Stage Rot

I fail to understand why "Drama Queen", "Drama Whore" and the like bear a negative connotation. Don't abominate theatricality; it takes a certain kind of person to pull it off well. There are those who do it vulgarly; they aren't serious about it. What they are is loud, cantankerous, and in it just for the money i.e. the attention. True theatrics are organic and meaningful, an interpretation of life, our lives.

Without invoking the rather bromidic, "All the world's a stage..." axiom, I shall state that while we are commissioned to play many parts as we make this production of ourselves, there are some parts that suit us better than most, and there are some parts that we play to absolute perfection. Yet, occasionally, when a play transfers to a different city, new cast members are added on. Sometimes, the signature actor does not play his signature role, instead he plays someone else. I went through a similar sensation, when I saw a particularly poignant, violent opera being staged again. This time, another young guy was playing this part that I had played a few months ago. It was a sweet, earnest performance, far less desperate (some would say lugubrious) as compared to mine, but...oh, it was a heart-rending. I had seen this play before. Why, I even knew the other actor, I knew how this would end. I wanted to rush up to this new actor, and tell him to pull out now, before the art imitated life to the extent that the lines between the two blurred, and a vile stage-rot set in. But, how could I? The script of this particular play doesn't feature a bail-out type of character. So, I watched it unfold, Hamlet at my side, "It's like watching the same tempest which washed away your home now circling another home whose owner is still ignorant of his unstable foundation. There's a point where you don't hate it, you just admire it's lure and destructive force." Said Hamlet with the foresight and wisdom I love him for. So no, I am not hating anyone now. Instead, what I am doing is far, far more disturbing.

The character that I have been cast to play is the one that no-one talks about, especially as far as this play is concerned. The director, the Man-in-the-Sky, seems to say, "Oh, you've played the ingénue once, now try your hand at a Brighella." I am playing a schemer, a spurned schemer who watches The Lovers' happiness from a distance, and yearns for the enterprise to fail. I have hated playing this character, because, I, as a rule, don't deal with unpleasantness. But I have come to realise that this Brighella is darker than most because he is not choleric. Instead, he smoulders slowly and smokelessly in the blue flame of his own dashed desires. I am not saying I still don't hate playing, I just have a better understanding of what I am doing on this stage now.

There is a reason why some of us turn to drama to make sense of the convoluted circumstances of our lives: drama gives everything context, it elevates even the most sordid circumstances to something palatable, worth delving into and potentially exorcising. I take a lot of flak for my histrionics, my prolixity, and there are those who believe that my accent is a pro-Imperialist statement of some sort. Well, I shan't change myself. I have been a production twenty years in the making, and I can finally say, with some conviction, that this is who I am, drama and all. I have had great reviews, I have had ovations, and while I have also been boo'd, I know for a fact that no-one can play my role the way I do. There is a great deal of thought that goes into giving this superficiality the depth it deserves.

Until the next time,

GossipGuy.