All the World's a Stage

Click on cartoon to view enlarged.

An unexplored aspect of acting is the degree to which it's a metaphor for life. I'm not talking about theatre or movies, which utilize acting for narrative purposes, I'm talking about acting itself, the assumption of roles that are something other than who we are. We're all acting all the time, projecting a version of ourselves as we'd like to be perceived. Most people assume multiple roles in various situations throughout the week. It's not surprising that the family doctor plays the role of doctor, based on the doctors he's known since infancy. At night he goes home and plays the role of dad, based on his dad, or dads he's admired. On Sunday he goes to the golf course and suddenly he's Slammin' Sammy. This concept should make it easier for an actor to understand the process by which one can morph easily and naturally into a character, except it doesn't usually work that way. Most actors, instead of assuming the role of their character, a Danish prince, say, avenging his murdered father, or a fading Southern belle with delusions of aristocracy, assume the role of an actor who is playing a role. It keeps them one step removed from something we can fully believe.