Why acting means so much to me

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Over the past few years I have grown to be very fond of my visits to the theatre. It all began in the year 2012 when I saw a modern production of Goethe's famous play "Faust" and I was just glued to my seat. Looking back, I would probably find this production a bit too modern today but that is another story. The point is that from that evening on I had discovered one of the greatest things in the world's culture: theatre!

The theatre immediately became a magic place to me. When I knew that I would go to the theatre in the evening I was happy for the entire day and left my flat with a smile on my face. I got to dress up nicely (because that is what you do when you go to the theatre) and would be sure that today I would again get to see another world which was portrait for me by those wonderful people up on the stage. I have always had sort of a thing for stories and acting them out so I always felt quite at home and in good care. To this date I keep saying that theatre is the absolute best form of entertainment there is! It is even better than going to the cinema because theatre is like watching a film life where you get to see everything! There is some unexplainable but wonderful presence and feeling about the theatre that I cannot really explain. In theatre you get drawn into another world and you can watch those fantastic actors and actresses up on the stage how they bring their characters to life by showing emotions and telling us their stories. In theatre you never miss a thing, if something goes wrong than you are there to see it; in the movies they always cut out what goes wrong which can sometimes be either funny or just terrible. The theatre has this special something which no other form of entertainment has.

My love for acting has always been present; sort of. It all started, like so many good things do, with books. I have always been a book worm even now that has not changed. We all know from school that when the class reads a story or text, very often somebody is supposed to read it out loud. And that is where it all started. Reading out loud has become one my most favourite things to do and every time I get a new book, I sit down, turn up the first page and start reading the story out loud to myself. This form of reading has become my first acting. I love putting all the emotions in to the words and trying to bring the characters from the page to life. The descriptions of the sceneries have to sound engaging and intriguing; if there is a mystery going on you have to hear it in the voice that there is something strange going on; if a character had just run a mile he has to sound exhausted. My voice became my instrument to make the world of the pages real, I wanted to show others and myself that those persons had real emotions and that you had to go with them. So in school I became the one who always wanted to read out loud if it was asked for; the teachers got used to me being the only one wanting to do so and sometimes even asked if not for once somebody else wanted to read. But I could not help it. It was not even asked of me to read very nicely or engagingly but I did it anyway every time because it was the right thing to do and I felt so alive when I did it. So over the time I became the reader in my classes for which I was very happy. Since I did not have the chance to stand up on the stage at that time, reading out loud became my form of acting.
And people actually seemed to like it. One day we read in our English class the story of "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Poe, one of my favourite authors. I had already read the story at home and absolutely loved it, especially because I am a fan of those sort of murderous, psychotic characters. I fell in love with the character of that story and adored the way how Poe described the man's feelings towards his dark deed and the old man. So when we read the story in class I was, obviously, the first one to raise my hand for reading. I dived into the essence of the story and tried my best to make those dark thoughts of the character real with my voice. When I had finished one of my classmates actually began to applause and all the other students joined in! My teacher said that I had read wonderfully and all the others agreed. That moment became so dear and special to me. Reading was the only way I could act in public and I did not seem to be that bad at it!

Over time I kept going to the theatre and always read my stories out loud. When I watched a movie I liked very much so that I knew it by heart, I began speaking and playing along with the characters. Soon I moved away from the screen and started acting out those movies in my room, me trying to impersonate the people I had just watched. I always became engaged with the stories of those characters so quickly, they were real to me and I wanted to be like them. The art of being an actor became almost holy to me. Actors do such amazing things! Who else could be able to bring any person or creature to life and show us how they move, how they think and how they feel? Actors have the freedom of being able to become anybody and anything! They show us emotions of people that do not really exist but thanks to their amazing work those characters become real to us so we feel with them. Actors do not have anything to work with except some text and their own body. Everything has to come from their mind and their emotions and with those feelings they can make every person believable and real to us.

Every time I now go to the theatre, I always leave it with a very unique but also odd feeling. This feeling is almost a sort of trance for me, I dive into a lake of nostalgia and dreaming. I never leave the theatre unmoved. Those actors on the stage have my attention from the first second until the very last. And when I leave the theatre I keep thinking about them. These days I leave the theatre with one constant thought: One day, I will stand on that stage too. The theatre has enchanted me over the years so that I wanted to be part of it. And not just the theatre did this to me. Over the years I have come to discover the works of so many brilliant actors: Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston, David Tennant and Andrew Scott only being four of all these amazing people. But what they did on screen made me cry, laugh, scream and left me speechless. They are able to give me goose-bumps and make me weep; they bring joy to the heart of every viewer with their outstanding performances. I want to become like them so I can entertain people by playing interesting characters and showing people what those characters feel and think.

The reading out loud and especially the acting are also a very useful tools for blowing off steam and distracting your mind from other things that bother you at the moment. You do not just follow a story any longer; you become part of the story and can bring it to life! You would be able to discover emotions and scenarios you have never encountered in your life but by acting you could for once let something out you always wanted to show.

In my school drama class exists. And the year we students could apply for it came and of course I was more than excited to finally be able to become a real actor! I had seen the past productions of that drama class and knew that they always played funny and interesting plays so I was very happy when the year came that I could be part of that class. But life often throws you down when you are at your happiest. Naturally I was not the only one who wanted to apply for the drama class; it actually turned out that too many people wanted to join the course! They had to throw people out and they did so by drawing lots. Out of the three existing classes, always two people could not join the drama group. Well, you can guess where this story is going. Of all people out of my class it just had to be me who did not get to play in the drama class! This day had turned out to be one of the worst days in my school life and I had to fight hard not to start crying right there in the teacher's office. When I got home I fell into my mother's arms and cried for over an hour without even explain to her what was going on. When I finally told my story the tears were still rolling down my face but my mother understood so well what was going on with me. She knew how badly I had wanted to be a member of the drama class but alas! it was not meant to be.

The last two years of school I was mad about not being in the drama class and even now I still am. But things had to go on and so they did. I was not in the drama course but at least I still had my reading out loud in the other classes. Of course it was not the same but I could not do anything about it. So I had to keep my acting at home and hoped for opportunities in the other classes. And some actually came up. I  was always the happiest when they told us that we could learn a poem for a grade or as a creativity project should write an alternative scene for plays we just read. I got to write an entire scene for Friedrich Schiller's "Maria Stuart" and then act it out even! But the best moment was in my English class:
We read "Hamlet" in class and since I am a great Shakespeare fan I was very excited about that; especially because "Hamlet" is such a wonderful play to get your teeth into. We read the whole play out loud in class, everyone got a different role every time and it was just wonderful! No matter how small the part, I put all I could into Shakespeare's gorgeous words and when I got to speak Hamlet it was even better! Those English lessons were the best ones ever and I hoped that we would be allowed to perform one of the monologues of the play. And so came to be or not to be into my heart. We were supposed to learn the most famous of all soliloquies and you can imagine how overly happy I was about that. It did not take me very long to memorise Hamlet's struggle about life and death and soon I was acting out all kinds of different versions in my room at home. The day of the performance came and we could go up on the stage and perform the monologue however we wanted. I was excited but nervous as hell. I was about to speak the speeches of all speeches, the quintessence of every acting, the master piece for all actors! But the moment the first lines came out of my mouth came and everything turned into the most amazing moment of my life!!! I did not care about my class mates and my teacher sitting in front of me and watching how I played. All what mattered were Shakespeare's words and Hamlet's desperate struggle of continuing or ending it all. I nearly cried, I screamed, I fell to my knees, I did what came with the text and what felt natural to do. When I finished I looked up again at my class mates and all were applauding. I had no idea if all of them actually thought that I did well but I did not care. I felt so amazing as if Shakespeare had taken me to another world. After everyone had performed our teacher called everyone up to him separately to tell us our grades. I will never forget the joy and also relief when the first word he said to me was Wow! It seemed like I had honoured my favourite play and playwright like I had wanted to so this day turned out to be one of the best ones ever!

My wish to stand on the stage one day has only grown since that day. I am learning and memorising monologues, scenes and speeches by heart and act them out in my room although nobody is watching me. But it already feels great doing it for myself because one day I want to make people cry and laugh as well. It feels great to throw your emotions into something and letting everything out. I get to read and study so many wonderful pieces of literature and culture, it amazes me every time how beautifully the human mind can put emotions and thoughts into words. Currently I am working on "Hamlet" again, I started memorising the part of the Danish Prince who to be on stage is my biggest dream. One day I want to stand on the stage of a beautiful theatre and see into the eyes of the viewers and notice that I bring them to tears and make them laugh. And when that day comes I will be the happiest person I will ever be in my entire life.

For the people who have managed it to get through this absurdly long entry might also want to take a
look at my first official acting try; obviously it is a soliloquy from "Hamlet":
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnP-Le0K6rA&index=1&list=PLzGFRyE2uS4Ffz1_5uTeeznjlRKVa1ts-