Oo! Another Philly Blogger! Another four or five and i think we’ll be ready for an actual get-together…
by krisis
Personal
I never expect winter to play this nicely, even when it is waning on us and giving way to another spring. Kat and Elise were stalking around the Penn Museum courtyard, one posing and the other one snapping away with her 35mm. I was lying splayed out on the grass, half in sun and half in shadow.
“Do you need me to move?”
“No, you’re fine. Are you bored?”
“No, i’m fine.”
I am usually not the most visual person, but i was lying there pressed as close to the earth as i possibly could and i almost asked Elise for her camera so i could capture the air in a single frame. People tell me they want to read about my life, and at that moment my life was blades of grass too close to my face to be in focus, and slanty red brick sidewalks, and green algae in the water.
I was pressing closer and closer to the ground, thinking that maybe if i could get close enough i would understand something about it — something about my relative significance as a speck on a tiny square of grass.
And, no, i wasn’t bored at all.
There is acting, and then there is playing a role. Acting is straightforward … based on material given to you ahead of time, and meant to be consistent and the same every time. Role playing is something entirely different … slipping into the mind of the character you portray to make decisions and reach conclusions for them. It’s the difference between a movie-star shooting a single film and a soap opera star who has played the same character for decades; with the latter, we expect them to occasionally stray from their normal portrayals, if only because we’ve had a chance to ascertain what normal really constitutes. One is not harder than the other. In fact, to consistently act and to act consistently are two different concepts entirely.
Okay, so, what i’m trying to say is that i didn’t get cast in Fiddler, but in my ever-loving geekdom i started a role-playing campaign of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons tonight with other assorted Drexel Players. We sat around in an attic bedroom for more than three hours, talking to each other as who we were portraying rather than as ourselves imitating a character. Eyes were shifty, and stories were inconsistent. We began to establish the baseline of how we would act from there on out. Stories were told around campfires, relative lack of wisdom was played with Keanu-like naivete, and secrets were kept.
We’re going to meet again next Thursday. Most of the other people have rehearsal most of the nights between now and then, but i don’t. And, really, it’s not a problem.
Gee, let me just concentrate on Journalism class when i know the cast list goes up in an hour and a half. Totally doable. Working on it right now.
Some Things (or: Change Happens).
I have never ever ripped the knee of a pair of pants before last night, when during one of the kneel-skid-kneel routines in my dance audition i caught the worn khaki fabric of my pants on a seam of the stage. I didn’t notice until we got home and i went to poke at the huge purplish bruise on my knee only to find my finger poking clear through the leg of my pants.
Callbacks, for all you who so kindly inquired, went decently. I was convinced that we’d have to sing a bit more tonight, so i don’t think i had any dairy all day and am now making up for it with the most massive bowl of ice cream i’ve ever had. It’s obvious that i don’t have the voice or presence to play any of the cast roles, so i was basically just being used as filler in the scenes we read. Which, honestly, i don’t mind. I just want to sing. The Cast List will be up tomorrow at 1pm.
Lindsay says she can hear everything that goes on in my room, and i suppose she must be able to; i can hear everything that’s said in hers and, though i can’t usually hear her move, my floor is her ceiling. So, i’ve been trying to be very still, and not as stompy when i wake up in the morning.
I had breakfast again today. Somehow, my days have been better every time i’ve had breakfast in the last week, but if i were to be scientific about i think i’d find that the relationship between the two isn’t causal in nature. I really don’t try to dissect better, or happy, or any other good thing too much — lest it disintegrate and flow from my hands like grains of sand. It’s irony, really: you want to have something to hold on to, but have to keep your hands off. Proverbially, that is. Or not. Blah, time for bed.