Watching something on the goggle box tonight, a locally produced drama relating to the making of a drama series for tv, set me thinking about the noble art of pretending to be someone else. It's odd how often good acting here is equated to doing a lot of emoting, the kind of look at me I'm really acting approach. This has often been my experience in schools, sometimes in rather amusing ways.
I suppose the best example I can give is one that comes from a long time ago, more than two decades, but it has stayed with me. The school I was then in had just done a show which had gone down very well, featuring a number of genuinely talented performers. It's always invidious to talk about the 'best' actor or actress in anything, but one young lady struck me at the time as having an effortless ability to lose herself in a character. As so often with this kind of performer she was incredibly easy to direct, it simply being a matter of seeing what she would do next and letting her know if anything didn't quite work. It always did.
Some time after the whole thing was over a colleague, who by this time knew the piece extremely well, was commenting on some of those involved in glowing terms. The particular individual I had in mind seemed not to have taken her fancy, so I tentatively mentioned her expecting a bit more rapture. Instead I got a blank look, and then the puzzled comment, But she doesn't really act.
Precisely.
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