"Line?"

I watched a few episodes of a program on a streaming service that was essentially monologues by fairly well known actors/tresses.  (Solos)

It took me a few episodes to connect to the fact that there was essentially one person carrying the whole show and lying in bed one night it made me think about the drama classes I took in high school, specifically because in Grade 12 (or maybe 11) I remember having to memorize and perform a monologue for class.

There was something magical in drama for me and as I think about it, I think it maybe has to do with populating a character that many before you have lived in.  Like someone wrote it.  Often someone well known / "famous" and very talented.  And you'd read those words, those lines, those directions and the images and feelings and stories would fill your head and you'd move in and live in that small slice of a world.

I can't remember anymore which monologue I did, just that one of the stage directions was "ice clinking in glass".*  Some old play, dark and likely depressing, and I was BEING that character like so many had done before me.  There is, in my mind now, as an adult, a very special magic to that joining.  You're living the words someone famous has put on paper.  And you're trying to become the version of that person they imagined.  And maybe a famous actress played that role in the theatre or on film, and there you were, in the dark, spotlight on you, in the drama room at the back of the school saying the same things she said, living that role just for a few moments.  Magic.

I sometimes wish I'd gone into drama/theatre.  I'm not sure it would have been a good choice for me, but who knows.  I wish I could replay some choices after high school and see what happens if I take a different path or approach.

I don't know if I was talented or good or what, but I apparently wasn't bad... but who knows.  Maybe drama teachers just say nice things? (Mine told my Mom, who went to pick up my certificate as I had already moved away, that he had hoped I'd go into drama in University.  I was pretty surprised to hear that at the time, and a little flattered, and maybe even sad, but I didn't.)

Do I want to try local theatre?  Not really.  Not now anyway.  I don't even know how hard I'd have to work to memorize these days anyway.  Stress and anxiety makes my brain a sieve.  Things just fall right out.  But part of me wishes I could find out I'm really good at embodying someone else and that I look good on stage or behind a camera.  But most of me isn't willing to risk finding out I'm not.

But I digress.  Not really the point.  The point was me sort of discovering for the first time just how magical acting really felt for me.  I don't think I'd really experienced the thought of a shared practice before.

*I thought about it and googled "Liz Taylor monologues" and it was the "Martha" monologue from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee  (I hope I wasn't as terrible as some of the videos I just watched! Gah!  But... are teenagers any good at acting, really?  Sigh.  Dreams shattered.  Oh dear.)

"Hey, hey... Where is everybody...? George? George? George! What are you doing? Hiding, or something? GEORGE!! Oh, fa Chri... Deserted! Abandoned! Left out in the cold like an old cat... HA! Can I get you a drink, Martha? Why, thank you, George; that's very kind of you. No, Martha, no; why I'd do anything for you. Would you, George? Why, I'd do anything for you, too. Would you, Martha? Why, certainly, George. Martha, I've misjudged you. And I've misjudged you, too, George.

WHERE IS EVERYBODY?!?

Daddy? Daddy? Martha is abandon-ed. Left to her own vices at... something o'clock in the old A.M... Daddy white mouse; do you really have red eyes? Do you? Let me see. Ohhhhhh! You do! You do! Daddy, you have red eyes... because you cry all the time, don't you, Daddy. Yes; you do. You cry allllll the time....

I'LL GIVE YOU BASTARDS FIVE TO COME OUT FROM WHERE YOU'RE HIDING!!!

(Pause.) I cry all the time, too, Daddy... I cry allll the time; but deep inside, so nobody can see me. I cry all the time. And Georgie cries all the time, too. We both cry all the time, and then, what we do, we cry, and we take our tears, and we put 'em in the ice box, in the goddamn ice trays... until they're all frozen (Laughs) and then... we put them... in our... drinks. (More laughter, then silence. She jiggles the ice in her glass.) CLINK! (Does it again.) CLINK! (Giggles, and repeats this several more times.) CLINK! ...CLINK! ...CLINK! ...CLINK! ...Clink?"