I miss the stage

Okay, this is another nostalgic entry. I didn't know when to write it, but this is a rainy Sunday and it is just a good time as any. I used to do acting, a long, long time ago. I started it by chance, the production of the French play at university was short of one actor to play the role of Purgon in Le Malade imaginaire. It was just a few lines, so I decided to go along. I got hooked. The next year I got a much more important role (in Ionesco's Rhinocéros, where I had to change into a rhino in Act II) and then I got the main part in La Farce de maître Pierre Pathelin the following year. I was pretty good, maybe even talented, enough to get some acting lessons in Montreal, where I learned that talent is one thing, but you need to work very hard to become professional. I didn't pursue my career, but I loved, loved, loved the experience and I often miss it.

In my life, I have been attracted by two performing arts: opera and acting. There is a pleasure about getting on stage and playing a character, making an audience connect to you emotionally that is exhilarating. I said acting is very hard, but it can really easy in some aspects. Memorising the lines was for me a piece of cake: you just have to read them often enough, and besides a character gets in your body, literally, so the lines come naturally enough, if you can get into the character (or, more accurately, if you can get the character to be in you). Now, getting the emotions right and interacting naturally with the cast, that's trickier. But in the end, when you are in front of an audience and it works, there is nothing more satisfying than that. And that is why I miss the stage.