NPR 10-22:A Stutter on Stage Brings Actor a Revelation 结巴并不能

For years, actor Taro¹ Alexander tried to hide his stutter, but an unplanned pause changed his life.

It's Friday morning once again, which means it's time for StoryCorps. This project records people across the country talking with each other about their lives.

My name is Taro Alexander and I've stuttered since I was 5 years old. Taro Alexander's story was recorded in New York City.

I didn't know any one else who stuttered till I was in my mid-20s. And I just felt alone and I tried to hide it and was pretty successful at kind of fooling people. There are a lot of tricks that you can use. Where you can avoid certain sounds or certain words that give you problems. You know you can speak in an accent or try yawning² or - the easiest one, obviously³, is to not talk. When I was in high school, I went to a high school for the performing arts and on stage I was mostly fluent which actually can be a pretty common thing for actors who stutter. So that was great for my confidence.

But when I was about 26, I was going to play in Denver, Colorado. And at the very end of the play I had this monologue⁴ and I had a block on a line, which up to the point in my professional career, I've never really stuttered on stage. It was probably like a one-second block which can sound like a pause. So if you didn't know that I stuttered, you probably would have no idea that that happened. But for me it wasn't a choice and it freaked me out. And after the show I thought I was going to be fired by the stage manager and I got to that line the second night and I stuttered again and it was a little bit worse.

I needed to talk to somebody about it but I didn't know, I mean who am I going to talk to. I don't talk about this with anybody. So there was this guy named Carl who's the other actor in the scene with me. I went down to his apartment. I said, this is going to be really strange. I know we don't know each other well, but there's something that I want to tell you. I'm a person who stutters, and he said, oh really? S....o am I....nothing what? No, you are not, like I don't ever hear you stutter, what are you talking about? He was like, well, I don't ever hear you stutter, so, and I was like, really? Like, and he's, like, yeah, as a kid I had a really bad stutter. And I worked really hard on it. And most of the time I don't stutter during now and then, I will. And that really was the beginning of, wow, you know there're a lot of us out there. Which just kinda chilled⁵ me out about it. I think a lot of people who stutter including myself, go through such a hard time in their life with it. But who would I be if I didn't stutter? I would be a completely different person.

That's Taro Alexander speaking at StoryCorps in New York City. He eventually founded a theatre company for young people who stutter, it celebrates 6 years of work tomorrow. All StoryCorps interviews are archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress⁶ and you can subscribe⁷ to a StoryCorps podcast at npr.org.

1 taro   

n.芋，芋头

参考例句：

• Main grain crop has taro,corn,banana to wait.主要粮食作物有芋头、玉米、芭蕉等。
• You celebrate your birthday with taro,red bean and butter.用红豆、芋头和黄油给自己过生日。

2 yawning   

n.打呵欠adj.张着大嘴的，打哈欠的v.打呵欠( yawn的现在分词 )；张开，裂开

参考例句：

• Yawning is often contagious. 打哈欠常易于感染。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• I felt so sleepy I couldn' t stop yawning. 我感到很困，止不住地打呵欠。 来自辞典例句

3 obviously   

adv.显然；明白地

参考例句：

• Obviously they were putting him to a severe test.显然他们是在给他以严峻的考验。
• Obviously he was lying.显然他是在撒谎。

4 monologue   

n.长篇大论，（戏剧等中的）独白

参考例句：

• The comedian gave a long monologue of jokes.喜剧演员讲了一长段由笑话组成的独白。
• He went into a long monologue.他一个人滔滔不绝地讲话。

5 chilled   

adj. 冷却的, 冷藏的，冷冻了的 动词chill的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He felt totally chilled. 他感觉完全放松了下来。
• Rain chilled the glittering pageant. 雨使华丽的庆典大为逊色。

6 Congress   

n.(代表)大会；(C-:美国等国的)国会，议会

参考例句：

• There were some days to wait before the Congress.大会的召开还有几天时间。
• After 18 years in Congress,he intented to return to private life.在国会供职18年后，他打算告老还乡。

7 subscribe   

vi.(to)订阅，订购；同意；vt.捐助，赞助

参考例句：

• I heartily subscribe to that sentiment.我十分赞同那个观点。
• The magazine is trying to get more readers to subscribe.该杂志正大力发展新订户。