Did She Like It?

On Saturday afternoon I left the first day of the acting course early to audition for a role in an upcoming production of As You Like It. Prepare a Shakespeare speech, the advance information said, from any play. Afterwards we'll ask you to read some parts with other actors. So I revised my Shylock, the "Signor Antonio, many a time on the Rialto" speech that had wowed fellow-students, the director and myself on my last course and prepared to give it. What happened? Faced with the steely eyes of the casting director, the speech vanished from my memory, as most of the emotion and meaning that went with it.

I suppose I was suffering from Stage Fright or Nerves. My primary emotion was confusion, as in a dream when one wanders into a situation that one is totally unprepared for. Should I apologise? Ask for a break? No, I told myself; The Show Must Go On, so I stumbled through the piece, aware that I was missing lines and that there was more recitation than reality in my performance. The CD made no comment, but handed me some lines and asked me to read Oliver to another candidate's Orlando. I went out, met him and started to rehearse. Then I was given another set of lines: could I read Corin to an actress's Touchstone. I wasn't flattered - I was the only other male around - but I was pleased that I was getting another opportunity to show what I could do.

Back in again to strut the part of the evil elder brother. I felt good about it. Put the scripts away, the CD said, confront each other physically and wordlessly as brothers. I felt awkward; Orlando was a foot smaller than me, but we glared at each other and paced the stage in hostility. Was that enough to satisfy her? It didn't satisfy me. Thanked and sent out again. Called back in again. This time as Corin, the shepherd. Could I do it in a Scottish accent?  Yes, and it seemed to me I read that piece even better than the last. Something in my reading struck the CD. Would I read one of the speeches directly to her? I did. Did she like it? I have no idea.

I don't expect to get the part. But I enjoyed the experience and I learnt two valuable lessons: that my mind can unexpectedly lose its focus and that an audition can require the kind of improvisation that I have only begun to take on board. I came home in a state of tension, but it is the tension I have come to associate with acting and which makes me even more convinced that this is what I want to do.