Not Everyone Can Act

This should be pretty obvious.  All you need to do is take a quick inventory of all the people paid to be on-screen to realize that ability and talent have nothing to do with the success of their careers.

I could go on but you get the point.

Now, once in a while one of these people will surprise you.  When that happens, you can be pretty sure that an outstanding director was involved in the project.  Unfortunately, not everyone can be that director, either.

 

Stop.  Just stop.

I bring this up because of my experience with "A Midsummer Night's Dream."  I've done this show twice, but the one I'm talking about was for Act II St. Peters, in the summer of 2000. 

I had heard the director bragging that she could teach anyone to act.  "How hard can it be?", she would say, pointing out the pretty faces in Hollywood and how stupid most of them are. 

 

Not you, Jeff.  You are neither stupid nor pretty.

At auditions, there were some pretty awesome choices for most of the main roles.  But our director decided to cast the show based upon looks.  Even so, we had one girl at auditions who looked and acted a lot like this--->

and was not offered any part at all.  No, she gave the part of Titania to a girl who, despite being only 17, was tall enough to appear opposite the choice for Oberon, who just happened to be the director's husband.  This girl was very sweet, and pretty enough, but she COULD NOT SPEAK.  I don't mean she was mute - that might have been better.  I mean that she could not pronounce words.  She could not project.  She could not slow down.  She was obviously intimidated trying to act opposite a man older than her own father.  It just didn't work.  

While I"m on this subject, I honestly don't think that the husband could act, either.  He had a monotone delivery that could replace Ritalin, but everyone in that particular group seemed to have a blind spot where he was concerned.  One board member, very excited over the idea of seeing this man on-stage, said that he could read a phone book and the audience would be rapt.  I thought that this was fortunate, because that's exactly what it sounded like he was doing.

The complete works of Shakespeare

She also cast her own son as Lysander, and I'm sorry Brisbee, but your boy had a lisp.  A pretty bad one.  My daughter heard ME talking about it, and let it slip, which caused a big brouhaha, and no one wanted to hurt his feelings.  I really should have spoken up.  He lisped like Barney Frank on novocaine.  He shouldn't have been allowed near that part - it was manslaughter.

Let me interject here that I did not, and do not, dislike these people.  Well, not most of them.  It was impressive just to get the board to agree to a Shakespeare play in the first place, and more so to get people in St, Peters MO to come see it.  This woman was one miracle short of sainthood. She did not, however, earn her halo during this show.

 Two weeks into rehearsal, it became obvious to everyone that our Queen of the Faeries was just not up to the job.  One line in particular will always stick in my memory.  When Titania and Oberon have their first spat of the play, Titania says,  "Fairies, away!  We shall chide downright if I longer stay."  Only she didn't.  She always says "chow down right."  It sounded like a stage direction for eating.  And she kept doing it, over and over, no matter how many times she was corrected.  "We shall chow down right if I longer stay!"  

Hungry Hungry Fairies

Even the director had to admit that she'd been wrong.  So she dismissed the poor girl, and took on the part herself.  Which was probably her plan all along.

Again, I must be fair.  Not every casting choice was a disaster or nepotism (or both).  Arthur did a great Peter Quince, although I think he could have handled a larger role.  As for myself, I was cast as Theseus and I believe I did well.  But my costume made me look like Elvis gave birth to a disco ball.

No, no picture of that.  *shudder*

Brisbee turned in a fiery Titania that survived her husband's wooden Oberon, even if it didn't make up for it.  Our puck dropped out of the show, but his replacement was a quick study - I suspected another planned substitution but couldn't prove it.  Enough of us were able to avoid singsong delivery that the play was actually understandable, and people seemed to enjoy it.  

I gained a lot from this experience, apart from a nifty blog name.  It was my first time doing Shakespeare, and I learned that it's a lot better performed live than read from a book.   I learned to be more objective about my own abilities and that of my loved ones, so as not to ever cast someone just because I know and like them.  And I learned a bit about the cliqueish nature of community theatres.  It didn't put me off the group - just made me a little more cautious.  In the end, not cautious enough, but that's another story.