NEW BEGINNINGS…

 

As you know, for the past 3 years I have been trying to go back to my youth in order to renew with my passion …ACTING…Becoming somebody else, finding the reality in the character, making research about the period, the family history, etc.…

I had a few interesting experiences, appearing in TV series and Netflix movies…Always small supporting roles or even appearances, nothing really overwhelming, but I have been acting…   

With JOY!...                                                                                                                                                

But the best was around the corner, the past few months I became the first choice for many companies, commercials, TV series for a very specific role… I am now very much in demand for a role I was not expecting to do in my life… 

In the sixties and the seventies, I was cast as a lead and most of the time, I was a young adventurer, or a young lover, or a successful whatever…. So, I was   not expecting to be… Try to guess… 

Here is the description:                                                                                                                              I am an old man, in a nursing home or a retirement community, or an assisted living…. I have Dementia or Alzheimer’s, I cannot really talk freely, cannot remember anything, I am lost in a foggy world, I walk with difficulty and only with the help of a nurse or a walker…                             Most of the time sitting on a wheelchair, or in bed …Dressed in Pyjamas or in a nightdress, I am asked to smile a lot, since the nursing home is treating me so well, and also, I have to be thankful to my helpers……

Most of the time, the dialogue is limited, I am just uttering a few words, and smiling or making faces… Most of the time, the director does not ask anything specific, and I heard many times from many of them: DO NOT ACT, BE YOURSELF … YOU ARE PERFECT FOR THIS ROLE…

You are laughing!!!   STOP LAUGHING!!!! Stop….

 I always felt very sorry for the older people with this fate in their life, and now I feel even sadder to portray them, I can understand even better what they are going through.

So, in a way I am back at the time when I was studying acting with Jean Louis Barrault and Tania Balachova. The method acting, the Stanislavski way…DO NOT ACT…USE WHO YOU ARE… I have been trained to play roles from Shakespeare, Tolstoy, or Moliere…And now, I can use all this knowledge by staying myself in total integrity,  being an old man in a nursing home with Dementia or Alzheimer’s… TO BE MYSELF….

Here is an example of a scene:

It is 8 am, and I am in my room sitting on my wheelchair, waiting for the nurse to come and talk to me… She enters…

-Good morning! How are you today?

- ?????? (I do not answer, I just smile)

-Hello, did you sleep well?

-What???

- Did you sleep well?

-Eh?

-Are you ready to take you pills?

-My pills?

-Yes, your pills.

-Ah, ah, ah, you are funny, my father was taking pills all the time, but you know, I do not. I want to thank you to come to see me. You kkkkk…nnnn..owwww, a long time ago, I was capable of doing many things, even to take pills, not anymore, now I need you Ms.…?  what is your name? I cannot remember…

- Julia.

-Oh yes, of course, thank you so much, thank you Lydia…. For visiting me…

ETC…ETC… AND STOP LAUGHING IT IS NOT FUNNY…                                                                                     

After a few minutes of silence, while Julia is preparing my potion, I have to say:

-Andrea play some music, some Beethoven. 

Silence

-Andrea, play for me… 

Silence

-Lydia, Andrea is not responding. 

 -Do you mean Alexa?                                                                                                                                

 -Oh yes, Alex, play some music, some Schubert.

 

The nurse gives me pills and I continue to be in another world.  Once I started to improvise some text and the director said nothing, he let me go, and then after a few minutes, he said:

-Wonderful, you see when you do not act and you are yourself, you are perfect…

This morning while I was writing this, I received another offer to be again a patient with Dementia who now has cancer… I am progressing, it is becoming more intricate…

I knew I will reach this level with age; I knew I will be recognized as a famous actor…  Here it is, being myself in a nursing home, the role of my life...

I remember in the sixties, I was performing In a Theater in Paris…The play was by Alfred de Musset, the title is LES CAPRICES DE MARIANNE…. Two main male characters, Octave and Celio...I was sharing the dressing room with the other actor, I was Octave, he was Celio…

One evening before the performance, somebody knocked at the door of our dressing room, and we opened the door. It was the director of the company.

-Be good tonight, Jean Louis Barrault is in the audience.

-Oh God, really?

-Yes… Be good…

Barrault was the number one theater man in France, considered as a genius actor and Director and having a school for young actors… My colleague and I went crazy, screaming joy and fear…Yes. we will be great tonight… And we went on stage…

At the end of the performance, we are back in the dressing room, trembling of expectations, hoping that Barrault liked us…

Knock at the door, we open, Barrault is in front of us, a very short man, and very skinny and very withered…We almost fell on our knees in front of the genius who came to see us... but his voice stopped us…

-Boys, you did an excellent job, I can see that both of you worked a lot on your role, it was well done, congratulations but I have to add that one of you has a lot of talent… And he left without a goodbye, without a word...  I was in chock, not knowing what to say, my colleague started to laugh and laugh and laugh...

 He said:

-That was funny, don’t you think?

-I do not think it was funny at all…

The next 30 days, twenty-four performances, he continued to laugh each night talking about Barrault, and each night I was furious screaming my anger…. Life can be strange, the name of my colleague was Gerard Depard…, I am sure you know him...

But I have to add that 3 months later, Barrault hired me to be his assistant on a new play.

Now, I am back to acting, and according to the directors I am working with, not acting but being myself, an old man with Dementia or Alzheimer’s in a nursing home…VIVE LA DIFFERENCE    

One more thing, I am increasingly challenged by the world we are living in. I do not think it is funny, but it seems that the least we know, the best chances we have to advance in the latter of life especially if we are capable of using all the new ways of being a social climber… I sincerely hope that  the next generation will go back to what is for me the only way to grow: Learn from the great creators of the past, and be hungry for knowledge, maybe I am just dreaming or living In a past which does not mean anything anymore… sometimes I have hope that the next generation will follow that way…And I have dreams when I see my granddaughter, Sophia, who is 2 years old and 5 months sitting on the floor, turning the pages of a book…The book being  BIRTH OF THE TRAGEDY by Nietzsche…I am adding a picture of her in this blog with the  book..  New beginnings????

Ok, time to go back to concentrate on how to be myself for my next apparition as an old man with dementia in a nursing home.

PS I received now everyday spam like this one

[uzan]
Why This Mad Scientist Is Being Sued By Big Pharma For Revoking Alzheimer