I’m paid in wine and tacos, am only available post-walk and laundry-washing, and will task-master your ass, tight as a Drill Sergeant.
… Or (perhaps more appropriately), a Dom.
… Have taken up a temporary second existence as a line-driller, for all those assholes (whom I love), who have off-book deadlines, unlike some people we know. It’s a bittersweet existence. Line-learning is the only part of the job I don’t enjoy, so I envy none of that sadistic frustration in cramming two hours or more of text into my brains.
… But, the rest…
… Dear God, I do miss the rest of it.
… Character analysis, relationship discoveries in rehearsal, trying to get to the the bottom of a difficult moment, playing with the comedy to find its every button without breaking it… wresting out a shitty day in a good growl of anger or heaving sob, turning all of it to your supreme benefit and cleansing.
Being an out-of-work Actor is as shitty as it gets in my world…(and it can get pretty damn shitty, so that’s really saying a thing.) I miss my “out” and coping partner like as if a part of my anatomy dropped off back there, and is just laying on the ground, useless, depressing, and frankly, not super functional.
… Am trying to plug along best as I can, but instead of passing time making it easier, it gets more unsettling, my walks more intense and kinda anger-fueled (with nowhere else to filter daily frustrations), and I’ve gone back to watching so much BBC programming, I have to actually think about not speaking in an accent, as a natural default.
This is my only way to cope.
… And now, I’ve added other people’s scripts to the mix…drilling my poor theatre-family bastards harder than an oil rig in Texas.
It is rough to be mid-30s, as a woman: period.
… As an “actor,” even more-so.
… Even as a “character actor” … (which frankly has surprised the hell outta me.) I thought NOT being an ingenue would have guaranteed me “roles for life.” But, aside from Agatha Christie…no one wants you, except as the very occasional spinster aunt, or nosey neighbor. Hollywood states you’re too old to be a mistress anymore at this age…but, I’d even get those if they popped up anywhere on the boards around here…though, they seem to be “out of season,” just now.
… And though I am old enough to play early mothers and wives, “maternal” and “submissive but supportive” aren’t my specialties…I’ve done ’em, but only rarely with joy. And all the good “fucked up” delineations of these are in that 40s to 50s range.
… What I’m built to kill at right now are shrinks, or lawyers, or P.Is ….hell, even a person in the throws of a nervous breakdown, or a junkie on the street…where are those roles in the theater cannon for women?
(…Outside of Miss Marple, and the cast of “Rent” types.)
… Anyway… here I sit. Watching the boards and waiting. A perfectly good “that one chick” who can play just about anything needed, provided someone wrote it down on paper at some point. And then theatres put it into their damn seasons.
… It’s really about trekking the mountain, waiting for all the 40-something roles you get to at the summit, but meanwhile thinking, “How the fuck am I gonna stay limber on script reads and ‘town gossips’ when I’ve got Martha in Virgina Woolf waiting for me up there?!”
… I dunno. Any other lady-actors out there feelin’ m’pain?
Meanwhile: I’m on a severe FB diet, as I have long come to the conclusion that death and politics are stressing me out almost as much as my day job. Which means that almost any existence I have on it, is me posting something I read from the Guardian on a theater thing, an occasional blog about general nothingness, and/or how excited I am about this one show I’ve seen on Netflix.
… In fact, if I had money to put into stock or properties…(like for instance, had I won that last Lotto Mega Million) , I’d have invested heavily in Fitbit and Netflix, as they are my consistent saving graces. (Together with the revolving Repertory Theatre that is “English Actors In General” c/o iTv and the BBC. )
… I just want to BE them. How is that wrong…?
… Is it October yet? God, this” wait for vacation” thing is fucking arduous.
~D
