Let Me Entertain You

         I was sitting at a table, sweating not only from the hot lights but the sheer terror of failing as well.  I was at my first acting class in New York City doing an improvisational exercise with my scene partner.  And we were failing.  Miserably.  Our teacher instructed us to improvise a conflict and assigned a sweet girl to be my partner.  Very sweet.  She was a titmouse, and it’s hard to fight with Pollyanna.  But we gave it a good shot.  We were to be a young married couple and were fighting over whether to stay home for the weekend and paint the house or go out with friends.  She, the responsible one, wanted to stay home and paint.  Me, being the loutish husband who liked going out with his buddies for beers, wanted to go out with my buddies for beers.  We were doomed from the start.  Considering this was my first acting class and first improvisational exercise, and considering that I’m eons away from a loutish husband who likes to spend time downing beers in a sports bar, I voiced my concern.

            “Shouldn’t we start with something a little less difficult?”

            “Don’t be silly,” my teacher yelped.  “You’re an actor.  So ACT!”

            It was only the first time I heard him say that, and already it was too much.

            Suzanne and I were the fifth couple to go on that night, so I expected our improv to last somewhere around five minutes, judging from others who went before us.  A few were good, a few were bad.  I knew I wanted to succeed at this, but would I be able to forget about the audience?  Yes and no.  I was nervous when we began but soon forgot about them until we started to falter.  I presented a valid argument for waiting on the paint job, and Suzanne couldn’t really find fault with it.  She just sat at the kitchen table peeling carrots for dinner.  I wanted fireworks and melodrama and screaming and throwing things.  Yet, we ran out of things to argue about.  It was painful.  After time was called, we were instructed to sit in the “hot seats.”  The chairs at center stage where we received our critique from the teacher.

            “Craig, have you ever been really mad?” he asked.

            “Um, yeah.  Many many times.”

            The conversation proceeded for the next twenty minutes where he probed and dissected my anger and how I show emotion.  Apparently, Suzanne was believable as a carrot-peeling WASP who just wanted some quality-time with her new husband.  However, my anger and conflicting emotions must have fallen flat somewhere between “Action!” and “Cut!”.  And he wasn’t letting up.  He kept on and on, delving deeper into my emotional angst until I felt like I was in a psychotherapy session that was being telecast for sixteen up-and-coming actors.  One of whom—the ex-football player from Nebraska—I had a huge crush on.

            “Do you know how hard this is for me?  I’m passive-aggressive!  I’d rather take a goddamned nap than argue about paint!”

            “Well, you’ve got to push through that!” my teacher exploded.  “Or you’ll NEVER be an actor!”

            I signed up for this class because of that very reason.  I wanted to be an actor.  Still do.  And I was doing quite well in the first couple of classes.  The teacher was dry and boring, but he had worked with Uta Hagen and some of the greats, so I assumed he knew of what he spoke.  I even got some of the loudest laughs in the room one night.  We were in small groups.  Someone started the exercise by “creating” an object out of thin air.  This “object” was passed onto the next person who took it and created something entirely different.  I thought it the lamest game I’d ever seen, but I played along.  I got belly laughs from my group when I took the guy’s “necklace” beside me and transformed it into a doobie I was taking a hit from.  However, the ethereal lesbian beside me upped the ante and took my marijuana cigarette and made an eight-ball of coke. 

            So I was shocked by my fall from grace.  I left class after the improv vowing never to return.  But acting has always been in my gut.  As a little kid growing up in Alabama, I loved a production.  I had zero access to any kind of real theatre, so I loved the movie musicals.  I would play along with the television in my bedroom, creating my own character and singing along with the actors.  And when my grandmother showed me “Gypsy” with Rosalind Russell and Natalie Wood?  Oh Lord.  I pranced around the house for a month stripping off anything I could get my hands on.  I would take one of Mom’s nightgowns and snap it in place around my waist.  Mom had the ugliest high-heeled shoes, so I usually just wore hose and stood on my toes.  On any given day, you could find me in our living room, “Let Me Entertain You” blasting at top volume, sashaying around the room and flinging off the nightgown to reveal my Superman underoos.  I thought Wonder Woman was more appropriate, but Dad had to draw the line somewhere. 

            I constantly entertained the walls of my bedroom.  Not only would I create characters and act alongside my television, but I also choreographed dance routines.  I rehearsed them until my legs were sore.  I grew tired of using my fist as a microphone, so I began to use a hair brush.  My dad was exasperated.  On numerous occasions, he caught me cheering or singing or doing toe-touches while wearing his oversize t-shirts with a belt cinched at the waist.  I would either get a spanking or worse.  The dreaded drive around the block.  We loaded into his S-10 pickup and drove around the block at a snail’s pace, and I actually had to sit and listen to him.  I always found it odd that the only times he wasn’t at the Country Club playing golf was when he was criticizing my performances and taking away my pom-poms.

            “Think about what would happen if the boys in your class found out you were dressing up in those clothes,” he offered.  “They would make fun of you and tease you all the time.”

            “Would they tease me if they knew I pretended to be Wonder Woman?”

            He almost wrecked.

            I was determined not to back down from this acting teacher.  Or from any of my classmates.  After a few days of pouting and doubting my self-worth, I picked myself up by the bootstraps determined to improve my improv.  I spoke with Suzanne on the phone and gently suggested that she get angrier.

            “What has really pissed you off before that you could use?” I asked.

            “Well, my last boyfriend announced after two years that he was gay.”

            BINGO!  We had us an improv! 

            The next week, I arrived at the studio on Bank Street a little early.  I watched from across the street as the other students walked in.  They walked in by twos, sometimes by threes.  How did they get to know each other so quickly?  And why wasn’t I in their little groups?  I started to become paranoid.   Did they hate me?  Laugh at me behind my back?  What if I suck again?  The doubts came in waves.  As I was about to walk away and go to the McDonald’s I just passed, a fierceness gripped me.  I wasn’t just doing this for me.  I was doing this to show all the people in my life that I could, indeed, be creative and artistic and could act outside the realms of my bedroom.  All the people who said ‘no’ and ‘stop’.  All the way back to my dad.  And I didn’t walk away.  I walked right up to the door, and I paused.  With my hand on the door, I paused.  But what if they did think I sucked?

            Ten minutes later, I was sitting at McDonald’s eating a Big Mac.  Still dreaming of becoming an actor.