My baby step to the thing called acting

Background info - I started rehearsing for the role of YinXin in Dama Orchestra's Butterfly Lovers The Musical in May. It is now running at Pentas 1 in KLPAC till Oct 15th (the run has just been extended from Oct 8 to Oct 15). During the rehearsal period, I received both group & private `coaching' sessions on acting from its director and I have been incredibly fascinated by acting, a skill I used to think secondary to the ability to sing well.

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Maybe I'm beginning to know why many starve to stay in the whimsical world of acting. Someone fortunate enough (or unfortunately) like myself, am surrounded by endless stimuli each day in the theatre, tempting me to explore this thing beyond superficial stage craft....emotions on stage , real, raw emotions on display and yet each move a controlled one.

I revisited yet again this thing called `affective memory' in my hot shower earlier. I stood under hot water exploring more than just soapy water, I revisit each recent or distant awful memories...and waited for the real tears and the real crying to arrive, like a surgeon looking for a tear gland in my body.

It came and then for I think, about 15 min or so, I cried and stopped, cried again and stopped and sometimes it got more intense than the last cry...

Then my body (and mind) tingled with the most strange sensation of achieving something I can't put a finger on it.

I was happy and sad the same time.

Maybe actors are a little like brain scientists? They know the little switches in their brains...

For weeks I thought about, talked about, crying on stage for theatrical purpose...or do you just call it crying on stage, or do you call it crying on demand?

Nic introduced this thing called `affective memory' to me maybe a week ago.

I made a kinda list of experiences which made me cried in the past....it wasn't hard making the list. The hard part part for me is making the memory the trigger to my tear gland to start working.

Under the shower of hot water earlier, it was the first time I started crying on my own call and couldn't stop. While I wasn't sure whether I did the right thing in evoking the emotions I'm enthusiastic to have a go again at it....sounds a little sadistic to me now but I think acting is about being to communicate all kinds of feelings, including the worst, no?

While I grow my `experimental crying list', I wonder about the worth of an actor with and without the `crying skill'. What makes a better actor? An actor who cries on demand earns more respect or is that a cheap trick or maybe there are degrees of `crying on demand' so there is no clear cut way to judge an actor based on his skills in crying on demand.

It has been....I'd say a little more exciting than learning a brand new aria now because I'm both intrigued and rewarded by the mere thing called `acting'. Now I can't wait for my next cue for actors' place.

After show at the foyer wit Jason Lai, the lovable SiJiu in the musical.