Never Walked In High Heels

I’m not sure why whenever I know that I am beginning to perform for an audience, the tension in my body escalates to an extreme degree. I consider myself a rather laid back person and with my disability I am notorious for having rather floppy muscles and overly limber movements. However, you put me on stage even as a trained actress and everything in my body grows nearly as fixed as concrete. This is particularly odd because in my daily life, walking down the street in stiletto heels, leopard print coat, wheelchair and flaming red hair a number of people are looking at me at all times. Even then, I am on display even though I am not necessarily “performing.”

The tension tends to creep in onstage as all of a sudden I attempt to fulfill everyone else’s expectations, please everyone via show rather than attempting to complete the task in front of me. In its simplest form, acting is about communicating ideas, which I should be relatively decent at as a writer. However, I find myself suddenly wanting every word to be clear in a way that is almost unnatural, I want to be sure I fit in on stage, shine, and be noticed. This of course calls in the eternal question that every actor must struggle with, who exactly am I performing for? Here the stereotype of the vain and self absorbed actor is at its root. If I am performing for the effect of self aggrandizement my own narcissistic qualities begin to weigh upon me harder than lead balloons. It is impossible for any actress, regardless of her talent, to please anyone. It is impossible for every performer to be completely understood by every audience. It is impossible to create the same perfect performance over and over again. However, these are the unreasonable standards I attempt to set for myself whenever I am in the wings waiting to go on stage.

Or is it, I perform for the stake of examining man, what it means to be human and the questions which inevitably plague us all. This is the reason why I am attempting to perform at all. I have set out to complete an unreasonable and impossible task. To examine mans’ questions and dilemmas is of course, equally impossible. One would go insane attempting to do so night after night after night in a two hour show. After all, we are called actors, not thinkers, emoters or (some of us may wish otherwise) even philosophers.

After having several weeks of attempted performance and fighting the unnatural tension of my own body I can see that I perform because on some level regardless of what is called the “prime mover” I was created to be a performer. Everything about my experience, my dreams as a little girl, high school aspirations and studies in college, point me in that direction. This means that it is not necessarily on stage opening night with bright flashing lights and perfectly choreographed sequences in which I accomplish my goal of performing. Being a performer can be fulfilled within the four walls of a rehearsal studio, making the audience myself, God and whatever other invisible beings may exist as important as any West End audience or Broadway crowd. Whenever I attempt to slag something off as just an exercise or a simple reading requiring little to no skill, I must then question what it means to be a performer. And realize that on its face, a performer performs simply because, she cannot help herself. She was created for it, even when the audience seems completely invisible.

Those Who Used to “Teach”

It is often said that those who cannot do, teach. And as some members of my family would like to add, those who cannot teach go into education. But embarking on conservatory training I discovered that there are teachers who cannot do and teachers who can no longer do. Both often make splendid teachers. The teachers who have given up there own performing careers due to age or ailment are often times the most giving of their time and the most insistent on perfection, creating a rare combination of encouragement and admirable standards. All too quickly the image of ancient ballet teachers hobbling on canes comes to mind. People who have seen performance for what it is as well have seen their own careers dissolve through circumstances beyond their control and have thus rededicated themselves to improving other individual’s forms rather than other individuals chances to get into the industry.

A particular conservatory instructor comes to mind. He is an individual who was well known in his day as an incredible Shakespearean actor when, after a stage fighting accident during one summer, lost the use of his left arm. That was the only extent of his injury, however it was permanent and as a result of having a single limb immobilized had to give up his craft.

Sometimes I sit in the back of his class listening to him lecture or give advice to those of us performing and I often wonder what he thinks when he examines me in his studio. An injury, which from my perspective seems extraordinarily small (although I’m sure from his point of view, it was anything but negligible) ended his career decades ago and here I am more bound in my body than he is now despite his age, embarking on a professional acting career with the insistence that disability and physical condition does not matter. He, unlike some of my tutors never offers me a detrimental word or insists that I despair regarding my impending doom as a starving artist. His standards are set as high for me as anyone else and he insists that I can be trained.

I look at him lead the class in warm ups and articulation exercises and more often than not, I am struck by the constant reminder of my ultimate goals of being in art. I dream of a world where having an “imperfect body” or being seen as more representative of the human condition. I have a vision of a world where people take as little notice of physical differences as most people do different races and the insistence of segregating the disabled because they are different is labeled as “hateful” as racism or homophobia, and I believe that it is art, particularly acting which will help our society reach these goals as it normalizes differences and forces our world to look at situations and people which many would otherwise not run into living within their own suburban plan. I want to create art and act in pieces that reiterate over and over that losing the use of a single appendage is hardly reason to bow out of the industry and take up teaching as a consolation career when one is regarded some great tragedy occurs.

I sit in his class daily and come to the conclusion that I would hope if the same injury happened to my teacher today, he would keep acting, even in the face of adversity and insist that he belonged on the stage and his talent did not disintegrate as a result of losing the use of a single appendage. I want to help create the world in which he never had to quit due to an accident that was merely an unfortunate circumstance. I can’t help but wonder if, after the accident, he too yearned for a world where art could incorporate the realities of life.

 “I can’t keep going on like this.”

“That’s what you think.”

- From Waiting for Godot

It was one of those productions that is a guaranteed money maker. Four legendary British actors performing one of the greatest plays of the twentieth century Waiting for Godot. After we left, I found myself discussing the production with my escort. It’s something we thespians do to suck the fun out of any show we see, often if only to make ourselves feel better. Crossing over Trafalgar Square we avoided the traffic while trying to make sense of what we just saw.

“Because that is what life is about really.” We’d come to that point in the conversation where we had reached gross generalizations and bromides. All actors hit this point after seeing a show; when their critique runs out but the conversation’s inertia hasn’t.

The reason (largely) that I don’t let the conversation die is that this is a friend I love being around. Actually that’s only part of the explanation. The fact is I don’t want to go home because I feel stuck. I don’t have the energy to worry that my career’s going nowhere. At home there’s a stack of rejected grant applications waiting for me. Each one has a different reason for rejection that conflicts with all of the others. I’ve gone to bed every night this week wondering if I’ve accomplished anything since college.

“This is my friend Athena,” he begins as he’s introducing me to his friends. “She told me at twenty that she was going to move to London and act. Now she owns her own theater company.” The preface acts as a jolt yanking me back from my spine. I am reminded how he sees me, even on the days that I can’t look past myself. He knows where I’ve come from, and can look back to see that progress is being made.  I just don’t always believe him, or the distance traveled.

The men who wait for Godot together couldn’t survive separated. Even if Godot is as wonderful as the other characters seem to think he is, the day to day grating of life, just the mundane things, is enough to make the waiting in faith impossible. Add to that the stress of striving to make something of life, and you have eighty plus years to carry a burden that is impossible to lift alone.

The friends which make life tolerable, are the ones that know you better than you do yourself.  Moreover, the friends who make this life bearable are the ones that can see more depth in you than you knew you ever had. In the statement: “that’s what you think,” there is packed so much hope for perseverance. They push further, knowing that the ineria must keep going.

Godot never shows up of course. Or at least he doesn’t bother to show up during the two and a half hours we are watching it.  But in a world where the dramatic situation never changes the players do change. They wait. They hold onto hope for just that one day longer than they thought they possible yesterday. Even if the hope is just enough for today, its all you need now.

And in that second when a friend convinces you that you can keep going, perhaps that’s when Godot actually shows up.