Hey Somebody, Doncha Wanna Hear the Story of my Life?

This is what we do when we do plays (well, when some of us do this particular part of this particular play at this particular time):

We rehearse for free because our writer/director has a connection with a company.

We go to this corner.


There are drugs being dealt and done on the stoop outside the door. Sometimes there are bangs on the glass windows and we all stop.

At the beginning I didn't know the words so I read them. Now I don't need to read them, but I still make mistakes. The mistakes become more and more frustrating and more and more detrimental the further I go on.

At the beginning we sat on chairs at a table. Now we stand and move around the room that is shaped nothing like the theatre. I do the same movements every time, and I also don't, because how can you always sit in a chair the same way? Maybe good actors can.

After a few more tries at this, we'll do it in a room for other people and they'll think things about it, or they won't, and they'll say things to us about it, or they won't. Sometimes the things they say will not be the things they think and that is where you get in trouble, but it's just the way it is. I try not to lie when I'm in that situation but it's not possible. I tell bold-faced lies that hurt me in order to preserve relationships that I think should be preserved for future, because they aren't really of value to me at the present.

I'm not feeling good about all these things right now. I'm happy for the chance to do them, but I'm terrified. I have wanted to do this part for two years, and I thought I could do it, and maybe that was wrong. I don't know. I feel that I've lost my power. I feel that I've lost myself. I used to feel the most myself when I was acting and right now I don't feel that way.

I feel I'm letting the project and the people down and I love both those things.

This is a hard part about being an actor. You have to do the work when you have all these horrible feelings about yourself in the work. You have to do something that you're not able to do. I have to be in this play and I'm not doing a good job, but somehow I have to find my way to do a good job while doing a bad job. Because all the thoughts of 'I suck, I'm not doing this right, I hate myself', that's not the work. The work happens while those thoughts are happening, but that's not the work.

I think I'm doing a good job of doing the work even though I feel like this. I try. Goddammit, do I ever try. I learn my lines, I show up, I bring the things I'm supposed to bring, and I really really try. That is the one thing I have going for myself as an actor: I fucking work my ass off.

But despite all those things, I'm not as talented as I want to be. Not right now, anyway. And that's what it comes down to, in large part.

It's very scary and sad and it still doesn't make me stop, and is that some form of stupidity?

The show is on Thursday.