Performing Without Puking

            I have terrible stage fright. I have hated speaking in front of people since kindergarten when I puked on my teacher when she told me to draw a circle on the board. But as much as I’ve hated of public speaking, I’ve loved performing. I like dressing up and pretending to be someone I’m not; someone who’s not afraid of speaking in front of people. When Literature and Performance was introduced as a class, I was excited. I could act in front of a small group of people who wouldn't use what I did in class against me. It was a forum for constructive criticism. I watched performances from my classmates and saw how they adopted new personas. I learned their tricks and shared some of my own. Putting on a performance requires more than a script and some actors. It’s about tone and body movements, about loaded silences and heavy sighs. I’ve learned a little about the complexity of performing and the difficult decisions of a screen writer. I’ve learned how to put on a pretty good performance, if I do say so myself, and have watched others do the same.

When we performed those small scenes from a Curious Incident, I saw the differences that a look between Roger and Christopher’s mother over Christopher’s head could make a scene, how Judy’s tone brought new life to stationary words on a photocopy. I worked with a group that I otherwise wouldn't have thought to work with when writing our balcony scene adaptations. I developed a love for screenwriting. It put to work skills from past English classes that I hadn’t bothered to review. I put words on trial for their lives (this was ad-libbed from a Francine Prose’s Reading Like A Writer, a book hated by the entirety of my sophomore English class). I got opinions from my partners on word choice, on cutting and adding, and on delivery. I like to be the boss, which is probably obvious by now, but working on performances and getting invaluable input from the people who I worked with, showed me the importance of listening. A performance is rarely put on by one person. Even if only one person’s acting, there were others behind the scenes who helped to create it, to present it. Performing in class has opened my eyes( well, I guess, ears) to the importance of input from the people you’re working with and those viewing it.

Watching other people perform made me look for the nuances in a performance. After creating my own scene, I knew they were present and I was excited to look for them. She twirled her hair or he rested a hand on her shoulder. These small things were important things, especially for the person that added them into the script or did it off the cuff on stage. You grow to appreciate how the small touches affect the bigger picture. The scene I picked to perform directly from Romeo and Juliet is staged around a chair. For the majority of the scene, one of the characters is sitting down, so gestures between the two actors and a small hand squeeze or two are used in place of movement. I’ve grown a new appreciation for these subtle additions and applaud any use of them effectively.

Good performances require good scripts. Unnecessary words must be cut, but not too many as to sacrifice the story’s clarity. Good performances have actors that deliver well. They must be able to enunciate and project, but also to use their tone of voice to set the scene, to present a feeling for the audience. Good performances require good people. Those working on the scene must communicate and must never push another to hard or to criticize too harshly. They must remember that they are equally as important to the turnout of the scene. I don’t have much difficulty writing scripts or staging them, but I often worry that I’m being too critical of the other people’s line delivery or their choice of movement. I like things a certain way, but some performances go wrong or don’t turn out exactly as I had envisioned. I need to work on calming these perfectionist tendencies, and I think this class is helping me do that. I’m working with my friends whose opinions I trust and respect. They help to move a little outside of my comfort zone and to more fully immerse myself in a scene.

I’m still afraid of public speaking. My legs shake and my stomach tumbles. I rush through my words to get them out as fast as I can, so I can just be DONE with it. I’m still afraid, but I’m also more confident after this class. I’ve developed a new passion for writing scripts and hopefully I’ve become at least a little less bossy. Performances are complex. They require teamwork and dedication, talent and a little bit of luck. But watching these scenes and performing my own, has given me more of an appreciation for what my friends can do and of what I can do, despite wanting to puke.