Robin's-Eye View

WHAT? AND GIVE UP SHOW BUSINESS?

It feels kind of funny to be telling a stranger my dreams. Mind if I smoke?

Just so you know, I've been an actor most of my life. Okay, well, an actress. But I've always been trained to believe that as a, what shall I say? Thespian? We are "genderless". I remember my first acting teacher, Rolanda Hartmann. She had this tiny acting studio in New York in the West Village when I was fifteen years-old. She was in her fifties when I knew her, and she talked somewhere in between Hedda Hopper and Marlena Dietrich. Come to think of it, she looked like a cross between Hedda Hopper and Marlena Dietrich. She always said, "First, ve must destroy the ego!" She was masterful at this. I do remember the day she destroyed the ego of one unfortunate fellow thespian in my class. He was playing the chauffeur in Miss Julie. She didn't think he was giving it enough passion, I guess. So she stopped him in the middle of the scene and made him jump rope for the entire class for five minutes while she hurled insults at him like, "Vat are you doing? You look like a sissy to me. I don't believe you. Vat a big baby!", etc. Meanwhile, this poor guy was jumping rope as hard as he could, his big, beefy, handsome face getting redder and redder. I was afraid he'd have a heart attack, even though he was barely older than I was. Just when I thought he would break down and run out of the room screaming, she clapped her hands twice: "Enough! (beat) Play the scene!"

Poor guy. He played it better than any of us thought possible.

See, that's the trouble with this business. Just when you can't stand it one more second and you're about to run out of the crummy theater with your last shred of dignity intact, crazy old Miss Hartmann claps her hands, and - voila! (I'm not sure what voila refers to, but nonetheless, voila). You'll do anything. You just forget that last little ol' shred.

So, anyway. I've been waiting for my BIG VOILA for twenty years now, and it's getting old. I've waited on tables, sold shoes at Neiman Marcus, worked as a receptionist, and occasionally, and I mean very occasionally, played the obligatory irritating homely neighbor on one episode of a low-budget, high-concept summer replacement series that ran for half a season, played an overgrown Chiquita Banana in a commercial that only aired in Borneo, and done extra work. I live in a roach-infested studio apartment in a dubious area of Los Angeles and I take voice lessons, ballet lessons, jazz lessons and of course, scene study. I gave up my cold reading class last January because after five years of learning to audition, I just couldn't face it anymore. I have a theatrical agent (joke) and a commercial agent (double joke). Right now I'm looking for a situation where I can maybe house-sit for someone in Malibu for six months so I can get out from under my exorbitant rent.

So, anyway. I have this dream all the time that I'm up on stage all of a sudden. I don't have the slightest idea how I got there, and it's curtain time opening night. Usually what I do is I listen really hard to what's going on around me and try to make some sense out of it. Trouble is, everyone is speaking some kind of double-talk. I can't figure out anyone's relationship to anyone on stage. How do you react to that? Suddenly everyone freezes and they look at me. I'm totally tongue-tied. I scream, "Line! Line!", but nothing comes out. My voice is gone. I keep screaming, "Line! Line!" but it's like the stage manager has disappeared. People start booing and hissing and throwing things at me. That's when I wake up.

But last night's dream was different. First of all, it wasn't an opening night. It was dress rehearsal. Second of all, I knew exactly what was happening when I was dreaming I said to myself. "Oh, here we go again. Another one of these boring dreams where I don't know my lines". Also, someone walked in just then that I recognized. It was Robert Redford. Can you believe that? Robert Redford was the director! He handed me a script. I couldn't believe it. I thought, "Well, hey! Maybe this is going to be different!"

Then I started looking through the script. It was all ads! I couldn't find a single page of dialog in this big fat book. I started to panic, then I looked up from my script.
"I can't do this." I said.
Robert Redford was sitting in the director's chair right on stage. We were suddenly all alone on this stage and he looked up at me with those big soulful eyes and smiled a big boyish grin. He said, "What do you mean?"
"I can't do this. I don't have any talent". (Part of me was just screaming inside saying, 'Don't dream this! Don't say this to Robert Redford! Dream something else, for God's sake!', but I just couldn't, I guess.)

He started to say something, and I could tell he was going to try to talk me out of this idea, but I reached right over and put my hand on his shoulder. (Wow, what chutzpah). I said, "Bob. I know the truth. I don't have any talent. At least, not for this. Oh, I have talent, alright. But I've got to stop doing this stuff so I can find out what kind of talent I really do have."

When I said this, it was like a thousand pound weight had lifted right off my shoulders. I felt like I was going to cry. Then I woke up.

Hey, doc. You think I'm crazy? Did you ever hear the joke about the guy who shovels the elephant-doo out at the circus? He's shoveling one night after the show and a customer walks up to him and says, "You look like a pretty intelligent guy. How come you don't quit this job and get something better? " and the guy answers, "What? And give up show business?"

Well, I've gotta get going. So. I'll see you next week, same time, same station. Gotta run. I'm reading for a Chock Full o' Nuts spot at 4:30. They need a shapely talking bean. . .Any idea what that dream is about?

THE END

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Copyright © 1998 Robin Munson