Saturday, September 27, 2008

A few beats short of having enough (an actor-mover's rant)

I’ve tried. We’ve tried. God knows I have. God knows we have.

I don’t know how many hours I’ve spent trying to humor and help others during rehearsals (because it beats doing nothing during rehearsals), how many Pantas workshops I’ve missed (God knows how much I love my writing organization), how many nights I’ve had to rush so many other requirements for other subjects because I have to walk to the apartment all the way up in Faculty Village every night, dead-tired from the fatigue of doing everything in order to not reach the point of doing nothing. How much time, that one truly irreplaceable resource, I and so many others have wasted.

To date, I have only asked to miss three rehearsals (not counting the other productions I and several of my co-actors dedicated to because they actually produced results): two were because of important Pantas workshops, and the third was this morning, because I made a promise to accompany someone home around lunchtime. So I ask him if I can leave early. He replies with his usual “kailangan kita sa rehearsal” line. I insist that I have to leave early, and he replies with “mag-run lang tayo ng isang beses”. In short, he’s asking for just one hour. Just one hour. This after he comes an hour late, just a week or so after telling the actors off for tardiness, after announcing that he will have to be much stricter with punctuality “from now on”. The worst part, though, is when he looks at you with that disappointed look of his, as if you haven’t attended any of his daily rehearsals at all, as if you have no idea as to what you have to do when the play date finally comes. Not like the others. No, I don’t have to drop names, those idiots know who they are.

But something inside me tells me to be gullible for the nth time. So I play along for the next few minutes, asking him between rehearsed movements. By my fourth request, he’s too busy with rehearsing the chorus he literally loves playing with that he either doesn’t hear me anymore, or he does a real good job of acting deaf. That was the last straw. I get off the linoleum, pack my bag, and walk out of the entire farce without saying a word. And he was too busy playing with the chorus to notice me. So much for that.

On the way home, I text Tisa, and hear that he’s into another one of his arguments with the chorus people. Some of them are naturally bitchy anyway (again, they know who they are), I tell myself. I’m surprised, though, when I hear that this time it’s with Tinay, a person who is so tolerant and who smiles so often that I can only imagine what pushed her over the edge to speak up against him. Heat, hunger and fatigue can do that to people.

Most of you may see this rant as making a big fuss out of something as insignificant as walking out of a rehearsal, which is not an uncommon phenomenon. But for me it’s so much more than that. It’s the idea of, if only for a moment, losing all faith in an individual’s credibility, something that more impulsive and spontaneous people may do much more than walk out of.

Too bad, at the start of this semester I expected the most from two subjects: Creative Writing class and Acting class. At least one of them didn’t disappoint. Clue: It has something to do with writing. Stanislavsky, Artaud, Strassberg, Brecht, Aristotle and Grotovsky rang in my ears. Too bad none of us have gotten the chance to know them better. Maybe Yapo was right, maybe the secret was lowered expectations. On second thought, nah.

But I know how gullible I am. I know that tomorrow morning, I will be at the DL Umali Auditorium, doing my movements and helping others with theirs because it beats warming up for an entire day of sitting down and doing nothing in a stifling-hot theater. Might as well see this farce to whatever end it arrives to.

posted by Ocnarf @ 7:54 PM   2 have spoken

The Keeper

Franco Regalado

"Scriptito ergo sum."

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