RE: my interesting acting job

[Guest guest]

Hello all,

Here as promised is a coverage of the acting job I have just

completed in the last two days. As explained before, it was

to role-play act as a Psychiatric patient for trainee Psychiatrists.

It was a pretty big job logistically for the organizers. Must have been

about 50 actors like myself having themselves distributed among six Psychiatric

disorders. We were pretty early after registering, split up into

the six groups, to be trained and briefed independently. So I am assuming

there had to have been some hundred or more Candidates going through the test.

I was hoping that just maybe I might be offered the job of an Autistic. But

no such luck.

My group of 8 or 9 (elderly men!!!@%<* & %$) were

designated and trained to portray this 67 year old man who had just retired

from work as a Draughtsman some twelve months before, and had just found

himself undergoing a degree of Depression. There were

rather strict limitations on the things we were to say in answer to the

trainee/Candidate when being interviewed. We were cued up on our family

situations, our work before retirement, and the relationship with our wife.

So we were cloistered in consulting rooms at a big Hospital,

each of us ‘patients’ with two Examiners, one of whom was to

portray the Case Coordinator.

Then the Candidates were let in one at a time every 20 minutes,

when they had (under considerable pressure, poor people) to introduce

themselves to the ‘patient’, ask a series of relevant questions and

discuss diagnosis along with possible treatments. (they were

already briefed on the basic problem being suffered.)

so in two hours they had to move from room to room and interview in rapid

succession each of the six Psychiatric disorders that were on display for them.

It really was a great deal of fun. I don’t know

just what disorders were given to the other groups to

portray. The organizers showed us a Video of a sample

interview first, so we could understand just what was expected of us, and just

how the text of the sample answers we were supplied with could be applied.

The ‘patient’ in the video was one of their own, and

clearly not any sort of an Actor so his performance was wooden and uninspired.

What I missed in his interpretation was any sort of emotional reaction (despite

his ‘depression’) or surprise at any of the questions being

asked. So in my own portrayal, I made a point of taking a moment to

register just what was being implied when asked if I ever ‘heard voices’

or was at all paranoid etc. I then very quickly showed a bit of shock

and knocked back the idea. I was also more emphatic when asked to confirm

that I had never considered suicide.. I wanted to make the whole

thing a lot more realistic, and my character much more human.

In the brief, it had been explained to the Candidate that the ‘patient’

didn’t want Anti-Depressants at all, and a couple of the Doctors asked

just why, but went on of course to recommend various Psychological therapies

etc.

Our character was described as having no other health problems,

and not taking any drugs etc. so it was a bit on the tricky side

when the Candidate on a couple of occasions queried me about the natural tremor

I have in my hands. (not part of the script of course)

and I had to quickly make it plain that it was natural and had been with me all

my life. One particular guy however took it pretty seriously and

insisted on departing from the ‘script’ in order to give me a quick

Neurological exam. I was worried at this moment, because the last

thing I wanted was for him to notice my floppy foot or semi-spastic lower legs.

That could have been wildly off the matters under discussion. He got

me to walk over to the examination couch, and thank heaven, didn’t notice

my rather awkward walk. Luckily he confined himself to checking my coordination

in head and hand movements, as well as my eyesight. As far as

he went I think he did well, but it was a worry for a moment.

Halfway through the interviews, our group co-ordinator (a very

fine lecturer and presenter indeed) came into our room and observed procedures

for one run through. When he departed afterwards, he turned to me

and smiled and gave me big double thumbs up signal. So I must have passed

muster.

All round a very interesting and enjoyable couple of days. (one

day for training, and the second day for the tests.) It’ll

probably net me about $450 Aust Dollars for the job. unusual to get

a job like this as my Agent normally just arranges parts and bits only for

Television and Film.

I knew a number of the other old guys and a couple of the women

who the Agents had supplied for the work. But apart from during the

lunch breaks, there was not much opportunity to circulate and chat to them.

Anyway, great fun and very interesting. The basic ‘facts’

on our briefing cheat sheet were quite easy to learn, and it was just a matter

of endeavouring to make the character and his answers realistic as possible.

None of the Candidates appeared to be unduly nervous, though it must just have

to be a pretty intensive and difficult exercise for them especially if they

failed it, it would mean they’d probably have to delay their progress

through the training for another year. I was pretty impressed with

the bedside manners of the majority. None of them was off-putting,

and none did any ‘pontificating’ from a great height. Some

were displaying a very real sympathetic bedside manner, and due respect.

An even mix of males and females among them. The biggest

differences showed up in the rapid fluency of their delivery of questions, and

the lack of hesitation. Most explained the possible medications and

the details of the Pycho-therapies quite well. Several individuals

with colour differences were perfectly spoken in English, while a couple had

mild accents that were reasonably easy to follow. It would

have been pretty difficult for the examiners to decide on their ratings and

scores. Having scored and adjudicated Speaking contests on a few

occasions, I know just how ruddy difficult it can be to score performances.

Well there is my promised report.

Cheers, Ron.