Friday, March 7, 2014
Hidemi’s Rambling No.507
At long last, I got my first role in a school play at the drama club
when I was a freshman in high school. It took me three years to get it
as a member of the club. Since many senior members had quit for some
reason and I had been in a higher position by then for casting that had
the seniority system, my role was quite big. It was a villain in a
Japanese period piece, who tormented her pretty stepdaughter and killed
her. I was the evil stepmother of a heroine, which was played by the
same Miss Fujiwara who had taken a role away from me by one vote in the
last play. My mistake of not voting for myself made her one step senior
to me and yielded bigger consequences as time went on. Now she was a
heroine and I was a wicked old woman. Nonetheless, I was absorbed in
interpretation and rehearsals now that I got what I had been craving for
three years. I tried to think and live like an evil person for the
interpretation every day. Acting evil was easy for me: I’m used to
picking on my little sister and besides, an object of my bullying was
Miss Fujiwara. Hatred toward her was naturally transfused into my acting
and I blew steam off by yelling at her, hitting her and killing her on
the stage in every rehearsal. The retired senior members of the club
sometimes came to observe rehearsals. My character went mad in the end
of the play and it was told by the narration. They admired my acting and
suggested adding the scene for me instead of the narration. I was so
honored and acted the madness intensely when they wanted me to try.
While I was satisfied with my acting, the scene was cut and back to the
narration. Probably I overacted it and was too distasteful to watch…