Challenging Your Pre-conceptions - Playing Someone You Hate in Amateur Theatre

Time...

I've taken time to reflect on last weeks post, and noticed it to be pretty aggressive. You see, it's hard to see the wood for the trees when you're so jaded from a particular part, as I was at the time...

Rest and Xbox, that's what I needed...

Having taken the time to pause and think about it, as much as I couldn't stand Mike as a character, I should be grateful for the opportunity. You see, as valid as the points I raised last time were, it's these sort of trials that make you a better actor.

I'd like to balance last weeks post this week with a new post about the benefits of playing this sort of character.

Improving your acting

As I said last week, playing characters like this is very challenging. You've got to work hard to get the motivations right, or the characters comes across as stock.

But surely this can only make you a better actor? Treat acting like a muscle, if you let it become stagnant, you'll never get better. If you constantly test it, stretch it, then you will get better at it. For all my complaining, this is the best way to improve as an actor. Testing yourself, pushing yourself to improve. it's how the best become the best. So instead of moaning, we should embrace this challenge and see it head on.

Being someone else

Lets face it, at the end of the day, acting is escapism. We act to be someone else. To imagine ourselves in someone elses shoes. And in order to do that we have to vary our characters. It can be very easy to become type cast, to be seen as the same person every time. So it's surely a benefit to play lots of different characters. To become someone else, to act in different ways to how you normally would, that is the natural. And this leads me nicely onto my last point...

It's fun!

How this point slipped past me the first time is beyond me, but here it is. I'll go slightly away from Mike here, to talk about one of my favourite characters, King Rat from Dick Whittington. 

This guy was an amoral, rude and aggressive schemer. Yet I had so much fun playing the character, doing things I would never do. 

Sitting back and seeing this, while Mike wasn't a lot of fun, he did often in "The Memory Of Water" sit back and wind the other characters up. Which now I look back on it, was kind of fun. His attitude to woman couldn't really be further from mine, but when you look at it from the point of view of comedy, there is a lot to recommend the part. It was fun to rile the other characters intentionally. Not something I try to do, but entertaining for the play.

Summing up

Amateur theatre is difficult at times. Playing challenging characters is one of the many challenges it throws up. Yet I can't deny it's fun. A lot of fun...

I'm off on holiday till 23rd October now. For more amateur theatre news, check out Codsall Dramatic Society on Facebook and Twitter, @CodsallDramSoc.