Having a while ago received praise from a friend (and fellow-blogger) on the regularity and consistency of my work on this blog, I feel I owe an explanation for a hiatus which as of this writing has lasted just in excess of 2 months. Besides this I'm pleased to see growing evidence of an irregular and inconsistent yet relatively sizeable readership - and my gratitude for this is another part of what compels me to justify this lack of content from me.
Firstly, what started it to begin with. As I may have referenced before, I'm an actor in my local youth theatre, the Nuffield Youth Theatre, while on my gap year before going to university in October. Shortly after my last post here would have been my last show with the Youth Theatre proper, as Odysseus in an adaptation of The Odyssey which played on allegories of the current refugee crisis. (Disclaimer: this is a large youth theatre, so I wasn't actually playing the main character, I was one of six people playing Odysseus at different points). Immediately after this I was in a 'grassroots' production directed by a member of that youth theatre, Emil Rousseau - whose name I include here as a possible claim to fame when I'm older, yes I was in my youth in a play directed by Emil Rousseau. The play was called Scuttlers and was set in gang-ridden 19th century Manchester, which meant producing my best Mancunian accent, which was awful.
Though I'm certain that from the audience's perspective the plays were both excellent theatre I nonetheless was left with a feeling of personal failure. I felt I hadn't prepared enough for these roles, and that I hadn't put my best into them, and that the interpretations I produced just hadn't been all that. I found myself for the first time very seriously questioning my aspiration of becoming a professional actor, questions which are as of yet still unresolved, though I am now resolved to accept whatever answer they bear ungrudgingly.
I was particularly proud of my last performances: in a Shakespeare play with an accent I can do (Welsh, thanks to my heritage); then as a character who is essentially myself and whose philosophy is very close to my own; and then a pantoised version of my favourite superhero, Captain America. This streak of utter security and pride in my ability just made the more recent discovery all the more hard-hitting. What emerged was an idea that I had only had success in playing roles within my emotional and physical comfort zone - that my performance as an actor was greatly inhibited by a fatal flaw, or several, the main of which being playing characters with romantic or sexual motives and objectives. Throughout my entire career as an actor I've avoided such roles, perhaps intentionally on some subconscious level, whereas romanticism was a common thread between my characters in Odyssey and Scuttlers, and sexuality a strong theme in the former. This relates to deeper questions about what my objectives as an individual are and how those themes enter my life, whether that even matters, and if it does how to reconcile that with playing someone who is not myself. I appreciate and will admit that I haven't been successful romantically and sometimes feel awkward with individuals and sometimes have trouble connecting to people or knowing how much of my true self (if such a thing can be imagined to exist, dear lord) to share with others.
These questions, among others, have been unanswered for my whole life, but now that their elusiveness no longer totally eludes me (only enough so that I can see a vague glimmer of their true form) I at least have some time to ponder them. In the mean time their crucial relevance to my identity as a human being, to my happiness as a soul and to my vocation as a life was the cause of my malaise over the past two months. However, I have gradually arrived at the realisation that no amount of concentrated wrangling thought will catch these answers. Like a man fishing with only his hands I must just carry on calmly and let them come within reach of their own accord.
In the meantime, there are more hopeful reasons why the hiatus of writings on this blog continued beyond the period of post-show blues and philosophical torture - that which distracted me from wrestling with existential problems also distracted me from this blog. The first is work, being put forward by my boss for training on a more specialised operation means I have many more opportunities for overtime hours, in the interest of squirreling away some cash for the student debt, which I and the other Atlases of my generation will soon have to bear. The second, speaking of which, is confirming details for university - today I walked down to the post office to put in for tuition and living loans, which is very exciting. The third just relates to intake of knowledge, I've been positively munching through books. This is accompanied by the realisation that I can listen to podcasts at work, when cooking and when walking, effectively meaning that even when I can't read I can still be 'reading', which is fantastic.
So why do I return to this blog now? The truth is I don't know. I am free to admit that I greatly enjoy writing, that I like the idea of being read and love starting conversations on the topics I write on and on the topic of my writing itself. However, that doesn't explain the gradual retreat of existentialist miasma and resurgence of rapturous positivity and ravenous appetite for media and knowledge... It was a subtle process that I'm only aware of in retrospect. Nonetheless, I'm back now, I have some plays to watch at the Nuffield and my unlimited card for the cinema so I have plenty of reviews to be writing. I may even put out some short stories if you're lucky, I've had some ideas recently and I know I haven't put out fiction in aeons, though time is always a factor and the number of hours in a day continues to be unreasonably few. I can't guarantee I'll be here long before I'm away again, but this writing is one of my passions so you know I'll be back eventually, as I am now. In the meantime, thank you so much for sticking with me and reading.
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