I could not find a written part of this thing and instead found a podcast. I had to listen to this a second time. Actually, there is a lot of humor and truth in this. I think most of this comes from the details he throws in. He could just say, "I once wanted to be a mime, like the one on the corner," but instead talks about what the mime did and how he himself acted inside the house with a fake baby. He could just say, "I was once in a class and became obsessed with Shakespeare," but went for all sorts of details, from adding words into his language to sulking in order to get a book of the playwright's complete works. When talking about the "Drama Bug" of the title ("This wasn't a bug, but a full-fledged virus...") I see the things this man has actually written are funny but tragic. He reminds me a bit of my sister, gaining interest in many things but losing it quickly enough, only his focus is in acting, drama, and the problems that come with such work.
The second part of Act 1 shows him finally joining an acting troupe with his friend Lois, who quickly becomes the diva of the group, while Sedaris falls farther and farther from the spotlight until he is asked to work the spotlights. I get this feeling when the leader of the group is described as a far-too-bright and far-too-loud man. I think my favorite part of this part of the reading is the irony of Sedaris's mother: He first says he thought she knew nothing about acting but, at the very end, he congratulates her for being the best actor he could have possibly known, while the real actors kept trying too hard to bring the attention to themselves (the director, for example). I am a major fan of details in stories, so I think I may have found a somewhat new favorite author. Now if only I knew what this David Sedaris wrote...
Idida Z. Casado
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