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Ask Alice Q: Dear Alice, I'm an 18-year-old guy who's just about completed a year majoring in biochemistry. It doesn't seem as interesting and fulfilling as I thought it would be. Recently, though, I became enamored of kids in Danskins marching off to the University of the Arts for their acting and vocal lessons. Suddenly I feel the urge to act. I've always had a certain flair for the dramatic. I want to change my major and become an actor. Am I nuts?
L. Luft A: Dear Luft, The fact that you're considering any career at all is wonderful. People your age are normally considering lunch at best. I'm not sure about considering "acting" as a "career," though, at least not so far as to study it. None of the successful Hollywood actors seem to do it - act that is. They're all pretty reliant on simply being themselves. That couldn't have cost very much. Face it, how much do you think it must have cost Juliette Lewis, Winona Ryder or Leonardo DiCaprio to figure out how not to wash their hair, be rigid and stumble through easily pronounceable words? Couldn't have been much. And if you've seen the trailers for Brad Pitt in The Devil's Own you'll find that no one in Hollywood bothers to seriously approximate foreign accents. Actors appear to just guess at what people from other lands sound like. There are older actors who still work at it, though. Robert DeNiro eats a lot, pounds his head into walls and gnaws female cheekbones as part of his rigorous training. Sean Connery has a battery of ladies he slaps around to get into character. Bruce Willis fondles Demi's wigs. Still, this isn't enough for any upstart actor. Have you been keeping abreast of all the ads for great Shakespeare films being released? That's a very good start. Study the characteristics of actors' faces on buses as they roll by. And if you really still feel the urge to be dramatic you can just as well read Camille aloud or listen to Judy Garland records, drink Merlot and sulk. When you feel like you're just about to slit your wrists, put on your own pair of Danskins and you may finally discover what you're looking for.
Alice Q: Dear Alice, Help. I don't have any sense of humor. Try as I might to get the "joke" - as some might put it - I have neither the understanding of funny things nor the ability to form an idea that is witty. The possibility of making people laugh is so alien to me, other people's yuks make me angry and depressed; yet I yearn to make others titter, snicker even. What can I do about my humorless plight?
Ho-hum in Fort Washington A: Dear Ho, The ability to tell a joke goes back as far as Biblical times; a time when people were greatly disadvantaged. Every one was being smote or cursed with a plague - what's so funny about that? Rent a copy of The Ten Commandments (1956) if you don't believe me. You think following Edward G. Robinson dressed in goofy robes was easy? But the story with God and Job and all that torturous testing of a man's faith - now that was funny. The Apostles were better than the Three Stooges and the Marx Brothers combined. So reading the Bible is actually an interesting picture of how humor was formed within unfunny situations. The ole laughter comes from pain theory. Self-flagellation may not be the best answer, but it can't hurt. Ha ha. I made myself laugh.
Alice
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