Mamma Mia!

Recently I auditioned for a part in the upcoming production of Mamma Mia by the Napier Operatic Society.

That might surprise people, given the things I’m generally known for, but music, theatre and performance have been a passion of mine for most of my life.

To be fair, that passion has been expressed from the comfort and safety of the audience for the past 45ish years – but when I was much younger, I genuinely wanted to be a rock star. I had a pretty decent signing voice in my teens and even won a few talent contests – and for a time, it looked as though I might be heading towards some kind of musical career.

Like thousands of other aspiring performers, I imagined that all I really needed was to be discovered by the right person at the right time – but when that break actually came in the 80s, it turned out to be a dead end. I was briefly picked up by one of the country’s top Film and Television agencies and referred for a couple of auditions in upcoming TV productions – but when those auditions didn’t go anywhere they quickly lost interest.

Eventually, my life went in other directions – but the passion never completely disappeared – and when the opportunity to audition for Mamma Mia arose, it seemed too good to pass up.

The vocal and speaking auditions took place a couple of weeks ago. The character I was auditioning for is around 10 to 15 years younger than me – so it was always a long shot – but while the singing voice isn’t what it used to be, I came away feeling that I’d probably acquitted myself reasonably well.

But then, a few days later, came the dance workshop – a one-size-fits-all, Roman Colosseum-style spectacle featuring 150 to 200 women, and about seven blokes, in an enormous rehearsal room at the Tabard Theatre, auditioning for perhaps 80 or 90 roles.

On the face of it, the numbers looked encouraging for a male part.

But that was before the dancing started.

The workshop began with a routine built around a well-known ABBA song, and within about ten minutes I felt completely out of my depth. All around me, young bodies appeared to absorb the choreographer’s instructions instantly and reproduce them effortlessly.

I, meanwhile, appeared to be channelling a dance routine all of my own.

While everyone else stepped, turned and swept their arms in graceful unison, I was floundering around like a wet fish, trying to work out which arm was supposed to move with which leg. On the rare occasions when one limb went in the correct direction, the others seemed to regard this as a dangerous outbreak of competence and immediately took corrective action.

I seriously considered leaving. There comes a point in life when you know the difference between bravery and public humiliation, and I suspected I’d passed it several minutes earlier without noticing.

But I stayed.

Then, after about half an hour, something unexpected happened. The panic began to subside. I started to recognise some of the patterns and understand the basic movements. I was hardly ready for the West End, but I began to think that with enough time and practice, maybe I could actually do this.

That pleasant illusion lasted about ten minutes – at which point the choreographer announced that we would now perform the routine in groups of seven so that she could watch us more closely and record each group on video.

This was not an encouraging development.

Four people would start at the front, with the other three behind them. Then we’d swap positions and perform the sequence again.

I assume this was partly to ensure that anyone who’d been copying the person in front of them would eventually be exposed – but as someone whose entire strategy depended on copying the person in front of me, I thought this showed an unnecessary commitment to detail.

Suffice to say, I delayed this ritualistic public shaming for as long as possible – but eventually, like a prisoner being taken to his execution, my turn came.

There was an enormous mirror covering almost the entire wall of the rehearsal room. As the music started, I could see myself clearly.

Unfortunately, so could everyone else.

The other members of the group were making a half-reasonable job of it. Even the other blokes appeared to have some basic command over their limbs.

I, on the other hand, looked like one of those giant inflatable men outside a car dealership, with my arms flailing wildly and the rest of my body folding backwards and forwards in the wind.

While everyone else appeared to be performing the same dance, I appeared to be fighting off a swarm of invisible bees while trying not to fall down an imaginary staircase.

It was hilarious. It was also deeply embarrassing.

And at that moment, the mirror told me something that was already obvious to everyone else in the room.

I can’t dance.

The mirror wasn’t being cruel. It wasn’t judging me, criticising me or trying to destroy my confidence.

It was simply telling the truth.

Life does that to us from time to time.

Not everything in life is an audition for a stage show, of course – but, in some ways, maybe it is?

We’ve all gone into job interviews believing we were the perfect person for the role, only to discover that someone else got it. We’ve all chased opportunities that seemed tailor-made for us, pitched ideas that went nowhere, applied for loans that were declined, or backed ourselves to achieve something that simply didn’t happen.

At the time, those moments can feel like failures – and sometimes they are – but more often, they’re simply part of the process by which we discover who we are, what we can do and where our abilities are best placed.

Not every roadblock is a cue to work harder and to practice more. Some are meant to prod us in another direction.

Wisdom lies in learning the difference – and, as a Christian, I strongly believe that when we follow what God has in store for us we almost always find it to be far more meaningful and satisfying than anything we might have planned for ourselves.

My youthful dream of becoming a rock star never came true. But the underlying passion didn’t disappear. It simply found other outlets.

The desire to perform became public speaking. The desire to tell stories became writing. The desire to move an audience became communication, commentary and leadership.

Looking back, the common thread seems obvious. It just wasn’t obvious at the time.

There are things each of us does well. They’re often the things we’re naturally drawn towards, the things we practise without being asked and the things that give us energy rather than draining it.

When we find them, we tend to double down on them because they feel less like an obligation and more like a part of who we are.

That doesn’t mean abandoning every dream that proves difficult. Nor does it mean retreating into the safest possible version of ourselves and refusing to try anything new.

It simply means being humble enough to listen when life puts a mirror in front of us.

Sometimes that mirror tells us to keep going. Sometimes it tells us to practise harder. And occasionally it tells us that our talents may lie elsewhere.

Obviously, I didn’t get the part that I auditioned for, but in spite of this (or more likely because of it), Mamma Mia will be another outstanding Napier Operatic Society production when it opens towards the end of this year and anyone living in Hawke’s Bay or the surrounding areas should make a point of buying tickets when they become available later this year.

I certainly will.

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