Rosetta Stone Advertiser (0:00)

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Dan Kennedy (1:09)

Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy and before we get started, I want to tell you that the Moth is coming to Michigan. Michigan Radio is going to sponsor stories of comedies and calamities, and the first stop is going to be Royce Auditorium in Grand Rapids. That's going to be on June 22, and tickets are available at smarttix.com the show will also be appearing as part of the Ann Arbor Summer Festival on June 23rd at the Power Center. Tickets are available atann arbor summerfestival.org this podcast is brought to you by Audible.com the Internet's leading provider of audiobooks, with more than 75,000 downloadable titles appear across all types of literature. For the Moth listeners, Audible is offering a free audiobook to give you a chance to try out their service. One audiobook to consider is Galore by Michael Crummey. A true storyteller, Crummy creates worlds and characters so rich and deep his readers are likely to get lost in the fictional Newfoundland town he weaves into an imaginative reality. That's Galore by Michael Crummey, available from Audible. To try Audible free today and get a free audiobook of your choice, go to audible.comthemoth that's audible.comthemoth and now this week's story. This story you're about to hear by Mike Daisy was recorded live at the moth in 2005. The theme of the night was the show Must go on stories about the bizarre.

Mike Daisy (2:50)

When I was 19, what I wanted more than anything in the world was to go to London where I hoped I would receive training and that there I would become a real actor. And I didn't know really what was involved in being a real actor, but I was pretty clear that I didn't have it now, that I was doing something fundamentally wrong when I, when I was acting because I didn't feel anything. I was getting cast a lot. I mean, I was, I was working a lot and I was getting cast in all these shows. And in fact I had, I had thoroughly discovered my type because we all have a type, you know, and especially in the theater and in film, you always have a type. And I understood my type. And I was the fat retarded guy and I was playing one fat retarded person after, I mean, I was really working my way through the whole canon of fat retarded people. But when I do these roles, you know, I would be acting and I would feel absolutely nothing, you know, and I would go to my acting classes and everyone else would be having, you know, conniption fits. They'd be feeling every. And I'd feel nothing. My inner life, we're supposed to have this rich inner life. And my inner life was like, say the line, wait for a reaction, say another line. That's nothing. It was just emptiness. And so I wanted to go to London because I had this idea that. I had this idea that if I went there, I hoped that the ghosts of Gielgud and Olivier, I kind of hoped that they would like, appear to me. I thought that maybe they would appear to me in a dream or something and they would put their hands on me and they would say, oh, you came. It's so good that you came. We understand you. We know what's going on with you. You're special. You're special. And who hasn't wanted that, you know, at 19, for someone, anyone, to put their hands on them and tell them that they're special. I wanted that so badly. And more than anything else, I just wanted to feel, feel something. So I get to London and I'm in the program and it's not, it doesn't go the way that you sort of envisioned. Because I didn't realize that in America our acting program is very touchy feely. And in Britain it's more like boot camp. It's more like boot camp for actors. And I have, we have this instructor, Anna, and every day we have to come in with a new Monologue memorized. We'd be trying to pound them into our head as we wrote it on the tube, and we'd get it barely memorized. You have to get up in front of her and the entire class, and she would sit sort of lounging assertively, and she'd nod her head from side to side. She looked like some kind of hawk. And she'd watch you do the piece. And the moment. The moment you were not absolutely fucking fascinating, the moment you did not hold her attention 100%, she would tell you, you're boring me. You're boring me. And she would say it again and again and louder. And let me just say that it's very difficult to perform when someone is doing that. The words just drop out of your. Shall I compare thee to oh, shall I? A lot of crying and running off the stage. So for me, the program wasn't enough. You know, it was torture. And I enjoyed all the posture exercises, but, I don't know, I wanted something more. I wanted to meet real, live English people. You know, I didn't want to just hang out with Americans at the Haagen Dazs and the Burger King and be in Trafalgar Square. I wanted to, like, meet real, live English people and do a real play with them. So I went through all the free newspapers, and I would. I would look in the. In the. In the auditions, in the back, the open auditions, shooting really low because I didn't want to be disappointed. And that's how I found myself south of the Thames. Now, listen, if you're studying theater in central London and you find yourself south of the Thames, you are off the map. I pop out of the tube. It's like a whole other world. It's all, you know, council flats and curry shops in decay. And I'm walking down the street, and I have this address, and at the address is this abandoned church. And I assume it's abandoned because there's a big hole in the roof. And I. Just for me, that means abandoned church. And I go in. But that's the. The. And I go in and I audition for them, and they accept me. They accept me. They welcome me into their arms, and they let me be in their show. They're doing a Carol Churchill play. They're doing Vinegar Tom, and I'm so excited. Carol Churchill is an exciting playwright, and this exciting group is taking me on board. I'm so thrilled. And I don't find out until later that they've only cast me because I have an American accent and everyone Thinks that'll be very. It's very scary. And that has profound geopolitical implications. So I start doing this show with these people and then we go out to drink as actors do, and I'm drinking with them. I'm learning about the group, and I'm learning that this group is very interesting. You see, everyone in this theater company, everyone is on the dole. They're all on British welfare. It's like they all have micro genius grants just to do shows in this abandoned theater. And in fact, most of them live in. In the abandoned theater or in dilapidated council flats all around. They live there and they just do one show after another. And in fact, the group's been around like 25 or 30 years and the whole time just doing one show after another. And I'm the first new person in a very long time. So I remember going in for the first real rehearsal scene. I'm in. I was so excited. I actually memorized all my lines, which I never do that early. I memorized all my lines. I got completely off book. And I remember getting in there and we get ready, do the scene. The scene's kind of fun. It's. I'm having this pivotal scene with this other woman. And basically we've been sleeping together, we're having an affair, and I want her to sleep with me again. And I'm like, come on, sleep with me. And she's like, no, I don't want to. Come on, sleep with me. No, I don't want to. And then she runs away and I glower at her impotently. I just kind of, you know. So we do the scene, you know, and I think it goes pretty well. You know, we go through it, it's all very, you know, like, yes, no, yes, no. And she runs away and I'm glowering. And as I'm glowering, I see something in the corner of my eye. I turn my head and the director is gesturing at me. He's going, go get her, Go get her. Because you see, with this director, the script is just a starting place. The script is just the beginning of a magical adventure. And you know, Carol Churchill is an award winning playwright. She wrote a wonderful script. But the director thinks he can do better. So we do the scene just as it's written. He hasn't changed any words. But at the end of the scene, instead of her just running away and me staring at her, she starts to run away. And then I'm supposed to run after her and grab her and throw her on the ground and rape Her. So we reset to do the scene again. And I have to admit, this time I'm not thinking very much about my performance because I'm 19, I haven't really been with a lot of women. I'm going to a nice liberal arts school. I had just taken the Goddess within and I just don't really feel like I want to do the. You know, I just don't feel prepared, I wouldn't even be to do the scene. And he wants it very graphic. And he's like, you have to grab her and throw her on the ground. You have to get on top of her. And he's even telling us that he wants the scene to be okay. I want it to be eight and a half or nine minutes long. You've been on stage. Do you know how long nine minutes is? No matter how slowly I grab her and pull her slowly to the ground and slowly get on top of her. That all takes like three minutes, which means that leaves like six minutes of humping. Because eventually that's all that's left. And that's why I'm humping. And this is my only real scene. And so we have to do it again and again and again. And every time it's worse than the time before. And if you've worked in the theater, maybe you know that theater can be a very intense place where intense emotions happen. And so as we rehearsed the scene day after day, and we did the scene again and again and again, we started sleeping together. So we're sleeping together. What happens is we have the rehearsal and we have the rape again and again, again. Then we go to the pub and we drink and drink and drink. And then we go to her flat and it's as though the rehearsal earlier was rehearsal and this is the performance itself. And it was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. She was wonderful. Her name was Tamsin. She had light brown hair, pale, washed out eyes. And she. She could listen like no one I'd ever experienced. She could listen. She could listen so intently. I remember sitting with her almost every day, having tea and just talking. We'd sit, I'd be sitting across from her, I'd be staring into her eyes, she'd be staring back at me. I'd look into her eyes and think, oh, my God, I have no idea what she's thinking. And then she'd put her hand on my hand just a little bit. And I would think, and I don't care. I don't care. I just hope this lasts. I just hope this Lasts. And so one day we're in technical rehearsals for the show, and we tech the show. And that night we go to the pub like we always do when we're drinking and I'm up at the bar and one guy turns to me and says, so you don't mind? And people have been saying shit like this for weeks. You don't mind, it doesn't bother you, you're okay with it. And I'll tell you the truth, I didn't really know what the fuck they were talking about. I actually convinced myself that maybe it was some kind of Englishism that I didn't understand. Like, Bob's your uncle. So I'd always say something like, very nondescript, like, you know me, I'm not the minding sort. But. But this time, you know, I was just fed up with it. So I turned to my. I said, what? What don't I mind? What? And all the color just drained out of his face. And he stammered and then he told me, because you see, everyone at that theater south of the Thames, everyone there didn't have a job except for Tamsen. Tamsen did have a job. Tamsen was a working girl. Tamsin was. Was a prostitute. Not with me. I was her boyfriend. And it's amazing how you can get information, such a huge piece of information that you can't process it, you know, I felt so angry and so humiliated. Everyone knew but me. I felt so humiliated. But more than anything else, I thought, God, I don't know what to do with this. I don't know how to address this because I'm so afraid that if I say something, if I do something, I'll lose this. And I can't lose this. This is too important. And so I made a very. A very bold and young and stupid decision. I decided we just won't talk about it. I just won't talk about it. You know, it's very English if you think about it. We just won't talk about it. But, you know, the world doesn't work that way. You can try not to talk about something, but things mount up. I spent as much time as I could with her. And then details started to stack on details. And I discovered that she'd shoot up. She was shooting up. I couldn't believe it. She'd shoot up on the couch, you know, next to me. I'd be watching the tv. I would turn my head and I think. And I would just look at the tv and I wouldn't turn my head and I would like, well, wait, I Can't talk about that either. I don't know how to deal with that. I don't know how to deal with being with someone that I. That I love, that I'm falling in love with. Who does that? And then I had to take a ride with her pimp. Her pimp is driving me around the block in his car. And I don't even know it's her pimp at first until I figure it out, you know, very late as usual. I figure it out and I'm driving with him and he's explaining to me that I am taking up too much time, too much time. And I don't even respond, you know, I don't even know what to say. I just sit in that car and stare forward. And that's the way things go. We talk and talk about everything. She teaches me so much, but we never ever talk about it. This central fact just floats in the middle. I do the best acting of my life, not talking about it. We talk all around it. When I go back to America at the end of the program, saying goodbye to her breaks my heart. Breaks it right now. And I've thought about her for years and years, and I thought I would get so much out of that program, you know, and I did. I learned some degree of eloquence and precision to roll my vowels, to punch my consonants, proper stance, but none of it matters. None of it matters or amounts to anything compared to what she taught me. Because she taught me that all acting, all art, the human experience itself depends on listening, really listening. Without her, I never would have learned that. Thank you.