An Actress?

This morning in church, the cute couple that has been sitting behind me lately mentioned missing me last Sunday as we were greeting each other. It has been such an eventful week that I had to stop and think about where I was only seven days ago. I smiled and thought back- I was in an audition. But I couldn’t say that, these people who are basically strangers wouldn’t understand, would they? So I said how much I missed being there last Sunday and kept smiling.

It made me think about several exchanges I have had the past week. One was with a man I was auditioning with. As we waited for our turn on stage, he asked me what I did when I wasn’t acting. I stuttered and stammered because everything I thought of was what everyone does- I clean house, I cook meals, I go to the grocery store- none of that is really the answer to his question. I thought about the fact that I am a wife, but again that sounded lame- that really isn’t a job. So I said I was a mom. He, of course then asked how many kids I have and I had to mutter “One and he is grown and on his own.” I wandered away realizing that I have no real job besides when I am acting. But does that make me an actress? I have 3 scripts in my purse that I am working on right now. Does that make me an actress?

Someone else asked me later in the week what I did so I said I was an actress, just to see how that felt to say out loud. It felt weird. I told Tim about having said that I was an actress and he looked at me and said, “You didn’t! Really?” Then I felt stupid!

I was watching Downton Abbey (yes, I finally watched the first 3 seasons and I am hooked!) and when Edith, the middle daughter, becomes a journalist her grandmother, played by Maggie Smith whom I adore, said that the only thing worse than having a journalist in the family was if there was an actress. I laughed and then thought, “Hey, wait a minute!” My son is a journalist and I want to be an actress! Back in the day, being an actress was about as low as you could go. In theatre history we learned about the people who worked to make acting and the theatre a more legitimate and professional occupation. Nowadays actors and journalists are celebrities and the public is overly interested in what they do and the paparazzi follow them around. What a difference!! That, of course, is not and never will be me. But it still seems presumptuous to say that I am “an actress.”

But that is what I do- I am analyzing scripts, working on characterizations, and learning lines between errands and housework. I studied a script on Friday while getting my hair colored. I can’t cut my hair right now because it needs to grow a bit for a part I have. I am bidding on vintage dresses on ebay for costumes and I am working out when to have my parents over for the holidays between rehearsing two different plays in two different towns! But I still don’t feel like I can say that “acting” is what I do. So I guess I will go back to saying I am a mom, a great job but one I have practically retired from. (My one child is smarter than I am! I go to him for advice way more than he comes to me!) Maybe I will just start claiming different occupations each time I get asked. Maybe I’ll say I have four small children at home or that I am a head housekeeper, a politician, an office clerk, a boutique owner, a drugged out lunatic running around with her son’s head on a stick… after all I have been or am about to be each of those things in a play! That is what I love about acting, I get to be something different with each new role. But that makes me unsure day in and day out exactly what I really am. An actress? Maybe not? Maybe.