The problem was he always believed that he was a good, nay a great actor. It didn’t help that he had high grades and was admired by many of his dorm mates. He was first cast in a supporting role; he didn’t exactly suck but neither did people take notice of him. After that he would insist that his next role should be a substantial one. But he was always passed over. He was five-foot-three-inches in height, dark-skinned and wore thick-lens glasses. His voice was high-pitched just a note below girlish, and had an effete lilt. Yet he always felt he deserved a major role. Too bad there were no plays about Napoleon then. It didn’t help that the actresses that were often cast in the female leads were at least two inches taller than him. So after getting offered less stellar roles in several auditions (all of which he turned down), he stopped joining productions altogether.
After college he started writing theater reviews for a major daily. After a while no one in the theater world liked him. He rarely gave an all-out positive review; he always had something negative to point out, be it acting, production design, direction, or whatever. Most theater folks grudgingly agree that often he raises several good points. Unfortunately his acerbic, know-it-all tone turned off a lot of theater practitioners who could have benefited from his review.
One day he moved back to his province and stopped writing theater reviews. And we never heard from him since.
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