A different time

If you've read my past two posts, you know Mike and I spent last week as extras in a TV pilot called "The Playboy Club." The show takes place in Chicago in 1963, and the producers went all out in making it seem like that year with the clothes, hair, cigarettes, even the cocktail napkins saying "Playboy Club." It was very cool.

One thing I instantly noticed and found very interesting is how all of us transformed into people of that generation. Suddenly we went from being people who are always in a hurry with no time for pleasantries, to these characters who are friendly, polite, even chivalrous.

I told you when I moved to Chicago from Wyoming, I kept my small-town ways and said "excuse me" to everyone I nearly ran into or had to walk in front of at the grocery. Then it became very apparent that in a city, you're always in someone's way, so I stopped being so darned polite. I also decided to no longer get annoyed in someone didn't hold a door open for me, knowing they're probably just trying to catch the L train.

But last week, I felt like I was back in Wyoming in a different time. All of the extras had to share a confined space, so we were always in each other's way. Suddenly though, people dressed in their full 60's costumes were saying "Oh, excuse me," and "Pardon me." Whoa! Also, the men always held the door open for women as we were going on/off set or in/out of the hair and makeup room. At lunch, they had a huge buffet set up outside, and the weather was frigid. The women were shaking in their hose, so the men allowed all the women to go ahead of them. With only a 10-minute lunch break, and a chance of running out of food, that's pretty remarkable.

Now I'm trying to determine if actors are just an extremely polite kind of folk, or if the fact that we were playing characters of a different time made us act differently.

I'm not sure, but either way, I liked it.