whodunit

Our bike club had its annual fundraiser this past weekend. This year, however, we tried something new - a murder mystery. And WOW!!! I had an absolute blast! Greg and I both had roles - we had told the organizer that we would be in it "if they needed somebody." Guess they did... :-) Greg was a bit typecast - the bad biker dude. I was a cocktail waitress, aka the town tramp.

The participants each had a little booklet that described their role and gave the info necessary for that person. We had our booklets a couple weeks in advance, so we could try to learn our parts and get a feel for the role. We didn't practice or anything ahead of time, so it was really interesting during the event to hear all the other info that we weren't given in our own booklet.

OMG, it was just SO much fun. I guess I got pretty much into it. As you can see, I had a bit of cleavage and leg showing - nothing embarrassing - I had a swimsuit top under my shirt. We were supposed to be in Cactus, Texas, so I had a pretty good southern drawl going. And because southern folk are supposedly so much more polite than us northerners, I said ma'am and sir alot. But the best part was my stroll/strut/whatever you wanna call it... LOLOL. I sure wish someone had been videoing the event - I would LOVE to see myself! Anyway, I only broke character twice - both times were for very specific purposes, and only for a couple people. The majority of the people saw me slowly strolling along, swinging my hips, throwing my hair back off my face, etc., at all times. Apparently I played my role TOO well - someone said something like "the girl who's playing the slut is really good - or is she actually like that?!" LOL - the best part - Greg was standing right behind the person at the time!!!! ROFLMAO Someone else came up to me and said VERY tentatively "Our table was talking, and, well, please don't be offended, we think you play a slut really well." bwaaahaaahaaahaaa

I've been thinking about this quite a bit. I think I enjoyed it so much because I was able to act outside of socially accepted behaviors, and it was ok, because I was just "playing a role." Most of us mold ourselves into "correct" humans who behave "correctly." "Correctly" for a married female in her mid-30's, particularly in the good ol' Midwest, is pretty conservative. And I was far from conservative as Crystalline Daniels!! Having a southern drawl seemed to provide me the split I needed to "be" Crystalline vs myself. Both times I broke character to talk to someone as ME, I felt almost naked, overexposed, because I was showing a little cleavage. But as soon as I "became" Crystalline again, I didn't feel that way. Sounds kinda weird, I know. But really, I don't have a split personality. LOL

Anyway, I feel that portraying someone else was really liberating for me, as it allowed me to "safely" and appropriately exhibit some characteristics and traits that would be frowned upon in the real world. I can see why actors seem to get lost in their own little worlds when filming - the more you get into character, the more realistic the role seems, and the less realistic the outside world seems.