Acting

The acting life must be a great pleasure for those who want to play it full time or even use it as a "9 to 5" occupation.  Acting as a profession, seen from purely a theatre and movie goer's point of view, seems to have a certain amount of romance attached to it but, after saying that, I realise there is an incredible amount of hard work involved. 

Turning my attention first to the theatre, we look today at massive stage productions and it would be fair to say that musical productions seem to take the fore in a lot of cases, simply because the public demands it and, with the likes of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Macintosh, their appetite may be sated on a grand scale. 

In this light we have to realise that acting in this form of theatre must certainly be extremely hard work.  The participants - sorry the cast - have to not only memorise lines, memorise songs but also move around the stage with a verve and fitness that would outshine an Olympic athlete.  All this for seven evening performances and two matinees every week.  It is no surprise to me at all that understudies may be used on a regular basis, if only to let the actors they replace get a good rest. 

This form of acting would certainly have to be honed on a daily basis.  Perhaps a certain scene was not up to the standard expected by the director, so more emphasis would be placed on making sure it "came out right on the night". 

Movie acting seems somewhat different to me.  Astonishing and astronomical amounts of money are paid for the acting performances of some of the movie stars in certain productions if gossip column reports are to be believed. 

My opinion is that the movie acting fraternity do seem somewhat cosseted compared to their stage counterparts.  My reasoning is that a movie production may stretch out and be allowed to be extended within budget parameters.  This would mean that acting roles could be honed more precisely scene by scene.  This would involve taking many "shots" of the same scene until it was correct.  There is none of the "live" acting that we tend to see in the theatre.  Mistakes in an acting performance are there to be seen by all in the theatre, whereas movie mistakes tend to finish up "on the cutting room floor". 

Fair enough, I suppose.  The return on a movie is all box office and I guess the producers are looking at any particular time to see what is the "vogue" and demand of the movie-going public and hone the acting performances accordingly.  Of course, the movie media has the added advantage of being able to use state-of-the-art technology and special effects to compensate for what might be perhaps a below standard acting performance.  The result of course reflects in box office takings. 

I personally like any forms of acting.  I admire tremendously the talent of these folk and indeed their nerve of being able to stand in front of either a live audience or a movie camera and perform to the best of their ability.  The acting is what brings us all back and it has and will always give us much pleasure and the chance to slip away to some fantasy land for a while.