Support the stage.

I remember in my most recent performance, "Our Country's Good" where I played Ralph I felt utterly overwhelmed with responsibility. Not only was I required on stage for nearly the entirety of the play I had to learn a stupid amount of lines whilst juggling my tee study's. My teacher told me that playing that role would teach me more then the entirety of my year 11 work for drama. He was right. Before this I had played mostly bit part roles or roles where I had my good friend who is an excellent actor beside me. So naturally I really believed that there was not much more to being on stage then remembering lines and cues and playing a believable character. But as Ralph in our countrys good I played a role where almost all the action required me. This was a task enough without the fact our company fell behind the pace from the beggining and so we were all playing catch up until the performance. Even then It was still not polished few people knew there lines to the letter and I was one of them On the matinee performance, at the very end I Lost myself, It was an incedental comment to a convict but I forgot. The actor who had the line after mine stood there saying nothing. I then hurriedly had to rush over to him pretending this was all part of the action to tell him to go on with his line as my brain had dropped the ball. It was humiliating and the actor who said the line was hailed as a hero. As can be imagined I got on top of my text that night. The production ran fairly smoothly the rest of the nights but the closing night is one performance I'll never forget. I learnt that night that without people around you that can support you your performance will fail. There was an incident where one of the lazier cast members had forgotten her line, but I who had been intently listening not just reading the lines came in with a beautiful segway to get to the next line . This failure to remember her line was so promptly picked up on by myself no one noticed or said anyhting back stage. I was enraged as the actress who I'd saved did not even thank me. When I later told her about it she said she had not even noticed. Then it hit me, that was the ultimate reward. I recieved no kudos because I acted so swiftly to save the line that noone had even noticed. the pain of the matinee was still fresh but I realised then and there that as an actor this should come as second nature and any failure to save a scene before it was noticeably ruined was no accomplishment at all. When on stage if all the actors are not working 100 percent for the team then the performance will be below the level it may otherwise have been. No more was this evident then the person who had supposedly "saved me" in the matinee ruined a scene by going for personal glory. The scene was the most dramatic of the play and had a huge amount of tension. But this actor ruined the dramatic tension by slinking on stage and making a joke out of getting beaten so instead of gasps the audience was laughing. My best friend was the actor who suffered the most from this as he immediately went from a vile abuser to a clown in the circus. I left that closing night show after abusing the actor who had ruined the scene and thus looking like the villain. I admit now it was handled very poorly but The lesson I learnt was invaluable. If you are not willing to go out on stage and sacrifice personal glory for the glory of the show then you should do your fellow actors a favour and join a monologue club. Tom Camp