Put on an act

It's a great feeling to have done something after having gone through intense hassles and troubles. We are part of a theatre group and we write and stage plays. Most of our subjects are contemporary and the presentation is almost always, casual. 

Each of us had a view on what we had to do. We had our strengths and limitations. Some of us couldn't remember lines; some of us could not emote; some of us couldn't ham; some of could only ham; some of us couldn't react; some others could only react.

With such varied levels of theatre skills, we couldn't act to a script. We weren't all actors anyway. But the one thing that bound all of us together was the desire to perform, in our own ways. And that was all that we had. But that was enough. We developed the story, the roles and the lines according to our individual capabilities. And we created what we could.

Some members of our group have been invited by other associations and theatre groups to perform some roles in their plays. We recently had occasion to do such a play. It emerged this time that there was a wide difference in the way we approached a subject. We used to build up slowly to the d-day. And reserve all our emoting for the stage. That was not the way they liked it. They began putting up a proper stage performance right from the first day of rehearsal. But they forgot lines on stage.

We had earlier performed in one of their earlier plays an year back. We had our differences in approach, but we tended towards what they desired us to do, since it was their effort. We tried to be the director's actors. We put on an act to keep up with their style and approach.

But this time we had flashpoints emerging from an undercurrents, disturbances. In the end, we performed better than they did. And better than we expected to. We even helped them recover from situations where they didn't know what to say next on stage. So we were happy and thrilled. Happy that we had done well, and thrilled that we had beaten them.