High Class

I really don't have much to say about class last night. Some of the work done was really amazing. Some of it required a lot of coaching as the actors struggled with their own mental blocks.

I got to work in the last exercise of the night, which was done really fast because we didn't have much time left. I was the neighbor, so I only had about a minute to come up with a story and a purpose, so I drew on the first thing that came to mind - I had been watching "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" the other night. I cast myself in the exercise as a woman who had come to New York a year ago to be an actor, had little success, and kind of fell into a career as a call girl instead. And in the exercise, I was trying to get my scene partner to come work for my agency so that I could start climbing the ladder within my business. Seedy, huh? The teacher described me as a creppy Stepford wife type person, and she described the way I moved at one point as octopus-like. Not at all what I was going for, but okay. I was creepy and manipulative and I sold the hell out of it, so that's good. The only question that the teacher had for me was about my vulnerability, which (in retrospect) I think existed in two places - that this is my career now instead of acting, and that if I don't get her to come with me, I lose my status within the agency. The teacher then instantly went back to my partner who missed both of those moments that I had (though the teacher only saw the first one), and told her she should have jumped on them. Which then makes me ask, how can I show my vulnerability honestly and truthfully if my partner doesn't notice it? Granted, I don't know that I had enough invested in either vulnerable point to really push them, but if the teacher saw it, it must have been there. I could go into my own headspace, I guess, and wallow in the number of auditions I failed at, but truthfully, the motivation to get at her was stronger than the motivation to have my own personal pity party. And since she didn't call me out on my failures, it was easy to skim over them and move on. Which I think is the eternal question that surrounds this kind of work - how do I get to where I need to go if my partner doesn't push me there? In work that is so dependent upon the other person, if they're not giving it to you, how do you get it? Do you have to push them harder to notice? Do you just push yourself? Is it a matter of you not giving them enough to give you enough to get where you need to be? It's kind of a mind-fuck, huh?

My partner got stuck in her head. A lot of people last night got stuck in their heads. I probably do sometimes, too, but we all need to remember (because we've been told a million times) that when you feel yourself getting stuck, FOCUS ON YOUR PARTNER AND MAKE AN OBSERVATION. What do you see? What is your partner doing? How do you feel about your partner? If the best you can come up with in a moment when you are stuck is "You're smiling at me," then say, "You're smiling at me" and go into repetition. You get back to emotional life when you get out of your own head.

I wonder if people keep retreating to their heads and keep not taking risks because they are afraid of what the rest of the class will think of them if they go there. There was a woman who came in one day with the exercise of writing her suicide note and she was uncomfortable talking about it before class, and kind of felt the need to let us all know that she was not, in fact, suicidal. I wonder if people are afraid that we'll all think they are these characters that we create when we go into exercise and that is what is stopping them from making the choice to take the job as a call girl or a drug dealer. But the thing is this - this is theater. This is imaginary. The activity is real and the emotions are real, but everything else surrounding it is completely imaginary. COMPLETELY IMAGINARY. Yes, I played a call girl last night. No, I am not a call girl. Yes, I played woman a few weeks ago who set her baby's crib on fire because she wanted the kid to stop crying. I would NEVER in a million years set a kid's crib on fire. That would never even appear in my brain as an option for how to get a baby to stop crying. But there are people out there who would think that way. And for the purposes of this class, I think it is good to push ourselves into uncomfortable places. Go ahead and cast yourself as the scum of the earth. Go ahead and make the choice that you would never in a million years make and see what happens! There was a beautiful moment in one exercise last night where one woman was a nanny and her neighbor came in and tried to get her to be a drug dealer instead and in the middle of the exercise, very quietly, she agreed to do it. He was startled by her decision and said, "Really?" and she completely backtracked and started freaking out. It was marvelous! It was true. It was like she really wanted to say yes and wanted to know what it felt like to say yes so she did, but then her logical brain kicked back in and she knew she really couldn't do it. You couldn't have scripted it better. It was brilliant. And that is how this is supposed to work. She wasn't really agreeing to be a drug dealer, and he wasn't really a drug dealer. They were actors in a scene exploring what it might be like to be presented with that opportunity.

I'm explaining it all wrong. Suffice it to say, our class is safe space. Take chances. Take risks. Agree to do the things you would never do in your regular life, just to see what would happen. And the other people in class will not walk out thinking, "Gee, I wonder if he is really a sexual psychopath." They will walk out thinking, "That was brilliant and fun to watch and engaging and he was really brave to go there."

I want to be brave enough to go there.