Acting Ability

'From the start it has been the theatre's business to entertain people.It need no other passport than fun.' Bertolt Brecht.

The first week of rehearsal and our director shows us the theatre. It may be in Stockwell, (not London's most glamorous of areas) and a council funded venue but to a recent drama school graduate it's one step closer to The Globe, The Albert hall or even The Palladium! It's cold, it's unfamiliar and the part I am playing, the expedition of my talent has finally dawned on me, but then when I open my mouth and voice a line from the stage and hear it come back to me with the most perfect of acoustic, I am home.

The question begs how I found myself here and honestly I know I should, but cannot remember when I decided to become an actress. I know I was young and very determined. Help and advice were offered to me at school but in all honestly I sought it out myself. Never being someone to wait for things to happen and preferring to seek them out, I took it upon myself to discover the accredited schools after completing university. University a decision I am very glad I made. My theatre studies degree has enabled me to be an actress not just of skill but of knowledge, and thus the ability to command a rehearsal room and be someone of respect and commitment to those within it.

As you continue to read this it would obviously be worth mentioning that I am partially sighted and thus a partially sighted actress. My eye disease has left much deterioration to my sight but am glad to say has not left to many limitations upon my life and chosen career. It has however forced me into a life slightly unpredictable as unfortunately the disease is. I often wonder if there is a sub conscious correlation between my sight and becoming actress as both are very volatile and uncertain entities. This unpredictability thus has to be controlled and my day to day life is altered. My day to day life is that of maintenance and upkeep, I am ensuring the safety of the sight I have. Three years ago the very dark side of the disease showed itself and I lost my sight for several months. I felt from that experience I knew what hell must be like. It was the not knowing that took the most affect-whether my sight could be restored or not and to what capacity. Therefore I have become fearless in my acting if anything I am looking for more and more thrilling work. Maybe to test myself emotionally but I can think of no better way to apply a dark experience and turn it into something rewarding. I was incredibly fortunate to come out the other side and regain my sight but now having accomplished a great deal in the last few years, I have so much more to lose and therefore will be stringent every day so I know I have done everything I can.

However I never felt an actress until attending drama school. The Drama Studio offered me the refinement and encouragement I needed. It developed in the sense of knowing my casting and where I stood in the industry and thus how I am marketing myself today. It was an old Edwardian house in the West London suburbs and had an atmosphere of tranquility and nervous energy which I still fondly remember and miss today. It was a safe place to be creative and over four floors with huge windows which, on a good day, filled our spaces with natural sunlight and every day you knew you where part of something special. These times are precious and they can be few and far between in the 'real' world.

More importantly I discovered the real reason I became an actress. You only have to open the papers to see at some point an actor has spoken out about a political topic or an injustice in the world. That is what we are; a voice the people. We have the talent to command the stage or screen and thus it is a privilege and an obligation to bring a voice to what really matters in the world we live. This is something within my generation of talent that I feel has become lost. It is an obligation to make sure what we do has relevance, not only to entertain but educate. Whether it a film, soap or TV box set actors offer comfort and inspiration to the everyman's daily life. It may be in the form of simply allowing someone who has had a bad day to laugh out loud or it may be cathartically to comfort someone at a time of sorrow. This will always be a consideration when I take on a role no matter how small or trivial.

This takes me to my first week of rehearsal for Patrick Wilde's Exposure. For the short time I have been out of drama school I have had some great luck on the stage but the week long run of the play Exposure has set the standard for my future work. Exposure was an exciting premiere and offered me a role which was, as described by my best mate 'mouth watering for a young actress'. I played a PR guru with more handbags than morals and the devils advocate of the play. Inhabiting Rebecca Sharp allowed me to discover my casting and how I want to pursue the industry, and I will do it hopefully with as much gravitas and feistiness as her. Characters as well written as Rebecca Sharp also allow us to discover new and exciting things ourselves. How we approach love and relationships, money or simply a question of our morality. Rebecca was a hard woman who had made great sacrifice for her success. The most poignant discovery I made in regards to this was what sacrifices do we make, and at what cost for Rebecca was it that she would experience loneliness for as long as she had success. A lesson I am glad I did not learn first hand but yet did through the eyes of my character

However it is all well and good what us as actors experience but what do the audience. For this I will never really know but can give one example of this which will remain with me throughout my career. One scene of the play was set on a balcony above the auditorium of the stage and lit as if Rebecca and her nemesis, but also ex lover Scott, were standing above the Thames looking down. The scene ends with Scott reminding Rebecca of her inevitable loneliness and as the lights faded down on my face and I felt the heat from the lamps disperse, a small voice in the audience turned to there respective friend and whispered 'She still loves him." An audience member had felt so strongly about what they saw and so moved they had to say it out loud to there friend; a truly remarkable and rewarding experience for an actress. "The audience brings a reaction out of you that elicits another kind of reply and that's why its always moving. It never stands still. And you never actually get it right and sometimes it gets better and sometimes it gets worse. But the actual business of doing it is whats exciting. Orson Wells said that the allure of live theatre is that this could always be the night that the actor falls off the wire."-Judi Dench interviewed by Richard Eyre for Talking Theatre

Rejection and casting.

'Art especially the stage, is an area where it is impossible to walk without stumbling. There are in store for you many unsuccessful days and whole unsuccessful seasons, there will be great misunderstandings and great disappointment.you must be prepared for all of this, accept it and nevertheless, stubbornly, fanatically follow your own way." Letter from Anton Chekhov to his wife.

Two subjects I get often asked about are rejection and casting. Two areas of real intrigue to those outside the industry and ones survival in this very competitive industry relies upon how you deal with two aspects; rejection and discovering your casting. Let's begin with rejection.

Every job has rejection but with acting it will happen more frequently. It's just the way the system operates and unless someone comes up with a new and better one it will continue to. One gets a job and doesn't know, unless you are incredibly successful and sort after, when the next will be. Through the audition process directors will reject you for a part. Rejection is entirely the wrong word as it is word that hurts and one takes personally - never take rejection personally! It is simply that you are not right for the role and having been miscast in a play, it is something one should be grateful for. There is nothing worse than finding yourself deep into a rehearsal process and knowing you are not right for this role. Although the industry may appear cold, and that of the audition process, trust me when I say directors and casting directors have your best interest at heart, despite there often frosty demeanor, they really do.

This brings me onto casting. A big mistake I have seen when entering the professional industry post drama school or university is to not know your own casting. By this I mean how you come across to the world and your style of acting. This is not simply how you look but your demeanor and body language will define you as an actor. Some are type cast and some are characters actors which can inhabit very specific roles. This is something that you will often be taught as part of your training and we do not realise how we come across to other people, and that outside perspective from a drama school tutor is vital. For instance my school quickly cast me in gritty roles i.e. prostitutes, heroin addicts and a wench in Macbeth. This in some part is where my casting lies. However they also challenged me with roles of innocence and inward emotion which thus extended my range. Therefore do not limit yourself to a casting similar to you, but also be careful what roles you audition for, and it's a sure fire way to avoid rejection. If you know you're right for the role then the director who you're auditioning for will too.

Acting is a world of play. It excites us as actors and an audience as we are part of something bigger than ourselves. A good actor can translate human emotion to an audience and make them feel part of something they would never experience in our day to day lives. Being an actor is ultimately fun, a world of dress up and accessing areas of the human psyche which no other job offers and that alone is a thrill. But I am sure young people with sight issues who are reading this are wondering how do we balance our minds ambitions with our body's limitations. For this I have no answer only experience.

The first week of rehearsal for my last play Exposure my eyes let me down as they so often had. I was high on my talent and luck playing a role of such excitement it seemed too good to be true and it was as if my body had to remind me. I continued my rehearsals and entered the room with my director and fellow actor with my confidence in the toilet. I explained it was sore and apologized for its appearance and in all the right ways they didn't care. They did not define me by busted eyes but that I had come to the rehearsals and delivered the same professionalism and energy I would having had two fully functioning eyes. With there understanding I felt contentment, not lonely anymore. I am not a disability to them and receive no pity.

This experience can only affirm that we must find for ourselves the balance if it does exists and I am proud to be an example of a woman who has or who is certainly beginning to find hers. Maybe I am lucky that from the outside I am not an obviously sight impaired woman or actress and I thus feel no need to tell directors agents etc when I first meet them. But I ensure you it eventually comes up during a rehearsal process whether for logistic or emotional reasons and I make sure I am open to everyone in the room and maintain a sense of humor. I guess, I just do not see the limitations and as I said earlier my body has to remind so there is still a balance to be assured which I honestly think will come from growing up. Instead of allowing my physical limitations to knock my confidence I embrace them and see a realm of possibility as I know all to well how quickly ones potential can be taken away.

I hope this is the same for all career paths but there is something about the rehearsal room where you can leave so much at the door and be accepted and appreciated for all the things that make us different. My eye sight and experiences up to this day surrounding it, I no longer have anger towards. I have discovered the physical affects are easier to except and cope with then the emotional. Acting has therefore been a blessing where emotion can be carefully channeled to create magic and touching results. The emotional stress my sight has caused me has given key individuality as an actress. It can only be described as a rawness and an approach to difficult areas of a characters psyche that I have been forced to face that others may avoid because as humans we are designed to not face the raw and honest truth of what we feel. I however and like so many reading this have been forced too. The best example I can give of this was when playing a prostitute named Angela at drama school. It was my first performance and naturally felt pressure artistically playing a very young woman chewed up and spat out by the world. A victim of drugs and sexual abuse was a darkness I thought I could not truthfully pursue on stage. My director felt different and used my work as an example of cold hard reality that she was faced with. I never realized I had done this but am today and will throughout career be some of my proudest work. Not because of the critiques that it gathered but it made me realize my niche and power as an actress which has come from my darkness memories and transferred into something positive and inspiring.

I am therefore able to live by example, using our burdens to be more open as people and also so lucky to channel it into my chosen career. I do not think I choose acting as a career deliberately to do this but maybe my subconscious did for me.

The place I am now at in my career a freedom and control and more importantly I feel a challenging role is never too great, when compared to those we must face in life.