Carousel

For some reason, I started thinking yesterday about how I’m not very good at acting, but I’ve nevertheless starred in my fair share of plays. For some reason, acting in the school play is something of an American archetype; almost everyone has done it, and we can all relate to sitcom episodes that portray the childhood fears that come with these productions.

In retrospect, the roles I’ve played generally seem to fit me surprisingly well, almost too well in some cases. Below is my acting resume, to the best of my recollection, for your review and amusement.

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1991: “Narrator,” untitled Mother’s Day play
I was one of the few kindergarteners who could really read, so this was a fairly straightforward casting choice. To be honest, I have no memory of what the play was about, although I know for a fact that we have the program in a box of my old things back home; it was printed from a dot-matrix printer. I do remember that they served tea and that my mother did attend.

1994: “Boy #3,” How the West was Really Won
This one was a musical! I had a few forgettable lines as Boy #3 (and I am pretty sure I was #3 and not #2 or #4); something about Horatio Alger, as I recall. I had to wear suspenders. My friend Vikas had a much more prominent role as “the prompter”, who had to remind the aging narrator to stay on topic.

The entire group sang all the songs as a chorus, though; the only song title I can remember is “Silver in Washoe,” whose tune I actually remember pretty well. I confidently sang the line “silver on the Comstock Lode / silver in Washoe / Hi ho, hi ho, hi ho” but had utterly no idea what a ‘Comstock Lode‘ was until today, when I looked it up for this post.

My only other vivid memory from this performance is that I had a terrible itch on my right calf during the performance, and I started scratching it pretty aggressively (I was standing in the background with the chorus during a soliloquy, with the lights down, so it’s not quite as bad as it sounds), until Mrs. Jordan disgustedly motioned to me that I should stop. I’ll never forget her expression.

ca. 1996: “The Manager,” Interview
This was a Tamil-language play performed at some Tamil Sangam function I can’t remember, maybe the Pongal celebration. The performance of this play, which was perhaps fifteen minutes long, is almost certainly the longest period in my life over which I have exclusively spoken my mother tongue.

Interview, which starred a number of kids from the Tamil community, was a straightforward comedy of errors. I was a manager looking to hire someone for an accounting position. I had a peon (see the “South Asian English” usage) who showed in a series of candidates who turned out to be musicians and dancers, not accountants. I became increasingly exasperated (obviously, this wasn’t a very challenging role for me to play) until the straw that broke the camel’s back: a couple of would-be rock stars, one of whom was played rather embarrasedly by my brother, burst in and started belting out “Beat It.” Seeing my mounting rage, my office assistant, played by Harry, finally admitted that he had taken a second job at a music school because he was having trouble making ends meet, and he accidentally mixed up the contact information with another job posting he had made. I was credited by the director with saving the play when I ad-libbed a prompting line to my peon, who seemed to have forgotten that he was supposed to bring in the next candidate.

I recall distinctly that my mother forced me to join this play. My audition consisted exclusively of the director asking to me to call him an idiot; I didn’t want to be there, but at that age, I was powerless to resist taking that particular kind of bait, and I was cast. Thinking about it now, I’m certain that my mom had already agreed that I would play the lead role before we ever arrived there.

1998: “Zach,” eighth grade play whose name I can’t remember
My memories of this one are hazy; I think the play was generally about a mysterious event in a classroom, something like discovering a weird skull that could have had ancient powers, or a curse, or something equally thrilling. The cast was reasonably large, probably fifteen students, with “Dirk” being the ringleader, a likeable smart aleck with a hairstyle that I, for whatever reason, generally associated with such people. I distinctly remember thinking how much cooler he was than me.

Zach, on the other hand, was the nerd of the class, and the voice of reason — I’m fairly certain about having a line that there “must be a rational explanation” for the paranormal phenomenon that gave the fictional class of students so much concern. I also remember a rehearsal in which I tried to improvise a line that made the character even more nerdy; Mr. Preuss wisely told me to stick to the script.

Part of me feels saddened in retrospect by how ruthlessly I was typecast; but on the other hand, it’s perfectly likely that Mr. Preuss created this role specifically so he could cast someone in it who ordinarily would not have justified inclusion in any kind of stage production. God knows I couldn’t have played Dirk; indeed, I still couldn’t, at least not without a new hairstyle.

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I believe that the above list is exhaustive, though I’m not entirely sure; there might have been another musical in elementary school that I can’t remember.

What plays have you acted in, and what roles did you play?