Friday 7 February 2014

On Persuasion and Acting as a Means of Escape

I reread one of my favourite Jane Austen novels last night - Persuasion - and it struck me that it would actually make a good basis for a hindi movie. It is about two lovers who are separated for a long period and finally come back together. Sound familiar? Mausam minus the bits that made that movie tedious and overly melodramatic (in fact, when I tried to imagine who to cast in a hindi adaptation of Persuasion, Shahid and Sonam were the first names that popped into my head). There's drama here too, but of a more understated, more domestic variety.

What especially appeals to me is that the story is told from the woman's point of view. Makes it easy for one to relate and put one's self in her shoes. Which is something that almost all the books that I love coming back to time and time again have in common. A character I can empathize with and play act in my own head as I read. This, along with something I read recently about how acting a can be a means to express one's self while hiding behind a character, has me wondering what it would be like to try my hand at acting on an amateur level.

Never really considered it before since I have a bad case of stage fright and shyness in general. But, if I don't have to be myself on stage, then maybe it won't be as scary. On the contrary, it could actually be empowering.

My only previous experience with the stage was when I was in a school play ages ago. I started out being cast as one of the leads - the queen, in fact. Then was demoted to a side character with only a handful of lines, and finally ended up being asked to play one of the serving girls who fan the king, with no lines at all. And here's the kicker - I managed to mess up even that role on performance day by laughing at the jokes in the play while fanning the bloody king!

So yeah, dunno if I can actually do any better now, but I figure I'll try to give it a shot anyway. Not on a professional level, mind. Just as a hobby. Now to try and find an amateur theater club of some sort hereabouts. This could actually be fun.

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