Acting, can or do you act?

TheCatWoman said:

I held my picture of a chicken upside down

I remember being a stoat in Toad of Toad Hall at Junior School and I fell against a plywood tree, sending it crashing down. Luckily there was such a crush of us on stage no one could tell it was me - and this is the first time I've confessed - 63 years later!

Iain said:

I guess is it just a form of masking

That's an interesting way of looking at it. 

Ah, you happily reminded me of Saturday morning drama lessons in Coventry Cathedral, when I was in my early teens. We were called 'The Porch Players' and performed on the steps between the old and new cathedrals. The lessons were run by drama students from Valparaiso [South America] over several years and were great fun. I learned how to run a props department. I wasn't any good as an actress but as a result of learning 'props', how to make/source them, I got a job in a large hospital running the Engineering stores, which I did for 8 years. That was one of the best jobs I had - very suitable decades before I knew I had autism. Thanks for triggering these memories, TheCatWoman!

I find it weird. Because I can and do mask all the time. I'm always putting on a front. But I can't actually or role play at all. I have no idea how. You'd think the skills would line up but they don't seem to. I'm so awkward if I try to act it's awful.

When I was an undergraduate I spent a lot of time involved in light opera: a nice mix of singing and acting. I found it liberating. I could be someone else entirely and behave in ways that would just not be possible in the everyday world. And I could be so much more articulate than in daily life because everything was carefully scripted.

Of course, with an opera (like theatre) there is a clear sequence. Having to do things out of sequence would be quite disturbing (though come to think of it, I was once involved in recording a choral piece with the RSNO and managed to survive repeat takes of sections of the work). 

This is not quite what you mean, but it's voice acting related.

I've discovered since having kids that I love to do the voices for the characters in books and I'm actually really good at it. I'm a bit sad I don't get to read to them as much now as they are reading themselves, though my daughter still enjoys a picture book now and again. I loved doing the 'Oi frog' series, and my peak was 'Oi duck-billed platypus', as I can do about 20 different voices for that. 

My daughter used to talk to the characters when she was little, in the middle of the book she'd just start telling them things, so I obviously kept in character with replies. It was sweet that she considered them real.

I was always too shy to act in school plays back in the day and would worry I looked a little clumsy the way I hold myself -I always look awkward in photos.

I agree that switcing modes like that is a form of acting and that it's exhausting, giving a talk to the local Womens Insistute was one of the hardest things I've ever had to to, they're like a bunch elderly naughty school girls gossiping and passing notes instead of listening.

But thats not the sort of acting I was meaning.

I was always so embarassed about being on stage, I never recovered from being the bleat in the school nativity play when I was about 7 or 8. I had to sit behind a screen and bleat during the shepherds scene. I was the best bleater in the class! I also had to be one of the french hens when singing the twelve days of xmas and I held my picture of a chicken upside down, so traumatic an experience I still want the ground to open up and swallow me when I look at a stage. That was about it for acting and drama in my school years, we just didn't do it, I'm always amazed at people who've done all this stuff when they were so young. and for many it's so normal!

I used to be able to switch into acting modes when I had to deal with groups of people, whether the board of directors in my company or a group of end users who were unable to do their job because of a failed IT system - being able to stop being tired / anxious or whatever and be a positive, caring and motivated face for the company could be done in seconds.

It was exhausting though. I guess is it just a form of masking which most autists do every day.

I actually did a lot of acting when I was a teen. I was even Harold Hill in a production of The Music Man.

I credit theater to how I learned a lot of things that I struggled with. Eye contact (just stare between the eyes), hugging (actually, I started hugging too much once they taught me it’s okay lol), and other little things like how far to stand from people were skills I learned from theater.