About Moi
My first performance was in Hamlet at the age of eight. It was awful. I was great, but the play was terrible. Nah, the entire production was a mess, and my interpretation of Osric and Rosencrantz (yes, I was cast in two roles! neither of them leads) did not help. The thing with Shakespeare is that it was not meant to be performed by children. Or anyone really, other than of course Christopher Plummer, and maybe Meryl Streep. The final version of our Hamlet production entailed a bunch of kids holding their scripts on stage reciting lines from a stylized language that was so foreign to them that despite any attempt at delivering it with passion, it still entirely missed the mark. We had no idea what was going on in that play, and I still do not even know if I do. This didn’t deter me from catching the acting bug though, because drama became my life for the next fifteen years, and Shakespeare became not only my muse, but the name of my baby tiger, otherwise known as a cat (see picture below).
I have been involved in the arts all of my life; for as long as I can remember. I loved reading books when I was younger and wondering how authors could transport us to an imaginary world conveyed through words. I remember watching movies and being in awe when I left the theatres trying to emulate characters and recite their powerful dialogue. I remember sharpening my pencil crayons so I could draw my vision of the world I wanted. I remember pretending to be other people, because being me was only exciting when I was someone else.
Before I ventured onto the stage, I was writing. I wrote poems, short stories, long stories, and songs that I later realised basically plagiarized Mariah Carey lyrics. And her melodies. But I tried, and that was what mattered. It also mattered that I didn’t get sued when I was ten years old for copyright infringement. I was a quiet child. I was super shy, and the arts allowed me to find ways of speaking, without voicing anything, but still saying something. I eventually decided to return to school. I had a love and hate relationship with university. I enjoyed learning, but I also fought the process because I didn't always feele like I was being taught the truth. School sometimes sparked my creativity in stunning ways, but it sometimes lit my creations in a blaze of torment. Some fires fuel the path, and some destroy the intended route. I grew up admiring people in the arts. Having the courage to create work that represents how someone interprets the world, or how someone captures a moment in time, is like magic in real time with infinite reveals.
When it comes to how I interpret the kind of artist I am, I like to call myself a conceptualist. I might have invented this term, but I feel that this is what best describes what I ultimately want when it comes to my overall contribution to the creative world. I have a lot of projects that I want to undertake, but I am not sure if I will have the lifespan to accomplish them all, nor the time to acquire the skill it takes to complete every one of them. As a self-proclaimed conceptualist, my ideal life would entail starting certain projects, and collaborating with others to take them over, so I can continue to create everything else I planned on giving to this world.
Copyright Samantha Claire Durrell 2024. All rights reserved.