I am an actress. Well, kind of. I didn’t really get to act in many productions due to having to work on the weekends, but I did letter in Drama in high school and minor in Theatre in college, and I think that counts for something.
I’m not the usual drama-freak though. Most the kids on the team back in HS were of the attention-seeking variety – they didn’t care how they preformed or even what they were doing, they just wanted all eyes on them (pretty much all of the time, too). I’m not like that. I’m shy. And quiet. But I loved theatre, and when I got on stage it felt exhilarating.
However, I don’t like to go in unprepared. I don’t like people to see my attempts and screw-ups, my line-forgetting and all-out frustrated crying. That’s me who’s having trouble. When I’m performing, I can take the criticism, because it’s the character. It’s the character who needs to work on her sultry voice or depictions of anger. Even though I feel the character is a part of me, that every character is within me and we share some of the same qualities, it is still a step back – a step back from reality. A step back from me.
I can’t show the real me. My characters can walk on stage and people can judge them. They will judge them. And that’s okay, because the audience only knows what the character portrays in that piece or production. The character is what the audience sees. So if something isn’t quite right or is missing, that’s a problem, and I can acknowledge that fact. But the audience, the world, doesn’t know me. What they see in one single instance isn’t all of me, but only a tiny, little piece.
Yet this will be judged, and criticized, and I will be labeled for that one instance and thought of always in those terms. So I hide. If others do not see me, the real me, they cannot judge me and my idiosyncrasies.
They cannot call me crass if they never hear me swear, or rude if I don’t say mean things aloud. They won’t think me strange if I don’t express my ideas or say anything that would denote me as different.
But I get sick of it – I get sick of hiding. Some days I don’t want to play a character any more; it would be so much easier just to be myself. I try not to lie about who I am, but one might say I do so by omission, and I don’t want that. I am tired of keeping to the shadows and staying silent,… but I am still afraid of the light.
Part of me wants to be up on stage in that spotlight. As a child, I didn’t care so much. I’d wear bright-colored clothes. I’d tell people my ideas. I guess that was before I understood or felt the pressure that can come from society. I want that freedom again. I do, but I am afraid. Maybe I can just stick in a toe, and test the waters.
So this is me, trying to make my way back from behind the curtain. I’m just not ready for that spotlight quite yet.