Acting again

For the fun of it

Over seven years after quitting acting, it was seeing Laurinda at the Melbourne Theatre Company which made me realise how much I missed it.

It took me totally by surprise. I felt content that I had left acting firmly in the past.

But as I was writing my opinion piece about Laurinda for The Guardian, I pulled back from my computer and stared in disbelief at what I’d just written:

Mostly, I am excited by the promise of Laurinda: it shows that it is normal to be Vietnamese in theatre, that it is a place where we can belong and thrive. That we can shake off the racist stereotypes and cliches to create our own work, in which we are allowed to be complicated, joyful and alive. That one day, I might feel confident to return to acting because I can go to a casting call for a play written by someone like me.

Whoa! Return to acting?! Was that actually something I wanted?

I’d written the words without even thinking. It was hard to avoid them when they were staring right at me.