Seeing theatre through the eyes of an actorBy: Stefania

I would like to share with you some of my acting experience. The story started in the summer of 2008, when, eager to try something new in my life, I decided to take acting classes and I browsed the web for an acting school. The start was a little slow, because, after taking an opportunity to work abroad, I couldn’t finish that first module. But in the spring of 2010, by a touch of luck, when one of my former acting colleagues launched a blog contest, I won another 4 months acting class into the same acting school!

Then, after some weeks of preparation, during the summer of 2010, I got three parts, as an amateur actor, in 3 plays: I was the British high-class mother, Mrs. Higginn, from „Pygmalion” (played at “La Scena”); I was the eighteen years old Russian girl, Maria Antonovna, from „Revizorul”, (“Palatul Copiilor” and “La Scena”) and I was the young girl housekeeper, Zamfira, from „Gaitele” (“La Scena”).In the first part, as Mrs. Higgins, I was distributed only because the person that supposed to act it couldn’t do it anymore, and I only had a week to learn the lines and to prepare the character. It didn’t come out exactly as I dreamed it would, but I was very proud because it meant a lot, as it was my first time on the scene in a play! From those three parts, this one had the biggest number of lines and I was happy that I managed to spell them all out correctly. The part was in Romanian, my mother tongue, but considering that I didn’t have the time for a complete rehearsal before the play; it was something to be proud of in the end.

Beside all these 3 parts, in a peaceful morning at the beginning of July, also in 2010, I had the idea to start preparing the repertoire for the admission to the Faculty of Arts, which gave me other 4 opportunities to perform in front of an audience, with the poems and with the monologue from that repertoire.

Each show had its little difficulties and its little fails, that I saw after, in the pictures and in the video recordings, but I had to overcome them and it took me some time to regain that constructive energy. Although I was not admitted at the university, and I think it was because I couldn’t overcome my emotions in front of the admission committee, it was a great experience and each day after it, I realize something new that makes me change my attitude towards this fail. I am absolutely convinced that I am a lot more than that «lifeless bug» from the poem of Gandacelul or that «unmarried girl made from flowers» from Silvia’s Monologue. I know that I can achieve a lot more if I put my mind to it, just to free it completely from that “fear of failure” monster.

First of all: acting in front of an audience isn’t easy at all and it is something that changes your emotional equilibrium and your perspective about this reality for a couple of days before and after each show. Or at least, this is how it was each time, for me. But little by little you start remembering yourself again and you realize that you can only remember the good things from your life before that. And also after these plays, my attitude about the way I’m presenting myself in front of the world started to change. After the first part, I thought “what if people will recognize me in the subway, my life is ruined, because I’m not wearing makeup!” How silly seems that now! But that’s the human mind. If there is one little tiny fear inside, when you’re under pressure and the lights are all on you, that little fear turns out to be a big monster that drains you completely. And if you are on stage, you know that you have a couple of seconds to come back and act your lines! It’s thrilling. And when the play is over and you free your mind again in order to receive the applauses, it is just how

someone dear described it once: a sweet drunkenness! A bliss and a feeling of release that stays with you at least until you go to bed and fall asleep, until the next time you will be on the stage.

I remember all those sleepless hours (even whole nights), during the last couple of years, when I was dreaming whether I will have the chance to play in front of an audience and how it will be… and how will my life change after I will do it for the first time. But my life didn’t change at all. Nothing changed actually.Not even my siblings’ or my friends’ attitude towards me. Just my attitude changed… I had a fear and I have discovered a way to overcome it. And even if the fear was still there, dormant, I knew that it is definitely something after it. This is why I accepted to play two times more, in 2011, in two shows based on Marin Sorescu’s poetry and, in the spring of 2012, I gave life to Taber, a chronic mental ill character, in a group of advanced amateur actors, in “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest”.

As a conclusion, I like acting because the experiences I have on the stage and the ones that occur during the days before and after the shows are making me feel alive. It is a thrilling emotional experience that you start to crave for. Being an actor helped me understand more about the life that goes behind the stage as my final goal is to become a Producer and/or a Director.

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