A blog from Jamie Mottershaw who's visiting at the moment...
Last night I went to see The Thrill of it all by Forced Entertainment with other members of the Black Company. I’m not going to do a review of it as we are collaboratively doing that over at Sarah’s blog but instead talk about it opening my eyes to new things.
As a training actor, I have a rough idea of where I want to go in life. Some people want to be become teachers, some practitioners, directors, youth theatre leaders, or a straight-up actor are the first things that come to mind. But after seeing such a different piece of theatre it has made me wonder what else is still out there for me to experience and maybe something I absolutely love is just around the corner and will change my career direction dramatically.
Although I did not like what I saw last night it was something that I would have never thought of making myself as the whole concept of the play is to go against any idea that we know and are taught to make a “good” piece of theatre. I used to go to a lot of fringe theatre and youth theatre performances at one point – Thornes college theatre puts on some fantastic stuff – but lately I seem to have narrowed down what I go to see and if I go to the theatre I tend to go to a West End show or something with a high profile. “Safe” Theatre. I think as actors we should subject ourselves to all sort of different ideas and theatre types even if the only conclusion you come from afterwards after scrutinising it to try and find something you like, is the fact that you do not like it because then at least you have something to aim to not do.
Obviously, the only way to do this is to just continue going through life and letting these experiences affect you, but sometimes you can find yourself becoming narrow minded in terms of theatre which is probably the worst thing for an actor to do and last night was an event which made me realise, self-assess and stress the important of keeping your mind open to new things.
J Mott
Last night I went to see The Thrill of it all by Forced Entertainment with other members of the Black Company. I’m not going to do a review of it as we are collaboratively doing that over at Sarah’s blog but instead talk about it opening my eyes to new things.
As a training actor, I have a rough idea of where I want to go in life. Some people want to be become teachers, some practitioners, directors, youth theatre leaders, or a straight-up actor are the first things that come to mind. But after seeing such a different piece of theatre it has made me wonder what else is still out there for me to experience and maybe something I absolutely love is just around the corner and will change my career direction dramatically.
Although I did not like what I saw last night it was something that I would have never thought of making myself as the whole concept of the play is to go against any idea that we know and are taught to make a “good” piece of theatre. I used to go to a lot of fringe theatre and youth theatre performances at one point – Thornes college theatre puts on some fantastic stuff – but lately I seem to have narrowed down what I go to see and if I go to the theatre I tend to go to a West End show or something with a high profile. “Safe” Theatre. I think as actors we should subject ourselves to all sort of different ideas and theatre types even if the only conclusion you come from afterwards after scrutinising it to try and find something you like, is the fact that you do not like it because then at least you have something to aim to not do.
Obviously, the only way to do this is to just continue going through life and letting these experiences affect you, but sometimes you can find yourself becoming narrow minded in terms of theatre which is probably the worst thing for an actor to do and last night was an event which made me realise, self-assess and stress the important of keeping your mind open to new things.
J Mott
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