How uncanny the theatre is

When I told my friends I got through the dramatic reading audition, one commented that it was no surprise- "You're so drama."

It actually turned out to be a problem when I did a realism play. I was asked to act normal, but my definition of normal was theatrical- I'm quite over the top in real life.

Take for example when we were asked to look at how each other's normal way of walking. We were told, one by one, to walk to the end of the floor and back. I walked up and down normally, and all of the cast said I looked like I was walking like a model on a runway.

Oh dear.

I usually do walk like that.


And so life on stage thus became more realistic than life offstage.

Which lead to a strange slight sense of the uncanny.

But that was not the sad part.

Today, we finished running through all our lines for one of the plays for the very first time. 

Yup. 99 pages. Under our belt for the first time.

Wow.

Yet I felt a sense of tragedy.

To me, the greatest tragedy in theatrical performance... "is that after all the development our characters have experienced, and the things they have gone through and grew through together, I find that in our professionalism, we have no real character development together as real persons. 


So while I've worked with you for weeks and spent so much time in such close proximity with you, I find it tragic to realise... I don't know you... At all."




11 days to performance.