miyako73
08-14-2010, 11:25 PM
I enrolled in the theater arts program due to my misguided overconfidence, neither for wild escapism nor for simulated reality. I initially thought I would become an actress as good as Meryl Streep, who, I thought, could act her best by just picking her nose. I started reading about Stanislavski and Strasberg and their works on my junior year of high school when I played as Medea. An American Peace Corps volunteer from Yale School of Drama taught us the basics of theater production and introduced me to acting theories. I got the lead role because of my imposing height, long hair, and piercing eyes, and that was according to her. With beehive hairpieces, cakey makeup, and draping bed linens, voila!
Miss Marie, as we called her, could be part or full-blooded Irish. Her last name, O’Connor, was a hint. Besides, she had visible freckles on her upper cheeks that were pronounced when she bathed too long in the sun. The people in our town talked about her eyes they could not ascertain if they were green or blue. We did not have a word for blue-green, so they just called them “eyes of an angel.” She chose our town because of its grassy meadows, hills on mountains, valleys with rocky cliffs, serene lakes, babbling rivers, azure waves. Adventurous, she loved nature. Her task was to teach us English, but on the side, she taught us drama, surfing, and cooking corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes.
We were friends because she was close to my uncle, so I got to read and own some of her books. Miss Marie encouraged me to read and practice like he pushed my uncle to go back to school and finish his Engineering degree. I did listen to her. Who would not? Her voice was so convincing that mothers in our town stopped letting their toddlers go out naked and fishermen gave up using poison and explosive in the pristine sea she frequented with her surfing board. She did not stay long, but we saw many changes she started in our town. She even changed me and my plan in life. At first, I just wanted to be a farmer’s wife, but she told me about the world oceans away my eyes could not see. I could not wait for college.
I grasped some of the basics of acting through reading while on the potty, when I took a dump, and performing what I read afterwards, when I had a shower. Perhaps my fast metabolism and good hygiene helped. I read and performed on the sly almost every day until I finally went to college. My favorite monologue was not from the books I shelved in the bathroom cabinet. But from Elvadine. From the pirated video I watched countless times. From “The War” written by Kathy McWorther.
Elvadine to her racist white teacher, Miss Strapford:
“Alright, I'll tell you. I was sayin', Elvadine, what you gots to write about? Been in the sixth grade your whole good-for-nothin' life. Ain't got no daddy. Never goes anywhere but where your feets take you. Onliest money ever belong to you in the whole world was twenty dollars you gots yourself in a birthday card, from your uncle last year. But it really wasn't for my birthday. Really, it was for layin' over his lap and letting him spank me with my underpants down.
Now here you come along, shovin' me in the back of the room, where eyes can't even see good, which means I'm prob'ly not gonna graduate this summer neither. Just 'cuz you read how some white man say life be like a bowl fulla cherries, I've gotsta come up with somethin' to fit his sayin'. Well, fine. I'll just write down how happy I'm gonna be to get twenty more dollars on my birthday. Never mind what he got planned for me this year. And I'm gonna write how maybe the new man my momma seein' might stop drinkin' and treat me nice, and maybe he gonna adopt me, and take us off the welfare. And at the end, I'm gonna be sure put, life sure is a bowl fulla Cherries. But to tell you the truth, Miss Strapford, I think you, and that book, and this whole class, be a bowl fulla ****!”
Rooting for her, I played and rewound the video several times before I could finally write down Evaldine’s monologue that made me laugh and cry all at once. I could not count how many times I acted it out repeatedly while in the shower, on the toilet, by the stove while cooking, in my bedroom before going to bed and after waking up. Like a prayer I had to remember from beginning to end so I could impress the nuns at school, I memorized it word for word. Wherever I went where I could be alone, I delivered it again and again like I was preparing for an audition. I even dreamed about it. Every word pierced my heart like a dagger, so sharp that I could feel it opening and emptying my chest. Elvadine was me.
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You can be harsh with your criticism. Thank you.
Miss Marie, as we called her, could be part or full-blooded Irish. Her last name, O’Connor, was a hint. Besides, she had visible freckles on her upper cheeks that were pronounced when she bathed too long in the sun. The people in our town talked about her eyes they could not ascertain if they were green or blue. We did not have a word for blue-green, so they just called them “eyes of an angel.” She chose our town because of its grassy meadows, hills on mountains, valleys with rocky cliffs, serene lakes, babbling rivers, azure waves. Adventurous, she loved nature. Her task was to teach us English, but on the side, she taught us drama, surfing, and cooking corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes.
We were friends because she was close to my uncle, so I got to read and own some of her books. Miss Marie encouraged me to read and practice like he pushed my uncle to go back to school and finish his Engineering degree. I did listen to her. Who would not? Her voice was so convincing that mothers in our town stopped letting their toddlers go out naked and fishermen gave up using poison and explosive in the pristine sea she frequented with her surfing board. She did not stay long, but we saw many changes she started in our town. She even changed me and my plan in life. At first, I just wanted to be a farmer’s wife, but she told me about the world oceans away my eyes could not see. I could not wait for college.
I grasped some of the basics of acting through reading while on the potty, when I took a dump, and performing what I read afterwards, when I had a shower. Perhaps my fast metabolism and good hygiene helped. I read and performed on the sly almost every day until I finally went to college. My favorite monologue was not from the books I shelved in the bathroom cabinet. But from Elvadine. From the pirated video I watched countless times. From “The War” written by Kathy McWorther.
Elvadine to her racist white teacher, Miss Strapford:
“Alright, I'll tell you. I was sayin', Elvadine, what you gots to write about? Been in the sixth grade your whole good-for-nothin' life. Ain't got no daddy. Never goes anywhere but where your feets take you. Onliest money ever belong to you in the whole world was twenty dollars you gots yourself in a birthday card, from your uncle last year. But it really wasn't for my birthday. Really, it was for layin' over his lap and letting him spank me with my underpants down.
Now here you come along, shovin' me in the back of the room, where eyes can't even see good, which means I'm prob'ly not gonna graduate this summer neither. Just 'cuz you read how some white man say life be like a bowl fulla cherries, I've gotsta come up with somethin' to fit his sayin'. Well, fine. I'll just write down how happy I'm gonna be to get twenty more dollars on my birthday. Never mind what he got planned for me this year. And I'm gonna write how maybe the new man my momma seein' might stop drinkin' and treat me nice, and maybe he gonna adopt me, and take us off the welfare. And at the end, I'm gonna be sure put, life sure is a bowl fulla Cherries. But to tell you the truth, Miss Strapford, I think you, and that book, and this whole class, be a bowl fulla ****!”
Rooting for her, I played and rewound the video several times before I could finally write down Evaldine’s monologue that made me laugh and cry all at once. I could not count how many times I acted it out repeatedly while in the shower, on the toilet, by the stove while cooking, in my bedroom before going to bed and after waking up. Like a prayer I had to remember from beginning to end so I could impress the nuns at school, I memorized it word for word. Wherever I went where I could be alone, I delivered it again and again like I was preparing for an audition. I even dreamed about it. Every word pierced my heart like a dagger, so sharp that I could feel it opening and emptying my chest. Elvadine was me.
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You can be harsh with your criticism. Thank you.