![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kitchen_kinkCross-dressing is at least 85 percent attitude. Binding my breasts and applying a goatee helped me a lot and convinced the audience, but what does it mean to be a man?
What became crucial was what should be top priority when playing any character: what kind of man was I? I got to explore some things I might not have with a female character, like always being ready for a fight. Other things, I reexamined from a male perspective: Honor. Vengeance. Flouting authority, and alternately, love and fealty toward a superior.
And did I just imagine being taken more seriously?
The other fifteen percent is physical. Walk as if you have something hanging between your legs. Stand as if you deserve more space than you physically occupy. Keep the line between your fingertips and your forearm straight, and gesture from the shoulder, not the elbow. While you’re at it, make those gestures with fists or with fingers together. Be forceful, decisive, geometric. Tuck your butt. Hold your arms slightly farther from your body. Smile less often, and don’t drop your head, then raise your eyes. Meet gazes. And as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
catling said, make sure you wave your astral dick around.
Doing theatre subsumes everything else. This was more of a reminder than something I learned during this show. I directed a one-act last year and was in one the year before, but it’s a long time since I was involved, from start to finish, in a full-length, big show. For a few weeks I only had rehearsal one night a week, but soon enough it rose to two, then three, and during tech week and the run I was at the theatre nearly every day. I had almost forgotten how easily theatre people become theatre’s bitch, without hardly even tryin’.
There really are no small parts, just small actors. A magnificent newcomer to Theatre @ First (playing Leonato) spoke of every character having his or her own play. There’s a marvelous scene in Shakespeare in Love that illustrates this: describing the new play Romeo and Juliet, an actor confides, “So there’s this Nurse…” Not only does the play consume you just as much, timewise, with a bit part as with a lead, but the work of character discovery is nearly as intensive – if you give a shit. I had to know who Conrade was, even in silence, even when offstage.
Being a man for too long messes with my body. I should have started my period during tech weekend. I was a week late. On opening night, while dealing with extreme abdominal cramps in the green room, in full costume, a fellow actor asked what was wrong. I growled, in my deepest voice, “PMS.”
Being manly was fun, but by closing night I was so ready to be a woman again that I went home after strike to put on a minidress and fishnets for the cast party. Quick, I thought: somebody stare at my legs instead of my beard!
What became crucial was what should be top priority when playing any character: what kind of man was I? I got to explore some things I might not have with a female character, like always being ready for a fight. Other things, I reexamined from a male perspective: Honor. Vengeance. Flouting authority, and alternately, love and fealty toward a superior.
And did I just imagine being taken more seriously?
The other fifteen percent is physical. Walk as if you have something hanging between your legs. Stand as if you deserve more space than you physically occupy. Keep the line between your fingertips and your forearm straight, and gesture from the shoulder, not the elbow. While you’re at it, make those gestures with fists or with fingers together. Be forceful, decisive, geometric. Tuck your butt. Hold your arms slightly farther from your body. Smile less often, and don’t drop your head, then raise your eyes. Meet gazes. And as
catling said, make sure you wave your astral dick around.Doing theatre subsumes everything else. This was more of a reminder than something I learned during this show. I directed a one-act last year and was in one the year before, but it’s a long time since I was involved, from start to finish, in a full-length, big show. For a few weeks I only had rehearsal one night a week, but soon enough it rose to two, then three, and during tech week and the run I was at the theatre nearly every day. I had almost forgotten how easily theatre people become theatre’s bitch, without hardly even tryin’.
There really are no small parts, just small actors. A magnificent newcomer to Theatre @ First (playing Leonato) spoke of every character having his or her own play. There’s a marvelous scene in Shakespeare in Love that illustrates this: describing the new play Romeo and Juliet, an actor confides, “So there’s this Nurse…” Not only does the play consume you just as much, timewise, with a bit part as with a lead, but the work of character discovery is nearly as intensive – if you give a shit. I had to know who Conrade was, even in silence, even when offstage.
Being a man for too long messes with my body. I should have started my period during tech weekend. I was a week late. On opening night, while dealing with extreme abdominal cramps in the green room, in full costume, a fellow actor asked what was wrong. I growled, in my deepest voice, “PMS.”
Being manly was fun, but by closing night I was so ready to be a woman again that I went home after strike to put on a minidress and fishnets for the cast party. Quick, I thought: somebody stare at my legs instead of my beard!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-04-16 12:58 am (UTC)No kidding!
no subject
Date: 2008-04-16 02:47 am (UTC)Done
no subject
Date: 2008-04-16 01:19 pm (UTC)As for the smiling less, I think that goes two ways. That is, maybe guys do smile a little less overall, but there's also a different character to it. You can totally do a guy smile: a smirk and a wink. It's all about appreciating rather than being the center of attention.
Anyway, ya done good! Now you can go back to being an Amazon!
no subject
Date: 2008-04-18 05:52 am (UTC)http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368658/
no subject
Date: 2008-04-21 01:29 am (UTC)Theater of all kinds does have that universal trait -- it becomes an all-consuming presence in one's life. That can be bad, but it has it's upside, too, if it is the right theater. A mutual friend of ours use to say that the theater was her church -- it was where she found her life purpose, her supporters, her love, her like-minded community which cushioned her when things got hard.
Of course, if you already have your "church," then theater can keep you from many things near and dear. But it is so fun in bursts, isn't it?