Remember

I have undertaken the weighty enterprise of live performance a good number of times in my life, and have now found myself the leased aggrieved by the form most likely to frighten others: improv. Not having the security of a script which they can cling to is scary, I understand. I find it to be the most relaxed kind of acting I might try to do, for there are no specific expectations for me to meet, and more importantly, no lines for me to memorize. Any attempt to prepare is basically useless except to warm up. You have practices that more resemble athletic workouts than rehearsals, because there's nothing to rehearse yet. I love that. I get to act cool as a cucumber, and when people inquire about the show's chances and how I feel, I can just shrug and say "We'll see how it goes".

That's improv. Scripted performance is something else again, and maybe those who do it find my alarm as curious as I find theirs in what I consider my area. I described the act of working with a script as something like walking around while carrying an anchor. What is comforting to others is oppressive to me- something that will tug on me endlessly until it brings me down. Now, I don't call that a reasonable attitude, exactly. It's just the one I'm dealing with. It so happens that I'm embarking on a scripted show now. I have my anxieties about it, not the least of which being that concern about mastering my script and not permitting it to master me. It's not so much that I feel stifled by the idea of having to do a show in a certain way and not getting to change it up in any respect. I believe I could be perfectly content to do the same show each time out, and would not get bored. That's not an issue here anyway, as there will be just one performance unless I take it upon myself to try and grant my show additional life.

The issue is purely one of memorization. When I was a boy, the school had us do a little play for the parents and other students regarding the evils of narcotics and other controlled substances. A snippet of one of the play's musical numbers which warned against booze still lingers on the periphery of my memory. I recall having no trouble knowing my lines for that. I knew mine and everyone else's, and got angry when they slipped up. Since that play, I have had difficulty memorizing things so well. I gave up memorizing prepared texts in my speeches for Toastmasters the first time I blanked in the moment. I knew of course that I could not swear off memorizing forever, but did not relish the idea of another attempt. Well, here it has come. If there's any saving grace, it's that I'm writing the very material that I have to memorize. Should it not come out on stage the way it did on the page, who is to know apart from those who have been with me in the class? It could even go better. I'm grateful that I'm not attempting some beloved play written by a legend who people write theses about. If I mangle or re-write my own words, it's purely a victimless crime of the theater.

At the moment, I only have a modest amount of material, and I think I may have it well in hand. In time, there will be some twenty minutes of it. I must consult with more experienced comrades regarding the mechanics of memorizing lines. I have heard some of them talk about that, and will certainly need all the help I get get, for it will surely stretch me to learn it all by heart. I hasten to note that I feel I have it in me to do more than that, but one must take small steps.