Like two ships (21.07.06)
I was on the bus this morning, on my way to my little temp job at a well known government department (where, it’s worth noting, they’re having their ‘best year ever’) and a bloke got on and sat opposite me. I spent so long trying to decide whether or not I liked his t-shirt (some bizarre navy affair with a picture of a dog in goggles and the word ‘bello’ printed above it – weird Italian ‘humour’ or just plain weird?) that it took me a while to register what he was doing. Gradually it impeded on my consciousness. He was silently shouting at the bus window. As the 63 trundled ever onward, he got more and more animated (in face only); soundless screams emanating from his lips, as he gazed intently at passing Peckham and her people. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. And then I noticed.
He had pulled from his bag a moleskine notebook, each page of which had a photocopied chunk of script pasted somewhere near the middle, and a plethora of scribbled pencil notes gaily adorning it and the surrounding paper. He was an actor, learning his lines. I instantly felt a connection with this bizarre, screamy, dog-in-goggles-loving, cooly bespectacled man. I constructed totally unfounded fantasies around him being part of the RSC’s complete works season, or the Globe’s (he was learning the Duke for As You Like It). I almost offered to test him on his lines; I had a near-overwhelming compunction to make a connection with him, to ‘reach out and touch’ another actor.
He got up and got off at Elephant and Castle, and just like that the shared experience network of actors split and frayed, my broken end crackling and waving round in the dark, waiting for another spark to ignite it, leaking energy into the void. Like one of those balls full of electricity you place your hand on in the Science Museum. And I went to work, sat at my desk and got on with my temping day.
But somehow, everything is altered. Today, I crossed paths with another actor, and, like some humanoid parasite, fed off his energy, and I am restored. I am not alone, people do work, and I will live another day to fight the good fight.
He had pulled from his bag a moleskine notebook, each page of which had a photocopied chunk of script pasted somewhere near the middle, and a plethora of scribbled pencil notes gaily adorning it and the surrounding paper. He was an actor, learning his lines. I instantly felt a connection with this bizarre, screamy, dog-in-goggles-loving, cooly bespectacled man. I constructed totally unfounded fantasies around him being part of the RSC’s complete works season, or the Globe’s (he was learning the Duke for As You Like It). I almost offered to test him on his lines; I had a near-overwhelming compunction to make a connection with him, to ‘reach out and touch’ another actor.
He got up and got off at Elephant and Castle, and just like that the shared experience network of actors split and frayed, my broken end crackling and waving round in the dark, waiting for another spark to ignite it, leaking energy into the void. Like one of those balls full of electricity you place your hand on in the Science Museum. And I went to work, sat at my desk and got on with my temping day.
But somehow, everything is altered. Today, I crossed paths with another actor, and, like some humanoid parasite, fed off his energy, and I am restored. I am not alone, people do work, and I will live another day to fight the good fight.
posted by Tegwen at 11:31
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