Breaking Character

I haven't written in a while, I know. The main reason for this, of course, being that nothing particuarly interesting has happened to me lately. I went to a fitting today for Anne Frank & Me, I slept over at my friend Natasha's house Sunday night, my other friend lost her job because her boss is a jerk so we took her out to lunch, my sister got another bird, and I finally saw Gone With The Wind.

Really, that's about it.

It's more than had previously happened to me, which was absolutely nothing, but it's still not really Blog entry worthy. I had thought of something I was going to write about the other day when I was out for the "boss is a jerk" lunch, and told myself to turn into a blog entry...but I can't remember what it was. Clearly, it was a lost opportunity to write some sort of literary brilliance that would be remembered for generations to come. Either that, or it was about Scarlett O' Hara. The world may never know.

There are, however, far, FAR worse things that could be happening to me than just being bored. Trust me, I know. Yesterday we did the scenes in the cattle car on the way to Auschwitz, and the scenes in the gas chambers, it was probably the most frightening thing I've done so far. It was fun, and it was challenging, but it was scary as hell.

Can you imagine being shoved into a crowded, hot, cattle cart, packed in with tons of people who you don't really like and have no desire to talk to, on the the way to God only knows where, while being guarded by loud, angry soldiers with guns? At that point, you're not even sure if you're going to live past the next day. They tell you you're going to a work camp, that you're just going to be doing some free labor, and you want to beleive it, you desperately want to beleive that's all that's going to happen to you, but you still can't shake those rumors from the back of your mind, those rumors that they take you into a large room at the camp, separated by gender, told to strip, told it's only a shower, and then the gas is turned on. No matter how sure you are of where you're going, no matter how comfortable, or how optimistic you are in the situation, that thought that you could be instantly killed at any moment never leaves your mind.

Now, imagine that, imagine all of that happening, and imagine being completely alone. My character spends most of the play alone, she's not well liked because she's so abnoxious, she doesn't really like anyone else, and by the time we're in the 1940's she's also starting to beleive she's better than the Jewish people, just because she's not Jewish. Needless to say, this doesn't grant her many friends. She talks about having a family, so we know she's got someone, but by the end of the play, during the cattle car scenes, and the gas chamber scenes, Christina (my character) appears to have...no one.

Most of the characters have a friend or a family member to huddle with, or cower with, but my character doesn't have anyone. She's completely alone, surrounded by people she doesn't like and doesn't understand, on her way to what I think she is assuming to be her death. Can you imagine that? It's terrifying. Or at least, it must have been. I'm only playing a part, I'm only showing my take on what happened, past events made slightly less brutal for stage, It's not like I'm actually there, no matter how much it may have felt like it.

Although, isn't that what acting is? Trying to imagine you're there, and to convey that image to the audience? The more you feel it, the more real it looks. Which is a good thing to a certain extent, makes it more entertaining and beleivable to the audience. However, there's always that fear of getting too wrapped up in a role, wondering if one day when the director says cut and you have to break character, you won't be able to. It's not a big thing, I've never met a single person in my life who's had trouble going back to being themselves, I've never had an issue with it. But then, who really knows?

So that's my life, mixed in with a bit of Chrissy/Christina's life. Intense stuff, huh? I think I'm going to go read some stupid teen-girl book that someone gave me, something completely mindless and happy to offset...well, you know. That.

Have a good night,

*Nelly*