My inspiration for this post came from my dear, longtime blogging friend, Debbie @ Musings by an ND Domer's Mom, who is not only a gifted...
Some of my longtime blogging friends may remember about two years ago, I shared a post about what it was like as a stage actor to receive both good and bad theater reviews.
You may have also remembered in that post, I spoke about a particular time in my career when I got a bad review and everyone else in the play got a good one. And the most painful part about this particular review was that I had the lead role.
Last week, I just so happened to click over on my Facebook profile (which I do like once every three months) and discovered that my name had been tagged in a note. When I clicked on the link, it brought me smack-dab, face to face with this theater review.
Yes….SOMEONE HAD POSTED THE REVIEW ON FACEBOOK!
OH. MY. GOD. Could you just die?
It was like a part of my past had suddenly come back to haunt me.
So, do you know what I did? I read the review again, just to see how I felt about it after all these years.
The play was called The Normal Heart.
Interestingly enough, reading it was rather therapeutic because I noticed two things.
I definitely felt myself cringe with memories of insecurity, when I got to the part that read….
“Ron Carnival plays Ned Weeks, an outspoken gay activist and writer who starts an AIDS support group in New York City at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. Ned is alarmed that his friends are dying. But mostly he is angry -- angry at the media for not writing more about AIDS, angry at the city's health officials and politicians for ignoring the problem, angry at members of the gay community who refuse to curb their promiscuity. Ned is at odds with everyone, including himself. He has never had a long- term lover, never really been in love. But then he becomes involved with Felix, a New York Times reporter, who is able to see the vulnerability beneath Ned's porcupine exterior. But the audience has seen Ned as a nice guy all along, because of the way Carnival underplays the role. He's not angry enough to support the script in the first act. Then, in the second act, he's too angry, railing on and on at friend and foe alike. There's no modulation and little variety in his performance. Others in the cast fare better…..”
Yet, seeing this review again also made me realize something else.
Now that I’m older and looking back, I realize this review was 100% correct. Really. I did portray the role that way. I was much younger and not seasoned enough, as both an actor and a human being to understand the complexities and levels to this character, so I floundered.
But, I also remembered some of the lessons I learned from this experience.
I learned that if I’m not willing to take chances and move into territories which are not familiar to me, then I will never grow.
I learned that as long as I try, there is no such thing as failure. Because I am only able to experience something at the level of growth I am at the time, but can use that time to grow for future experiences.
Which I did.
And lastly, after reading this review again, I learned to see truth……and accept it.
Have a beautiful weekend everyone!
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