Gabriel's knees are always (skinned) wrote in repose,
Re: AUDITIONS CHARACTER NAME: Ronan Xander ROLE WANTED: Tom Wingfield WILL YOU PLAY ANY ROLE?: Yes PREVIOUS ACTING EXPERIENCE Elective theatre courses while he was working on his degree in Fine Art at the Ruskin at Oxford. He also played Mercutio in his college production of Romeo & Juliet.
[Ronan was a little nerve-y when he strode into the room, sure - but less than he would've been if the audition had been on a stage. A room, he could deal with that well enough. He knew Ren, obviously. Not overly well, but they got on alright when they had shifts together at the shop. Knew each other well enough to make snarky comments about the customers on slow days, and all that. And so his nerves were limited to a clenched sort of feeling in his chest, with the knowledge that he hadn't done anything like this in years - but there was also a sort of relief, that came with knowing that this was almost like trying on an old pair of shoes. There were still the indentations that hugged him, and gave him that sense of familiarity. Like an old friend.
He smiled at Ren in a slightly sheepish way as he prayed that his neck wouldn't flush it's usual traitorous shade of pink, handing the other man a sheet of paper with two lines. Okay, so his chosen scene wasn't technically a monologue. And he could have gotten through it without the dialogue, but he really liked the scene as it was written. And if Ren wasn't okay with that, then he didn't have to read it.]
Hi, my name's Ronan and I'll be reading the part of Renton, auditioning for the role of Tom Wingfield. [A flash of devil in his smile, because - duh. But then he clears his throat, rolls his shoulders back and settles into his character. He doesn't opt for Ewan's brogue from the movie, sticking to his own accent.]
[Ren/Veronika:] What's 'Choose life'?
[Ronan/Renton:] What?
[Ren/Veronika:] 'Choose life'. Simon says it sometimes. He says "Choose life, Veronika!"
[Ronan/Renton:] 'Choose life'. 'Choose life' was a well meaning slogan from a 1980's anti-drug campaign and we used to add things to it, so I might say for example, choose... designer lingerie, in the vain hope of kicking some life back into a dead relationship. Choose handbags, choose high-heeled shoes, cashmere and silk, to make yourself feel what passes for happy. Choose an iPhone made in China by a woman who jumped out of a window and stick it in the pocket of your jacket fresh from a South-Asian Firetrap. Choose Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and a thousand others ways to spew your bile across people you've never met. Choose updating your profile, tell the world what you had for breakfast and hope that someone, somewhere cares. Choose looking up old flames, desperate to believe that you don't look as bad as they do. Choose live-blogging, from your first wank 'til your last breath; human interaction reduced to nothing more than data. Choose ten things you never knew about celebrities who've had surgery. Choose screaming about abortion. Choose rape jokes, slut-shaming, revenge porn and an endless tide of depressing misogyny. Choose 9/11 never happened, and if it did, it was the Jews. Choose a zero-hour contract and a two-hour journey to work. And choose the same for your kids, only worse, and maybe tell yourself that it's better that they never happened. And then sit back and smother the pain with an unknown dose of an unknown drug made in somebody's fucking kitchen. Choose unfulfilled promise and wishing you'd done it all differently. Choose never learning from your own mistakes. Choose watching history repeat itself. Choose the slow reconciliation towards what you can get, rather than what you always hoped for. Settle for less and keep a brave face on it. Choose disappointment and choose losing the ones you love, then as they fall from view, a piece of you dies with them until you can see that one day in the future, piece by piece, they will all be gone and there'll be nothing left of you to call alive or dead. Choose your future, Veronika. Choose life.