Anti-Acting

In my current sphere, acting in an artform that is treated with dual suspicion and fondness by the "public", this grouping created by the theatre artist's removal of his/herself from others, for whom both feelings happen at the same time. So when you tell someone you are acting, the conversation generally follows a certain line, the assuption being that you are acting to be more famous. They start at Heath Ledger, and work downwards. "Are you in TV? Oh, the stage. Musicals? Oh, theatre. Which theatre? Oh, a small one. And what are you doing? Oh, it's a play. How interesting. I'd come, but..."

You can break this conversation, and I do, by telling people that you don't like acting. Which I don't. I find the scrutiny excruciating. It's not a journey I'm interested in. And from hanging out with actors, and seeing some of them act, I know that I'm also not good at it.

When you tell people you don't want to act, it raises a conundrum, due to the fact that embedded into the assumption that you are acting to become more famous is the desire to act. There's no such thing as a RESPONSIBILITY to act. Theatre; art; is optional. If you don't want to do it, just... don't do it. Go to the beach.



Likewise dismissed, my premise for this characterisation, that I will create a "bad copy" of Mike Daisey, that I will study his performances closely and try to replicate it, undoubtably failing, as a child does when it tries to imitate the father. Why choose this approach, if it is so doomed? The answer is in the difficult question of honesty. The question for the artists is always "What is the way I can be most honest?". The answer is not always clear. Often it begins with an admission that you do not know, and then proceeding to lie until the truth is accidentally found. Lie properly, lie well, and hope that the truth happens by accident.

And so I will go on stage becoming Mike Daisey, and there will be no method acting. There will be just me, wearing a t-shirt that says LIAR, with a pillow stuffed up it, and a Hawiian shirt. It is all a lie, but it will have to be transparent enough to put some distance between an audience and Mike's seductive words.