I Can Identify With This

Which is what worries me.
From Assistant Village Idiot:

Read-Aloud

I am rereading "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" and find I am physically unable to read it to myself, however hard I try.  I cannot even merely mouth the words but must at minimum whisper dramatically, playing the scene.

And I must be Guildenstern.

And I must reread - respeak - sections that did not go as well as hoped, until I have the right sound.

My oldest son, when he was eight, nine, ten years old,  used to ask who I was talking to when we were driving in the car.  I'm accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature, Jonathan...I'm arguing with your mother about vacations - I'm winning this time...I am preaching sermon to a group of fundamentalists who will never ask me to speak to them...

He stopped asking, after awhile.  I can't imagine this is likely to improve as I age.  It seems to be getting worse. 


For those not familiar with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, it's an early play by Tom Stoppard.  It's the Hamlet story told from the viewpoint of two minor characters in Shakespeare's play and it turns outs Hamlet's motivations can be even more puzzling if you are IN the play rather than just watching it. I saw the play on Broadway and it was hilarious.  Wonder how it will hold up on a reread today?