One for the Rudes and for other actors: Showing my father "A Midwinter's Tale"

[thehefner]

So, I showed my Dad the film "A Midwinter's Tale." He didn't like it. One of his main complaints? "I've been a performer all my life, John..." (he was a legendary concert oboeist for over 30 years) "And I've never seen anybody act like this. I can't believe that actors are really like this."

If I had been eating something, I would have surely choked on it. Furthermore, this is a man who, just because he's been a performer for 30-plus years, knows everything (or at least, more than *I* do) about performers, and he won't believe me when I insist that actors and musicians are two very different beasts.

Think back, ye who've seen "A Midwinter's Tale," to all the moments of backstage lunacy. The bizarre casting decisions. The cast of eccentric nutballs. The conflicts in vision ("DON'T DO ACCENTS!" "I'M PLAYING FOUR DIFFERENT CHARACTERS, FOR GOD'S SAKE, THEY NEED TO TELL THEM APART!!!"). The breakdowns that almost result in the self-termination of the show. The speeches, schmaltzy and inspirational, that sound sappy and scripted and over-dramatic. The spats. Oh, the spats.

"I can't believe actors are really like this." Oy, that's a line for the ages. I don't know what the stereotypical musician is like (a stern prima donna with a disdain for anything he/she deems to be crap? No, that just sounds like all artists in general). Someone very close to me, an actress herself, once revealed with a strong sense of time-worn exasperation that I was an overly-dramatic person. That everything that I said, especially the times when I had more to say, sounded like it had been scripted. She hated that.

Hell, girl. Hell, Dad. If an actor isn't overly-dramatic, who the hell else would be?

Comments

i've always said...

[chickenhat.livejournal.com]

You can't have a psycho-drama without a few psychos.

actor/musician differences

[surrealname.livejournal.com]

there aren't many, they're both self centered shits. they're also both really pretentious. the basic characteristics of all performers are the same, a need for attention, being self centered, the differences lie in the individual person.

[tazira.livejournal.com]

I've worked with a couple of different types of performers over the years, musicians unfortunately not really being one of them (unless you want to count my late 80s heavy metal days in there, which I don't recommend, as we were SHITTY musicians). Dancers have their own dramas, but they're mostly centered around vicious competition. I never had another dancer friend in sixteen years of doing it. Dancers compete in everything, really indescribably nastily.

Actors are an entirely different beast. We might compete for roles, but I've never seen such a competition get nearly as ruthless as it would for dancers. And once we're on stage, it's all about cooperation, and the better you look, the better the show looks and the better I look. We might have our dramas, but creatively we exist to build each other up.

We laugh at Midwinter's Tale because it rings unbelievably true to us. If your father avoided those dramas and stereotypes as a musician, bully for him, but I've acted for nearly as many years as your father was a concert oboeist, and I can tell you there's a reason for those stereotypes, and the dramas do exist.

Ummm... Yeah.

[eldridgeprime.livejournal.com]

Tazira is quite right. Every field has it's own kind of personality Drama.

I have had it with my metal band (3 year life), and the stalled attempts with: my industrial goth bands (multiple attemps at about 3 months each), my Irish celtic bands (2 attampts at 3 months each) and my classic rock band 6 months). They were almost all flakes of one kind or another, and with some, I flaked out too. Though usually after getting sick of other people flaking.

Drama happens with every environment where there is politics. There is politics when you have more than one person. It's just that some of the time, like between good friends, it's completely civil and doesn't feel noticable.

Your dad might have actualyl kept out of the politics in pro orchestra stuff. I see some people do that. They don't play the game, they don't care who likes them or not, they just want to do their thing and be left alone. Sometimes those folks get so removed from it that they my become blind to it's existence. Also, there is a huge difference in psyche between pro classical musicians, who must be disciplined, able to shut things out and a bit reserved. Actors or quite likely usually the opposite.

Feel free to tell your dad that I said he really has no idea what he's talking about. Wish we could record the shit that went on with the last acting troupe that I worked with. Some of them, particularly the production and direction staff, were really cliquish and crappy folks.

Oh, and: "Someone very close to me, an actress herself, once revealed with a strong sense of time-worn exasperation that I was an overly-dramatic person. That everything that I said, especially the times when I had more to say, sounded like it had been scripted. She hated that."

I was accused of the EXACT same thing by a psycho chick from that group. I think that overly impulsive and irrational people are freaked by other folks that are also emotional and impulsive but know it and try to temper their reactions. Probably because the first groupp has figured enough of themselves out yet to know what they do or how they should handle it.

[erzebetbathory.livejournal.com]

i feel i must stick up for classical musicians, somehow, though i don't really want to get too involved because i have been known to be overly-dramatic as well. (and i'm not an actor ;) but i play four different insturments, have eight of my own, and musicians are cool... enough. like how i might be "cool" in my own demented way.)

but somewhere deep down inside, i think i would make a pretty good actress... maybe someday. but for now i'll stick to what i know :)