I don’t suppose anyone goes to drama school with the sole intention of being an understudy. It’s a bit like training to be an athlete, only to have to sit by the side of the track in case anyone trips over, while wondering if you’re still fit enough to run.
There are good days. You get to sit in swanky bars, hobnobbing with other “artistes”, with enough money to buy that up-and-coming director a cocktail. You get to sit among out-of-work actor friends and remind yourself you’re one of the lucky ones; you’re actually in employment as an actor, rather than being a chugger, or a receptionist, or signing on and spending the day smoking weed, debating if it’s worth dressing up as a gummy bear and serving vodka shots at an all-night bar for the minimum wage, because at least you’ll be “in character”.
There are bad days. Everyone else gets up in the morning and fixes things, and makes people’s lives better or richer. Performers go to work at night. You go to a dressing room in the back of a theatre and wait, mildly relieved that you’re not having to do what it is you thought you wanted to do, because you’re invariably unprepared for the actual event taking place. You’ve got away with that epic hangover again.
Then there’s your relationship with the principal actors: you want to make friends, but you’re always paranoid that they’re paranoid you secretly want them to trip down the stairs – which you don’t at all.
But you can’t complain. Just once in a blue moon you go on. The whole thing flashes by in a daze and you can’t believe you did it, and just a teeny tiny part of you remembers who you are and what it’s all for.
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