Friday, January 17, 2014
Hidemi’s Rambling No.502
I was a member of the drama club at junior high school. There were
almost 100 new comers when I first joined it in the seventh grade, but
only six remained including me after a month because of sober training
that was far from the stage glamor. We did voice and physical exercises
every day to develop our abdominal muscles. In the end of the exercises,
the members would stand side by side and utter a loud and long tone one
by one in front of the club captain. While we were squeezing ‘Ahhhh’, a
senior member would put a hand on our shoulder to see if it rose. If we
were doing abdominal breathing, our shoulders didn’t rise. The club
captain would time the length of the tone and check whether it wavered
or not. A loud, long, steady voice was good and I was the one who always
uttered the loudest, longest, steadiest ‘Ahhhh’ without raising my
shoulders. While the club captain corrected each member, in my turn she
would say “Nothing to be corrected” to me. That made me so happy and I
practiced diligently back at home too, to hear her say that every time.
Gradually, I had tougher training at the club such as tongue twisters,
short dialogues and pantomime. For some reason, I was good at those and
had a good word from the captain each time. I began to think I might
have a talent for acting. Secretly I took pleasure in picturing myself
on the stage of a school play. A sad fact was, I was a fat and short
girl. Even with the ability to act well, things wouldn’t go so smoothly
for an ugly girl like me in the theater. But back then, I was too young
and innocent to realize that. I just kept on striving and improving only
my acting without caring about my bad looks…