people's pieces (and this material is NOT funny, so that was extremely impolite!) and flirted with each other the whole time. I was kind of unimpressed. The guy did not take direction well, either. He referred to his piece as being set in an 'ethnic' country (whatever the hell that means) and objected to the fact that his character was a 12-year-old boy and thus the directors' recommendation that he play it like a 12-year-old-boy. If there's one thing I learned in many years onstage and behind a camera, it's that directors do NOT appreciate cheekiness, and suggestions should be given with a lot of tact and caution. But this guy was just totally rude and snobby. I was actually really shocked and disappointed.
After three weeks of total suffering trying to memorize the AIDS monologue, I finally managed to suck it up, put some earplugs in, and spend several hours repeating horrific words over and over and over until I knew it by heart. I was so scared about performing it yesterday that I actually shook the whole time. Physically shook like I was going to fall over. My heart was beating so fast I was pretty sure it was simply going to explode in my chest and stop ticking forever. I pulled it off, I suppose, but it was rough.
They're inviting a class of Grade 7 kids to the play, but their teacher has arranged to have them step out during my monologue. I have mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand, I think it's wrong to expose kids to information that might traumatize them because they're too young and unprepared for it. That said, when I was 12 years old, what I wanted the most in the world was the freedom to make a few of my own choices, including to choose what material was appropriate for me to watch on TV, in movies, and in plays. There is no actual violence in this piece. We do not show a man raping a little girl on stage, or anything even close. It's really just me and the audience. And the language is not really graphic either. I don't use words like "fuck," or "rape," or even "sex." I don't use technical or slang terms for body parts either. It's a scene describing violence depicted in a way that is educational rather than gratuitous, and thus I feel it's appropriate for most 12-year-olds. I actually told Prof. G to come to the play and bring his 12-year-old daughter, because I think 12 is old enough to deal with these themes. Especially in the case of a teacher with her students, the themes can be explained and discussed later, and on the whole I think that would make for a valuable and eye-opening experience for a 12-year-old, and not a traumatizing one.
But of course, it's not up to me. And it is somewhat disappointingly not up to the kids, either. I think at that age they shouldn't have their teachers making those kinds of decisions for them. I certainly would have resented that kind of interference and censorship when I was 12 years old.
Tryouts for the Trojans are on Wednesday. I know that unless I do something really stupid, I will make the team. They don't have enough people, and they've seen me stunt and were impressed by it, so there's no reason why I wouldn't make it on. I am a little bit nervous that they will subject us to physical tests I'm not ready for, though. My fitness level has gone way down in the past few months. But they said it wasn't a fitness contest, so as long as I don't collapse in a coronary it will probably be alright.
I went to see Tom Stoppard's Arcadia with my aunt the other night. It was being put on by our very own Faculty of Theatre, and I was actually really impressed by it. It was a ridiculously intelligent play about mathematics and literature, among other things. It made me wish I had not been such an idiot when picking my courses and had chosen to do some theatre at university. My degree might actually be more useful than my current one, because at least I could be getting parts after I graduate.
I'm really excited to sit down with some coffee and breakfast and read the Focus section today. Where would I be without the Focus section? What a wonderful piece of journalism!
I had a dream that I was eating a lot of Oreo cookies. Maybe this is because my brother went out and bought some doublestuff ones, the kind with twice as much icing, and I went a little wild last night. My parents are out of town so the Boy came over and we watched Iron Chef and ate Oreos and went to bed early. And now I feel slightly less exhausted, but hungry. Oreos are a crap source of nutritional content.
I had a really lousy night of stunting yesterday. I guess it was an off day, cause I couldn't get anything to go up. I need to go to the gyme more often. I have really been cursed with this body that is too small to be really strong and too big to throw into the air. Everything would be easier if I was a guy, except maybe wanting to go out with straight guys.
Meh. Must get back to it, whatever 'it' is.
Cheers,
N
