Another (Embarrassing) Day In The Life (Part 4)
I entered the dark theater a little anxious. After all, theater is not really my thing, and theater in a foreign language is REALLY not my thing. I went to the front of the theater where I met the 4 people that were "grading" me, for lack of a better term. I took to the stage not knowing what to expect.
After the usual conversation of why I'm living in a foreign country, where I'm working, and basically what I'm doing over here, we started. The main teacher guy handed me a newspaper article and told me to read it. Then he told me to read it like I'm mad. Now I'm sad. This went on for a while, and my lack of theatrical skill became apparent to all, myself first and foremost.
After the reading was over, Teacher Man gave me a ball and told me to do something non-ball with it, without saying a word. Okay, it's a...mirror! I play-acted looking in the mirror. "Okay, now do something else." Uh, it's a...cell phone! I play-acted a cell phone. "All right, do something else." Well, it's a...an egg! (I know, an egg is pretty lame, but come on. This was off the top of my head!) I cooked and ate my egg, then the teacher mercifully told me I could quit that junk.
Unfortunately, we weren't done. I got rid of the ball, and next he told me to act like I was reading the newspaper, and reading something very funny. But as I read, act like I just read something horrible happened to my family. What is that?!?! I did the best I could, laughing and then giving my pensive "I'm sad" stare off in the distance. Thankfully, that part passed as well.
Next he told me to sing a song. Okay, I can handle that. I belted out "On Christ The Solid Rock I Stand" (in english). Thinking that went pretty well, I was ready to get the heck out of there. But we hadn't come to the grand finale...
The teacher guy gave me some directions: "Okay, now we're gonna play some music, and you do whatever comes into your head. But you can't say anything." There I stood on the stage by myself, waiting for music to play so I could do who knows what. Fortunately, by this time whatever sliver of self-pride I had was long gone, so I went for it.
The first song was pretty grand and big-sounding, so I acted like I was in a war. I ran around shooting my gun and looking through my binoculars, I even stabbed a guy with my bayonet. After a lifetime of 2 minutes, the song ended.
Song 2 sounded like a good fight song, so I acted like I was in a protest. I locked arms and shouted junk (silently) and waved my fists. Then some tear gas came and I coughed and rubbed my eyes. This also, mercifully, passed.
Having completed their rigorous try out, I thanked them and walked away a new man. A smarter man. A wiser man. A man who has much more respect for the theater arts. And no, I didn't get the job.
