How Those Sheep Bleated.
posted 15 Apr 2003, 8PM | 20 Comments
I don't remember my dreams often enough. But late at night last week I was back in the large multi-purpose Cafegymtorium at my small private Cape Cod high school. I wasn't any younger. It was present-day, and it was early evening, the sun still showing outside; it slipped in through the room's windows, grated to be soccer-ball safe.
All sorts of people were in the room, dimly-lit as it was. I'm reminded of long Friday afternoons spent decorating for school dances, busy and hyperactive, as the room dimmed and evening rolled in. I'm not sure why so many people had gathered on the risers, but the whole occasion turned into a sort of impromptu reunion. I found myself on stage, with Virgil and Chrissy and others, entertaining the crowd with a poor reprise performance of my first high school play, a 15th century French farce called Pierre Pathelin. My sister appeared, too, to improvise parts in the place of absent actors. I remember laughing with the crowd as I fumbled my lines, and it felt good to be a part of that community again. (We lived cozy, safe, wheat-bread lives in that school, but the people made me happy.)
I managed to get my stage fix last fall, for the first time in seven years. And now every Sunday of my spring is spent laughing and watching and performing and critiquing within the comfort of our acting workshop group. This past Sunday I served cheese and crackers.
Sometimes, learning to act feels like a kind of painstaking personal analysis, a gradual hunt to figure out whether or not, deep inside, I'm really full of shit. No word yet, but I am accepting wagers.
There are 20 Comments
16 Apr 03 at 11:50AM dave said:
i feel like I've done a million plays, with directors/crew coming in all flavors of competence, and STILL my favorite play ever was Happy Birthday, Wanda June. Everything about it was so organic, from Mr. Wollman, to Kevin T-bot (Eye am an EFF BEE EYE AGENT!) and beyond.
And of course, I say this as an actor who failed before he began.
16 Apr 03 at 12:03PM ryan said:
Wanda June was great fun, to be sure. Totally home-grown, and we took what we could get... from neighborhood kids to the ram's head, to Josh doing lighting changes with only his hands and two extension cords.
I wonder what T-bot is doing, wherever he may be.
16 Apr 03 at 12:41PM Your Brother! said:
I've always thought your left leg is full of shit. Also I have often suspected that your right lung was full of shit, forever stunting your growth as a track star. Your mouth is usually full of air or food, not shit. Your colon is unfortunately full of shit, burdening your tall frame with a charmless colostomy bag. This is my wager.
16 Apr 03 at 12:49PM ryan said:
You've wagered and you've lost. Please send me back those speakers and all of my CDs, you crude curmudgeon.
16 Apr 03 at 06:09PM ryan said:
Oh, man. Jackpot. I may need to open a Kevin T-bot thread.
Kevin quoted in an LA Times article about Columbine:
Kevin T-bot of Boston talked about how he often was beaten up, spit upon or called a "freak" or a "drama fag" at Hingham (Mass.) High School in the early 1990s. One of his friends, he said, was "beat up one night by a whole carload of jocks."
Similar quotes in a similar Nevada periodical.
More role-playing stuff.
17 Apr 03 at 07:16AM dave said:
Oh, THAT'S the drama fag that me and my jock buddies beat up that night? No kidding. It's funny, because I was a drama fag, too. I kept telling him while I was punching him in the head, "I'm not kicking your ass...irony is."
17 Apr 03 at 09:59AM ryan said:
Things were a lot tougher in Hingham, man. You don't even know about Hingham, man.
17 Apr 03 at 01:51PM ryan said:
Man, I love Google-Mining.
The Kevin T-bot Hunt, Phase 2: Actual photographs of T-bot's large pale head drinking and smoking at the Braintree Hilltop Steakhouse, only two years ago. Check that jacket, man.
I'm getting getting warmer. So much for on-topic comments, but it's worth it.
17 Apr 03 at 02:27PM dave said:
no, don't stop! start another acting thread next week. this one's too good to be true.
17 Apr 03 at 03:38PM awol said:
I especially like the last one, where he smoking with his tough-guy face on.
T-bot got a little chunky...
18 Apr 03 at 04:10PM ryan said:
I think I've reached the end of my Google rope on the T-bot thing. Maybe I'll do a "long-lost friends" epsiode in the future.
We can now return to more dream / acting related discussions. Here's a question for those of you who know me: What sort of thing would you like to see me do for the ten minute solo performance I'm putting together for this acting workshop? There are no rules, but I want to entertain and showcase my strengths.
21 Apr 03 at 05:26PM V said:
Heh! That's the first thing I noticed about T-bot. I guess showing up at random times in the BU smoking lounge at the GSU to meet up with those vampire folks puts on a few pounds. Wasn't he a waiter at Deli Haus at some point?
22 Apr 03 at 10:59AM ryan said:
Probably. Wasn't everybody?
Actually, maybe he was just always there when we were there because he was hungry.
23 Apr 03 at 08:14AM dave said:
i heard they let him go because they had already fulfilled their quota of poser-poets.
26 Apr 03 at 05:27PM V said:
Just reminiscing about being a freshman in Deli Haus, smoking cigarette after cigareete, and drinking mildly chilled pitchers of Sam Adams Winter Warmer.
And then T-bot walks up and takes my Sunday morning hungover breakfast order?
Dude must have hacked a loog or snotted in my eggs at least once. He just must have.
26 Jun 03 at 10:47PM Kevin said:
I don't know if I should be flattered or offended.
I totally should have snotted in those eggs though.
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16 Apr 03 at 10:10AM awol said:
I'd say it's more of an analysis of each level of shit within you and how to harness that shit and turn it into art. And occasionally, tearing all the shit away, ripping open your chest, taking out your heart and showing it to 100 or more (or less) people, who will then feel free to pick, poke, prod, and depreciate your effort of unguarded honesty, until you remember why we all live under layers of bullshit.