lights, camera, awkward!

I recently auditioned for a theater production in London where I quickly learned that perhaps my talent is acting the fool rather than acting. I love to be on the stage and have had many lead roles in my day, but have never quite been able to get on board with the dramatic throw yourself across the stage acting.   

The workshop based audition first had us stand in a circle to do the usual warm up of rubbing ourselves and making wooing and cooing noises. This was followed by an exercise where we had to walk around the room making intimate eye contact with everyone we walked passed. The flyer invited all kinds of people - experienced or inexperienced and I’m pretty sure there were some perverts who were just there for the intimate eye contact, it just felt like we were all coming on to each other. “Tell a story with your eyes?” they said. Uhm, unless my eyes can do this...

I’m not sure I can do what you’re asking. It got worse when they told us to hold the eye contact for as long as we felt necessary. Awkward! You walk past a perfect stranger, stop them (without speaking), stare at them and then have to continue to stare at them until you or they walk away. "This is uncomfortable..."

    
A part of me felt like I was getting it but another part of me felt like I was trying to apologize with my eyes saying “Sorry we’ve never met and have to do this - I feel really silly about it.”  

The activities went on and they were never really clear. Did they want us to take their direction or take the minimal instruction they had given us and make it our own? It was all very cryptic and I felt like I was in that scene from Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

“Don’t do anything. Don’t try to surf, don’t do it! The less you do, the more you do. Pop it up! That’s not it at all. Do less. Try less. Do it again  - pop up. Nope, too slow. Do less, pop up. You’re doing too much. Remember don't do anything. Nothing. Pop up.”  

We did some improvisation and they got really excited and said “I feel like you are all developing into a character, am I right?!"

Everyone was like “Uhmm, yeaaaahhh, sure” (in a not really kind of way.)
Once these ‘characters’ developed it turned out mine was nervous and erratic. Most people chose happy (easy!) Using these ‘characters’ we had to read lines from songs. No lies, I got Lionel Richie Hello and had to read out “Tell me how to win your heart, for I haven't got a clue”. I forgot the second line so ended up just saying “Tell me how to win your heart” which came out sounding like Smeagol.   

At one point, they told us to get into groups and in one minute come up with one thing we had in common and then act that out with no words or sounds. That one thing would be our team name. Coming up with something we all have in common in one minute is not an easy task. The only thing we really had in common (which I’ve only realised now) is that we were all girls but ‘team vagina’ isn’t exactly optimal. We figured out that we all worked at desks so we became ‘the desks’, which is just a rubbish team name. 

The improv was intense. I've never been a fan of group work and it's about 10 times worse with actors. It is always a very bossy and dramatic discussion. By the time you do the scene you're so annoyed with each other you couldn't possibly relate to one another on stage (or maybe you could if you're a good actor?)

All in all it was an interesting experience. Whether or not all the cryptic mumbo jumbo makes an actor I'm yet to confirm. I'll leave you with this - a classic improvisational scene by Chris Lilley poking fun at the flamboyancy of drama.