Many are the days I have wondered how different my life would be had I only dared involve myself more wholly into theatre - as I desired. There were various reasons why I remained an outsider, even after I joined theatre in high school.
Theatre can be very cliquey, and I don't do well in cliques. I don't like excluding others. Thought this was a more recent development in my life, but as I remember back even to my grade school years I was conscious of those who were being left out and often tried to bring them in - sometimes to the anger of the rest of the group.
The sense of isolation increased in college, especially after I took exception to a particular play we were doing and dropped out. I was subsequently kicked out of the theatre program entirely. Since that time I have only taken part in one play. It was a community theatre project. Neil Simon's, "Fools". I played the villain. Was originally cast in a small role as the mail carrier, but when the original lead quit to take the lead in a bigger production the original villain became the lead and I was given the villain part. Got a standing ovation on the Friday performance. That may have been my "ten minutes of fame", I fear.
But I recall how others described my play-acting when we were just playing around the house and/or yard. Mickey, my brother, would tell others how I was great in pretend shoot-up games. "When you shot someone else, they would carefully go to the ground. Not Bevie. If Bevie was running and got shot, Bevie would crash like it was real. Completely heedless of harm."
When others would look at me with amazement and ask me why I told them: "I was dead. Being hurt wasn't a consideration."
I suppose that made me more of a physical actor than a mood one. There were certain things I did not do well at all, and that I see so few professional actors do them well either makes me feel better about my own failures. For instance, I don't do drunk well at all. My point of reference is simply watching others. Never been drunk myself. But drunks don't "act drunk". Not until they are so close to passing out they can't really do or say much at all. Up to that point they just tend to get a little louder, and a more passionate about whatever it is they are talking about. But I can't do drunk because I really don't know what it is they are feeling. That's always been key to my play-acting. I try to be whoever. Feel what they feel. How can I do that if I don't know what it is?
Don't know that I could do a love scene either. Of course, after a quick glance in the mirror, I need not fear being put in that situation should I even find myself on stage or before a camera. Those days are long past. (If, indeed, they ever existed.)
Crying scenes are hard. Not because I can't feel the emotional pain, but because my Scandinavian heritage has trained me to keep my displays at a minimum. I cry. But I don't sob. Once, when something quite horrible had happened and I felt like I should explode, I tried to make myself cry and weep with animation. I couldn't do it. Not even when it was real. How odd.
But I like acting. I like being somebody else. Anybody else, if it's for fun. Used to do that in school all the time. I would see some comic or comic actor on television and them emulate the routine in school. Lots of trouble. Lots. Teachers back then had no sense of humor whatsoever. I wasn't exactly politically correct even back then.
Although I know I would never have been a Mel Gibson, Johnny Depp, Paul Newman, or Clark Gable, I might have been a decent character actor. One of those characters you need to help give the leading characters purpose.
You know, I guess it wasn't my calling, by I still feel bad that I missed it.
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