It's Like Falling Off a Bike

Yesterday I had the chance to do some acting.

For those of you who don't know, my undergrad degree was in Theater Arts (my parents weren't financing my education, so... you know, you get to pick the major and all. Then, when all is said and done, you don't mind having paid your own way through education, but darn, you wish they at least had been a bit more forceful in trying to talk you out of your major. Preferably into one that had an outside shot at making money). I'm not at all certain how it came about, actually: we have a friend who works for a communications company who had been tasked with making a corporate... commercial? Movie short? Puppet show on VHS and sent to cable access? Something.

At any rate, she needed some actors, she got in touch with my wife, my wife pointed her in a direction and also offered our services because it sounded like fun and because she is an actress as well. I get all this in an email, and then am asked to send a picture because, I guess, they need a slightly dorky looking male with enough gray hair to pass for 'father'. I send the picture, and I guess I fit that bill nicely, as I was asked to do the part.

For the record, I have not really acted in anything since, oh, before Y2K: there was a smattering here and there- some skits for church, another small film in Vancouver- but that's really been it. And I've been aching to break out and do something artistic lately. I've missed the stage: have missed it terribly. I broke out some old pictures from my theater days and showed them to my wife, and through the course of it broke down into tears (this is an utter lie, but is meant to heighten the dramatic narrative).

But- God, there is something invigorating about being on the stage. It just transcends time, place and space (which, ironically, are the 3 unities required for a play as specified by some Greek dramatist whose name I could never pronounce). The audience may be bored to tears- as many have been during shows of mine- but there is this otherworldliness to it because it is an entirely other world. It is a thrill rode of emotions, of energy flooding through you. There is that sense of being invincible when you know the audience is with you, hanging on your character's every word. The smell of the greasepaint, the roar of the crowd, and your ego poised atop the zenith of your arrogance.

Love it.

So, it wasn't necessarily a stage production. It was actually in someone's kitchen while the actors sat around drinking bottled water and waiting for their time for a 'take'. A 'take' is a synonym for 'sitting around drinking bottled water and waiting for the light to be adjusted properly and the lens angle to be set while the gaffer takes a piece of tape and sticks it on the floor showing you where your 'mark' is and by god you'd better not miss this because we're behind schedule and I don't want to have to do the whole damn thing over again because you bovine actors are too boneheaded to even accomplish stepping on a piece of goddam tape'. If you've ever dreamed about being a movie star one day- forget the glamour part of it. That comes later when the papparazzi chase you. On the set, you're cattle.

But still, it was acting, and even better, I was getting paid for it (15o smackers for sitting around waiting for an hour and a half, 20 seconds of actual screen time, and all the bottled water I could drink). Believe me, if there is anything better than being an actor (on stage, at least), it's being a
paid actor.

But the best thing is, it felt good to be there. Even if my role consisted of hugging a couple of someone else's kids that I've never met before and acting excited over Chinese take-out the wife I never married had brought home, it was good. It brought to mind again how deeply I miss it, and how I wish they had actually given me some lines to say.

And that was what was truly nice about it: to be able to step back into it, however briefly, and make an utter ass out of yourself. It's like falling off a bicycle: you just never forget how.