An Accentuated Performance

The third day of the course is devoted to casting for the extracts for the play that we will put on at the end of the course. It's Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, the well-known 1960s Broadway Hit (and film and television serious). [Did you know - as I didn't - that Simon wrote a female version 20 years later?] My heart sinks. I can do several accents, but I'm not confident with New Yorkese.

Casting consists of sitting round Tracy, the director, in a semi-circle, while she tries us out reading various parts. We will be producing highlights from the play, alternating the male and female versions, with some of the men doubling within a scene to make sure that we all have stagetime.

It's a painful process. The scripts are photocopied on both sides of the page and stapled in the corner, which makes turning pages complicated and performances frequently grind to a halt as one or other reader, with the help of their neighbours, tries to find the next line. And some of us are either not concentrating or have difficulty reading, and the performance again halts while they stare at the words on the page. By the end of the evening Tracy's professional smile and demeanour has disappeared behind a deep silent frown

As time goes by, I wonder why Tracy chooses some readers over others, asking builder Milt or strutting Sean to repeat parts again and again while leaving others waiting dumbly for their first chance to read. I get three roles at different times: the nervy Speed, the cop Murray and, in the women's version, Spanish Jesus. I think I do a good Speed - the accent is not bad - and I'm pleased with my Murray, but Tracy complains that I took him too slowly (despite the stage directions and her own comments that he's a ponderous policeman).

What really lets me down, however, as effectively as a lead balloon, is my Jesus. Surrounded by a cacophony of accents from real Italian to fake Brooklyn, from London to Lahore, my usually reliable comic Spanish (based partly on Speedy Gonzalez and partly on the fact that I speak the language quite well), wanders all over the place, at times emerging as Indian, which is embarrassing, given that we have one real Indian in the group, who has that accent, as well as a Brit of South Asian descent (whose accent is pure London). At the end of it, my ego wants nothing more than to retreat into a darkened room with nothing but Lapsang Souchong, cucumber sandwiches and several hours of Ealing comedies to alleviate its misery.

At the end of the evening, I'm given Roy the accountant, who, it seems, is the least consequential character in the cast. Ah well, an actor's life is full of rejections, but one of the advantages of age is to be able to ride over them, so I'm all smiles when half-a-dozen of us repair to the nearest pub and continue the process of bonding. Due reverence is paid to my previous experience at the School and the upcoming Shakespeare audition and the combination of cameraderie and whiskey work their reliable magic (I knew I could get to like Sean and have a pleasant conversation with Irina, even if it is complicated by the fact that she knows much about Shakespeare's plays except their titles in English).

By the time I go home all is well with the world and all I need is a modicum of sympathy from the Other Half, which I get, and after which I sleep soundly till morning.