Tag Archives: acting

Typecast

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I’m watching a Jason Statham movie. Now this is a guy who has been typecasted as a specific kind of hero: The lead actor who will beat people up, shoot them, and either bend the law to his favour or be on the wrong side of the law and yet still be the guy you are rooting for.

Not everyone gets typecast quite as strictly as Jason, but watching this movie got me thinking… How do people typecast me? What do they expect from me? And do I deliver as expected?

I think so. I don’t think I surprise too many people. I’m pretty consistent, and don’t feel I need to be performative. Actors get typecast into roles and have to play those roles. Regular people just are the roles they become. Sure there are bumps along the way, and I certainly did a few uncharacteristic things in my teens and early 20’s, but since then I’ve been pretty much what people expect of me.

That’s not a bad thing. Well for some people it might be. As a simple example, some people are known to always be late, lateness becomes expected. There are more serious things that people might not want to be known for, but there are many, many things that you can be typecast as which are positive.

You can be loyal, kind, fair, reliable, loving, thoughtful, even playful. The question is, if you were an actor, how would you be typecasted? If you don’t like your own response to that question, maybe it’s time to play a new role.

No small parts

In the last 3 nights I’ve seen my daughter in the musical Carrie, a Broadway Across Canada presentation of Pretty Woman the Musical, and my daughter again in her final performance of Carrie.

I was reminded of the Konstantin Stanislavski quote: “There are no small parts, only small actors”. A stage performance requires every actor to play their part big or small. When they all do, the performance shines.

How many people are there where we play a small role in their lives? Are we playing small but important roles? Or are we just small actors? I think we have the choice to do either… and while it may not seem like a big role to us, it can be for the others we have a role with.

No small parts.

Closing night

My youngest daughter just had her last performance as Viola disguised as Cesario in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. I got to see 3 of her 5 performances and this was easily the best one. All the performers were having fun with their roles and the audience was lively and enjoyed the show.

Stage performances are something I’ve grown to love ever since meeting my wife, and I truly enjoy seeing my daughter on stage. But the show itself is such a small part of what goes into a play. Three months of rehearsals with full weekends given up, and arriving home after 10pm four days during the week led to these performances. My daughter said after the show, “I have no idea what I’m going to do with all this time now that I’m done.”

Live performances are like that: Hours and hours of work leading to a series of shows, and then it’s over. Getting to be on stage in front of an audience is the reward, but alas it is fleeting, and the show comes to an end.

An artist finishes with an art piece that lives on. A performer presents their art work on stage and then it is over, and only memories remain. The performance must come to an end, a closing night, a last time to share what hours of preparation went into. The play starts with the well known verse, “If music be the food of love, play on.” But for the stage performer there comes a closing night, and the music comes to an end.

On the stage

Last night my youngest performed her ‘Set of 5’. Her and 3 other classmates choose 5 songs to sing and do a patter in between them. The songs and stories are personal and raw. They can change the lyrics of songs to better tell their story.

There is something really special about watching aspiring singers and actresses open up and share a part of themselves on stage.

I don’t know how they do it? It’s so far off of what I’d feel capable of doing. First off, I really can’t sing. But beyond that, the idea of getting on a stage and confidently expressing such confidence and candour… it’s all too much for me.

They on the other hand, they shine when on stage. They connect with the audience, incite laughter and tears, and take us on a wonderful journey. All the world may be a stage, but it takes a special kind of person to get up on a stage and give a truly great performance.

Live performances

Last night we went to see a play called ‘Noises Off’ at the Stanley Theatre in Vancouver. It was a clever, funny play, but I didn’t enjoy it very much. Still, I was amazed by some of the performances. It was a play filled with physical comedy and I could see the commitment to character by the actors.

I do not enjoy singing or acting, but I’m in awe of those that love it and are good at it. I love to see performers thrive in front of an audience, to watch them feed off of the energy a good audience. When I watch my daughter act or sing I see her in her element. I see a performer.

The applause wouldn’t be enough for me to do the same performance night after night. I don’t understand the appeal. I don’t even like watching my favourite movies over again without a long gap measured in years. Live performances are things I will attend, but not anything I’d ever want to do.

I tip my hat to talented artists that feed off of a live audience. I think that our desire to entertain and be entertained is part of what makes us a unique and self aware animal. The fact that I don’t want to be an entertainer does not take away from my admiration of those that do.

All the world is a stage

I’ve done presentations to over 1,000 kids in a gym, and to more than 200 educators at once. I don’t mind getting in front of people to speak. However, give me just three lines to read in a play and I’m a mess. The idea of acting is scary to me. That I need to worry about what I’m doing to portray a different character as well as speak is all too much for me. I don’t like doing it, and part of that comes from feeling I’m not good at it, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of my performance.

This past week my youngest daughter was in a couple plays at school. I saw one of them twice and the other one three times. The kids did an amazing job! The plays where both comedies and the performers’ timing and delivery were excellent. This always impresses me, when I see young people putting themselves ‘out there’, on the stage, putting on a character that is nothing like who they really are.

Watching them reminded me of the Shakespeare quote from his play, ‘As You Like It’:

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

We are in some ways always on stage; always playing a part. I have shared this on my online profiles for well over a decade now:

A husband, a parent… An educator, a student… A thinker, a dreamer… An agent of change.

These are different parts of my life that I play. I do my best to be authentic in all of them, and I value each of these roles a lot. It is interesting that I don’t mind the role of presenter, but I fear the role as actor. I don’t mind one stage, while I loath the other.

I think this is partly why I enjoy going to a theatre, and why I enjoy watching my daughter in her plays. She gets to shine somewhere that I would struggle. She feeds off the audience where I would fear their judgement. She thrives on the laughter and applause where I would be embarrassed by it.

I can see that my daughter and I look upon a stage performance in completely different ways. This makes me think about how different my perspective must be to others perspective on life… on performing on Life’s stage. How does the idea of ‘family’ or ‘learning’ that we each have affect our performance? How does our mindset affect our skill set? My idea of acting is so different than my daughter’s. She thrives and I cower. What happens to parents that see themselves as incompetent or students that sees themselves as a stupid?

We are so different in the way we can view the same world. If I say ‘think of a dog’, one of you might think of a poodle, another might think of a pit bull; one of you might think of a pet another might think of a bite that created a lifelong fear. Our perspective is influenced greatly by our history, and while we share the same physical world, our minds construct significantly different realities.

What can we do to help those with stage fright when all the world is a stage?