Method Acting

Luther waited for Penelope’s call. He was out in the city, just returning from an audition that he thought didn’t go very well. The part he was auditioning for called him to act as the hero of the movie’s best friend. He decided to play the part with loyalty, deference, rushing through his lines purposefully, and above all, with outward beauty. The casting director told him he would call if he made the first cut. It was around lunch time when the audition ended, and Luther spent his time in a different park downtown. He opened up his journal and began a litany of complaints.
“Well, I am writing in here again in order to demonstrate the chaos that has managed to consume my life again. For some reason, I told a girl I met two days ago (Penny) that I was an actor, and now, I have to pretend to really be an actor. Of all the professions I could have pretended to be, an actor is certainly the most chameleon-like. I could have pretended to be a musician, but then she would have asked to hear me play. She even asked to see some old tapes with me as an extra in it, which didn’t exist. So I used some of the inopportune knowledge I accrued in college to pretend like I was actually reared as an actor. I started off with Artaud. I was reading him when I met Penny last night, for the second time only. I think she bought it. There was no sign of self-consciousness in her when we talked about Artaud. I think it was actually a real conversation about art. Nevertheless, I am a liar, and now I am going to make it not so. I went to my first audition today, cold call, and it didn’t go that well, but at least next time I meet up with her, I’ll have a real story I won’t have to lie about. Except then she’ll probably think that I should have gotten the part, because I’m so intelligent about the concept of acting. Whatever, this journal gets me nowhere ever. I’m always writing the same things. I’m always ending on a sour note. Does that mean I’m hopeless? Or does it just mean that irony isn’t a smiling face?”
A girl sitting not two hundred feet to Luther’s left was also writing in her journal. Over the last fifteen minutes or so, they had glanced back and forth at each other intermittingly. The girl got up and started walking towards him. She was ambling around the foliage he was sitting under.
“Hello.”
“Hello.”
“What are you writing in there?”
“Is that really any of your business?”
“Okay, geez.” She began to walk away.
“I’m sorry, it’s just personal stuff.”
“I guess journals are by nature personal.”
There was a pause. Then Luther asked: “Do you always come here to write?”
“I sketch. It’s quiet, nobody’s boisterous, there’s lots of different things to sketch. Here.”
She handed him a sketch she had done of him, sitting against a tree, writing in his journal.
“You can keep it, if you’d like.”
“Well sure, thank you, that’s very nice.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m an actor.”
“Oh that’s really exciting. Is it hard to find work here?”
“Yeah, but you just have to be persevering about it. What do you do?”
“I love things.”
“You’re a professional lover?”
“There’s so many things to appreciate, nobody appreciates anything anymore, really.”
“Are you sure about that? I mean, don’t you think your personal view might be, clouding things?”
“Look I can tell when people are totally uninterested, and 99% of the time I’m present in society, everybody looks totally uninterested. They’re like zombies, and they go to their jobs, and they go to their friends, or their families, or their boyfriends or girlfriends, and then they’re totally uninterested in that place too. I just want to know what happened to exuberance. Why is all I see apathy? I see it as my job to make people think more and do more and do more that they actually find meaning in.”
“I think all you see is apathy because everyone can tell you don’t have a job and they scoff at you and your art. Art is meaningless unless it’s in a museum, at least to ‘99%’ of the ‘zombies.’ Or Broadway, if you want to go there. Or the local multiplex if you want to go there. Or the most wealthy advertisement based channels, if you want to go there. It’s a matter of quality + money = success, not quality + sincerity = success.” “But how can you classify art as ‘quality’ or ‘sincerity’ and why would you even bring ‘money’ into art?”
“Some of the best artists were rich, you know. You always hear these like Horatio Alger type stories about the noble poor boy who worked his way up out of despondency, usually by being good and honest. Artists aren’t born poor. If they were born poor, they wouldn’t be so desperate as to try to make a living out of art. Today, if you’re good and honest, you get labeled a square, and you’re not a bulldog, and you’re not successful. I don’t think there has to be money in art, but I think it helps if an artist is rich, because then they’re able to say, ‘Fuck it, I can say whatever I want, and I don’t care if nobody thinks it’s any good.’“
“But don’t you think money cheapens art? Turns it into just another commodity, and not a work with real blood, real sweat, without any thought to the profit margins, put out there specifically for what it would give the audience, isn’t that what really matters?”
“Sure, I agree, but I know from experience that if you are broke, and you are an artist, you stand little chance of real exposure. Exposure is the most important thing to start with.”
“What happens when there’s too much exposure, then?”
“That becomes a problem. Then you run the risk of being obsolete and repetitive. You have to re-invent yourself. That’s why I like acting—it’s constant re-invention.”
Luther’s cell phone rang. It was Penelope.
“Hey Penny, how’s it going?”
“Oh good, I’m just having a nice conversation with this girl who fancies herself an artist. She drew a sketch of me, it was pretty good, I liked it.”
“Yeah, I went to an audition today, I’ll tell you all about it later.”
“You want to meet up at my place?”
“Cool, I’ll see you there in like, a half hour?”
“Bye, bye.”
The girl looked at Luther.
“Is that your girlfriend?”
“Did I say, ‘love you?’”
“Not everybody ends phone calls like that if they’re going out.”
“I’ve only met this girl twice to be honest.”
“Well, do you think I could get your number, I’d be really interested to talk to you more about art.”
“Uh…sure.” Luther gave her his number. “I gotta hit the train. Later!”