On acting.

For the past few weeks, I’ve just not been myself. I’m not talking about feeling out of sorts occasionally, or turning into a dastardly alternate version of myself after imbibing some sort of wicked bubbling potion out of a test-tube. Though I guess some might say the transformation I’ve been going through could sort of be likened to that (minus the potion). You see, I’ve been rehearsing to act in my first play.

It’s not like I haven’t been on stage before. I started public speaking when I was at primary school in Fiji, and first saw my name etched into a brass plaque on an oratory competition trophy when I was in class seven. In high school, I moved on to debating, but dropped that quick-smart when I started university in Melbourne. Later, my curiosity turned me toward trying out stand-up comedy, which I did for a couple of years and enjoyed the challenge of. So, given all these past experiences, you’d think that acting in a play would be a piece of cake – just a different version of what I’d been doing all these years. I thought it might be, too, in the early days of rehearsals. Now I know better.

In the play, titled I Could Be You, I play the part of Shireen, and International student from New Delhi in India, who finds herself in the Maribyrnong Detention Centre after breaching her student visa. While I obviously have the look for the part, I do not have the sound – a sound that’s been described as ‘ocker’ before, though I don’t really think my Australian accent is as twangy as that description implies. I was brought up in Australia till I was eight years old. I’ve always sounded like this.

Initially, my worry about being in a play was learning the lines. Highlighting my character’s parts in the script, I asked myself, ‘How am I going to remember all this?’. Then rehearsals began and, together with the other three actors, I began to settle into my role. My character’s lines slowly became my lines; her story, my story. I tried to feel her pain and to communicate it – but the problem was that I was still using my own voice, not hers.

When I did stand-up, I spoke as myself. I did not use an accent, Indian or otherwise, to get a laugh. Mainly because my stand-up material was personal - observational - and not character-based. I got up on stage, picked up a microphone, and began to speak. What you saw was what you got. I represented no one but myself. Now here I was, playing a character, but using my own voice. For the first time in my life, I have changed the way I speak in order to allow someone else to speak through me.

Playing Shireen has been a moving experience. As I speak her words, I feel the anger and frustration that I know belongs not only to her, but to many Indian students in Melbourne. I feel privileged to have been able to take on this role. I must be doing it right - after our opening night performance, I was paid the highest compliment: a stranger asked a friend of mine how long I had been in Australia for.

I Could Be You is showing at Theatreworks (14 Acland Street, St Kilda), Friday 24th and Saturday 25th at 8.30pm September, then October 5-9 at 7pm. Tickets are $25/$20 concession, or $15 per person for groups of 6 or more. For more information and to book tickets, visit the Theatreworks or Melbourne Fringe Festival websites.