THEATRE : ACT OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE

THEATRE - ACT OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE. I love theatre! I do! I love it so much that I spell the word theater the British way because it reminds me of the French spelling. I miss the West End like I miss champagne. But I have a confession to make: I hate reading plays. Don't tell that to my friends! The worst thing is, I write plays, but I hate to read them. I pretend I have read some classics because I studied classical theatre, but I really have no idea of what I'm talking about. I haven't read all the plays by Shakespeare even though I worship Shakespeare, and I studied at the RSC Summer School. I indulge in the thought that I have read all the plays by Oscar Wilde, because he is my idol, but I'm pretty sure I didn't read the Duchess of Padua, I just conveniently convinced myself I did because I saw the movie version. I almost quit acting school when we had to spend one full year on Chekhov. I couldn't stomach it. I remember reading all his plays in one weekend because it was compulsory reading. I am a master reader and can go through a book at the speed of light. I remember feeling vaguely nauseous at the prospect of a full year working on Chekhov, especially when I realized I had to read all his plays within the first month of the semester. During this particular cramming time, my head was spinning with all those Russian names I couldn't make sense of; all the characters and the plots were like a melting pot, in my mind. I couldn't have retold the story of ANY of the plays. I also am brain-dead when it comes to memorizing Russian names - can’t. I haven't read any of the great Russian authors because I can't, for the life of me, remember the key characters' name. I read ten pages of Dostoyevsky, The Idiot, and I felt like I needed an IV of a triple dose of Prozac. I haven't read Crime and Punishment, obviously, because the title says it all. I couldn't take the 3 sisters apart. I had to re-read their names over and over and still had no idea who was who. I couldn't understand the pet names or the diminutive referring to each one of them. Epic fail. I loved the parts, the characters, the writing, everything, but what I liked the most was acting. I love acting. I could act my way through the phonebook...if such a thing still exists printed on paper! I started to enjoy Chekhov when I played Chekhov. I also completely dug it when an enlightened theatre teacher told me that Chekhov meant his plays as comedies. Before I forget - Kenneth Branagh in Ivanov! OMG! I don't think I moved for the whole play; I was transfixed. I try to look the consummate intellectual, (“R. Wilde, posing as erudite.”), but I have no clue about the work of our major playwrights. To my defense, I have read all Racine and Molière, all Tennessee Williams, all Garcia Lorca and a big chunk of Shakespeare (my biggest issue with Shakespeare being the historical context that I have no grasp of. I got through the TV Series The Tudors thinking it would help me with the matter; OK, who am I kidding? - it was because of Jonathan Rhys Meyer!) - but I haven't read any IBSEN ( doesn't the name sound like a bookcase from IKEA?), zero; but I am familiar with his work through movies and staged performances. Reading Waiting for Godot was the literary equivalent of Chinese water torture. Thankfully, the ordeal proved to be worth it when I became the language consultant of an amazing American actor (RIP Fred Ward) who wanted to study it in French. This is really bad considering that I write plays and had most of them staged. (I can humblebrag because this is my blog). I love the process of writing plays but not the process of reading them. It probably works in my favor because I am very critical, and my worst fear is to bore myself. But the best way for me to judge whether my play is any good is through staged reading. I only know when I hear the words, and they are acted out. I go to see plays but I can't read them. I can only experience plays; the text only makes sense to me through the medium of acting and performance. Reading a play is like watching a p*rno flick for me, a secondhand experience deprived of any kind of pleasure.