And I am a method actor, which means I am capable of shattering you, a non-method actor, emotionally. That is not a threat, just a simple fact. It is what I am trained to do.

Lock the two of us in a room with the script for Cats and you will invariably start sniffling softly as my mastery of enunciation and intonation leave you feeling confused and unspeakably frustrated. Then, as you beg something of me questioningly, I will turn quickly on my heel and lay you low with an arched eyebrow and a well-chosen word.

It is said that we method actors are prone to giving insincere after-show bear hugs and sporting ill-considered trousers. Perhaps. You also often read that twenty-something male actors who favor the Stanislavski thespiatory approach can be found wearing fedoras at a raffish angle and talking about “really nailing it tonight.” I do not dispute this.

It is a fact that girl method actors, or “hain-ho-hains,” as Checkhov mistakenly called them once after raiding his boyfriend’s medicine cabinet, tend toward hussiness.

On a personal note, I have a series of Chinese characters girdling my left bicep. The Laotian fellow who applied the tattoo told me it says Ming Dynasty Samurai Master, which apparently carries much weight in Asian circles, and I draw a lot of strength from it. Unfortunately, I am a little on the husky side now (my asshole director called me “tubby” after I flubbed my line and caused Shirley to launch into her mayonnaise speech way too soon.) and the characters do not look right. In fact, Mr. Zhang, my landlord, scowled at me last week while I was taking out the trash, and I’m sure it was from seeing such time-honored words warped practically beyond legibility by my dimpled flesh. I feel I have done him and his people a great dishonor.

That is not to suggest that I am extremely depressed or spend days in bed eating chocolate frosting and uncooked hot dogs. Nor am I too tired to masturbate. No, I’m feeling pretty darn chipper despite losing out to an elderly black woman for the part of Winthrop in The Music Man, a role that was mine all the way until certain “artistic differences” with the director over my interpretation of Winthrop’s speech impediment led to my removal from the theater by the police.

You see, method actors do not believe in being rejected. We reject; we are the rejectors. And I reject utterly the notion that being unable to land a role in a church production of The Music Man means I am a poor actor. I am an outstanding actor. I can make you cry.

David Cady is very tired right now. Although he did not write about the coffee, he really did drink it. It tasted pretty much like all the others — sugary, milky, metallic. David is aware that there is a certain sameness to his reviews, that their thin little "plots" are generally resolved through violence or tragedy. Or they just kind of end, often with a weak attempt at depth ("I can make you cry."). Maybe it's a way of avoiding responsibility for telling a coherent tale, but he likes to "freestyle" his way through a story, making things up as he goes along, much the way he lives his life, and if he ever went to a writer's workshop, he'd be crucified, and his ego could not handle that, no way, no how.

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