Evaluations

We didn't have class on Saturday, we had evaluations. On the one hand, I got a really good evaluation. I am imaginative, I have a good sense of dramatic structure, I'm not afraid of conflict, I'm engaging to watch. All excellent things. I'm left not knowing what to build on, though. Not knowing what direction to go in except forward. We must go forward, not backward, up, not forward, and twirling, always twirling toward the future. I like the twirling bit. I think I still need to work on being soft and falling in love more, or easier. I did have a moment in an audition where I was paired with a guy I'd never worked with before and we were doing some improv that was very much like class and I was vulnerable with him. I needed him. I kissed him. And what was great about it was that he just went with it, so he gets a lot of credit for that. If either of us gets something as a result of that audition, I think we both get credit for it. But my point is, I know now that I can get there. I just want to explore that a little bit more.

One interesting thing that one of the teachers said was that I'm not afraid of confrontation, and I seem to relish showing off my dark side. On stage, that is very true. More and more, lately, I've started to realize that one of my biggest goals as a performer is to be described as "fearless." Not necessarily in the "jumping off of buildings" sense of the word, but in the "willing to play the blackmail artist who just wants this one last score so she can leave the country with her boyfriend and forget about the gross Texan men she had to scam and the fact that he thought this last woman he had to sleep with to get money out of her was good" sense of the word. If I can't be the person in my ordinary, everyday life who takes emotional risks, I want to be that person on stage. And if I become this fearless performer, what kinds of roles will I get? Scum bags? Prostitutes? Liars and cheats? Maybe pursuing a career as a villain is a viable option. And how funny would that be if I came to one day make a living by playing the bad guy all of the time? I think it would be funny. And probably a lot of fun. I'd get to die a lot and get beat up and thrown in jail and I'd probably get to yell a bunch.

I'm not saying I only want to play the bad guy from here on out, but those are roles I never would have thought to put myself in. What if I just open up my mind and consider trying it? I remember when I played Francis in "Five Women Wearing the Same Dress" and the audience applauded when I got kicked out of the room. They saw me as the bad guy. They didn't like me. It was my first exposure to being not-the-good-guy and it was weird. It made me want to try that much harder to win them over later, which was probably a really good character building exercise for me as a person and as a performer. Anyway.

The next session of classes starts in a couple of weeks. I have a few more auditions between now and then, so we'll see what happens. I'm looking forward to the next session of classes and to learning and growing more as an artist. I had a really good artist weekend this weekend and I'd kind of like to make those a habit.

Salve for Your Broken Heart

So last night was the last class of this session. There is one more day, but it is evaluations so nobody will be working. I hadn't worked (as you know) in quite some time - not really since before the new year, save a two minute scene last week when not enough people were prepared with activities to fill a class so we did some regular neighbor work. And I was rusty. RUSTY. My prep as a neighbor was not good, so the teacher helped me up the stakes on it and make it more vulnerable, but I don't think I got fully behind the new stakes in my twenty seconds behind the door. And my scene partner was crazy woman who wouldn't listen to anything I was saying, and I wasn't listening to anything she was saying and she pelted me with a doughnut, so I pelted her with one and then I was pissed that I had non-vegan doughnut glaze all over my hand, so I wiped it on her shirt and she (as an actress) had an audition after class that she had to go to with doughnut glaze on her shirt and I felt like such an asshole. So to that classmate, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I hope your audition went well and I hope the doughnut washes out of your shirt. I'm so sorry.

The teacher didn't have a lot to say to me after the exercise, which was disappointing. I was standing there feeling like absolute shit and all she really said was that I can do the crazy landlady thing. Maybe she saw a bigger investment in my circumstances than I felt? But I felt like crap about my performance and I wanted to be reemed for that and I wasn't, which means I spent most of the rest of the class sitting there feeling like shit. This is not the note on which I wanted to end the class. For the most part, I think I did pretty well in the class. It still irritates me that I have problems making the soft choices and/or being in love, but for the most part, I think I did pretty well in the class. It just sucks that my last exercise had to be one wherein I felt like I was half-assing the whole thing. I don't like to half-ass things and I'm annoyed with myself that I did it. And that I didn't get busted for it. I even said that I find myself getting into this pattern where I want my dialogue to be interesting, but then I catch myself and force myself back into observational repetition. She said it was a good thing that I can get back to observation and that some of my best moments last night were when I did that. I feel like it takes me out of things, though. Or maybe I'm overanalyzing it. Maybe it's a good thing that I recognize when I'm going into my head and that I've found a mechanism for coping with that, even if the coping mechanism is a head choice designed to force me back out of my head. I don't know. I feel like crap about my exercise last night. My scene partner and I both apologized profusely to each other for general suckage. Which is too bad, because I really enjoy working with this woman and I really enjoyed her set up and I think she is fantastically talented and then I went up there and gave her crap to work with. I'm sorry. We'll be better next time.

The teacher said something about one of the exercises last night, encouraging someone to go for the not-so-obvious choice, or the scary choice, to take risks. She said something along the lines of, "If it doesn't fit in the box, you should grab it." I thought to myself, "I don't fit in the box. Someone should grab me." And then, "Perhaps it is because I don't fit in the box that people don't grab me." And I'm not just talking romantically here, though it is an appropriate metaphor. I think it applies to my artistic career, too. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how I've played so many diverse roles that sometimes it feels like people don't know what to do with me. I don't fit in the box, so they don't know how to cast me. I'm a pretty little white girl, but I'm strong and intelligent and quirky in a way that cute little white girls normally aren't. And I'm older than I look, too, both chronologically and spiritually. And musically - as much as I want to call my music rock and roll, it's really some rock/alternative/folk/acoustic combo thing that is maybe best described as the love child of early Liz Phair, Danny Elfman, and the Foo Fighters or something like that. It doesn't fit in a box. And as much as labels think they want to find the next great thing, it's scary to take a chance on something that is not easily quantified.

That being said, I don't want to fit in the box. I'm very happy not fitting in the box. I don't want to create the same art as everyone else. I like being odd. I just hope it doesn't hamper my artistic career too much. But if it does, it will just make it that much sweeter when I actually get there.

After class, I met with one of my classmates to work on monologues. We both have a couple of big auditions coming up and thought another set of eyes on our pieces would be a good thing. And it was. I met with another coach last week and the week before and once over the summer and it was great - he was incredibly helpful. But it is nice to get a second opinion, too. And it's nice to have someone to focus on, just to try it, so that you can have a nice mental picture in your head when you go in there and have to do your monologue to some point on the back wall of the auditorium. But it felt good. My classmate's comments were really helpful, so thank you, classmate, for your comments. And it felt a little odd to be coaching him, too. He is very talented. VERY talented. And much further along in his career than I am, so it felt a little odd to be commenting on his performances. But I think it was also a good thing for me to get a little practice coaching someone. To try to find those moments that could be stronger or clearer, and help the person get there without saying, "Well, that was a mess." Practice with constructive criticism and encouragement techniques. I think I did okay. He seemed to listen to what I said and at least took it in to consider it. Whether or not he keeps it and uses it is entirely up to him, but I'd like to think that I at least gave him something to think about. I think that is what a good coach does.

So anyway. Evaluations on Saturday at which point I'll know whether or not I get to move on to the next class. I hope so. I like doing this. I love learning. I love doing this, specifically. And I apologize to my one classmate for sucking and getting doughnut glaze all over you, and I thank my other classmate for your feedback on my audition pieces. Here's to Saturday!

Three

Last night was the third class in a row where I have not worked. I think I was close, but one guy had a stronger point of view than I did (though they were similar; he was just a little farther to one end of the spectrum than I) so I didn't get to work. It's funny - in the first class, I was okay with it if I didn't work in a day. There were days when I hoped I wouldn't have to, and I enjoyed sitting back and watching. Now, I want to work at just about every class. I love this exercise. I love these situations. I love going up there and following impulses and feeling intensely. I like watching, too, but I'd much rather be doing.

I wrote this the other night after watching "Hamlet" with David Tennant. I put it in my normal online blog, but I think it is appropriate to put it here, too. This has moved beyond just taking classes for fun so that I feel like I'm doing something to an overwhelming passion.

I know what my life is supposed to be. It is supposed to be passion and love and fury and anger and fire and tears and laughter so loud it shakes the mountains. It is supposed to be glory and heartache and triumph and turmoil and beauty as far as the eye can see. It is supposed to be magnificent.

But those things don't often happen in the real world. At least not for me. The closest I get is a laugh so loud it disturbs dogs in a three-mile radius. The real world is censored and muted and safe. There's nothing wrong with that. It is censored and muted and safe for a reason - so that we can all function in it and carry on the usual business of being alive. Nobody would be able to do their jobs if they felt the anguish of Hamlet every time someone did them wrong. Nobody would eat if they felt the passion of Juliet as she drank the vial of poison. The world would cease to function if everyone walked around experiencing the world as intensely as characters in books and plays and movies do.

But I want to. I want to feel everything that intensely. I want to live that fully. I want to experience every aspect of the human condition the way they experience it on stage and screen. I don't like to do things halfway. I don't like to be missing out. And in so many ways, I'm missing out already. I'll never marry my high school sweetheart because I didn't have one. I'll never have the four day Vegas marriage because I'm too smart for that now. I'll never even know what it's like to grow up in another country because I only get the one childhood. I'm tired of missing out. I'm tired of capped emotions. I want to live the life that the characters on the screen do.

I know, I sound like a crackpot. I know I can't live that way all of the time. But if I am one of the characters on the stage, I can live that way for a very short time. I can scream and weep and leap for joy and boil with rage and love with my whole heart until my body aches. I can experience...everything.

I know what my life is supposed to be. I know what my life is supposed to be and it is not supposed to be this. I know what my life is supposed to be. Please, oh please, oh please let me get there one day.

The teacher last night said that there are three kinds of people - those who make things happen, those who watch while things happen, and those who wonder what the fuck just happened. I want to be the sort that makes things happen, and I think for the most part I am. When I wanted to learn to dance, I did it. When I needed to find a job, I found one. When I wanted to try veganism, I made the change. When I wanted to go to Australia or Europe or New York or San Francisco or Texas, I went. There is very little that keeps me from doing the things I want to do. By the same token, though, the acting coach I went to last week (and who I will be seeing again tonight) said that one thing I can do to try to keep myself from screwing up auditions (I psyche myself out. I think, "I should have chosen a different piece," or "I should have entered the room differently," or "I should have worn the other pants," or whatever and I get nervous and then you can hear it in my voice, which makes me more nervous and I get cottonmouth and it all just starts to come out horrible) is to think back to a time when everything was just working for me without me really trying, and then enter the audition room in that state of mind. There have been times in my life when everything was working, but I was working my ass off to have that and to keep it. When I had my band. I felt invincible with my band, but I also felt the pressure to not let them down. I had to coordinate rehearsals and book gigs and write new material and make us feel like we were moving forward as a unit. It was a lot of hard work. I loved doing it and I loved the way it made me feel, but I had to work super crazy hard to have that band. And when I used to dance, I worked really hard at being a good dancer. And when I was with my theater company, I worked my ass off for every single show I was involved in. I don't know that there has ever been a time in my life when I have had something good that I didn't have to work my ass off to get, and then work twice as hard to keep. And even if there was such a time, I'm sure I feel differently about it now, as that time has past and I've lost whatever it once was.

I don't know. I scheduled a slew of auditions for myself in the near future because I need to get back out there and do this. I need to do this every day. And I'm just going to have to go into each and every audition knowing that a) they want me to be good, b) I am good, and c) what I have chosen to do is exactly what I am supposed to be doing. I just have to know it.

Here we go with that whole "growing an ego" thing again...

Imagination

Yesterday was the second class in a row that I didn't get to work. I haven't worked since I was slapped. But that's to be expected - there are a lot of people in the class and when we only get through two or three exercises in one class, that's only four to six people working each time. And I have worked a lot - both as the person with the activity and as the neighbor.

I was talking to a woman in the class after she had just worked, and I told her I was hoping her character would come in with a certain point of view. The one she brought in was good and it was a really interesting scene, but I had a different idea and I shared it. She said she thought about that, but since her actual perspective is the absolute opposite of my idea, she didn't think she would be able to get behind it enough to make the scene convincing. That bothered me.

Granted, this particular woman was out of town and missed a bunch of classes, so she hasn't gotten to see how ridiculous some of the set-ups and some of the neighbors have become. But she wants to be an actress, and she doesn't think she could get behind choices that she herself would never make? That would seem to indicate that she can only ever be cast as a character that is very close to who she actually is. And granted, she is beautiful and sweet and I'm sure there are plenty of roles in which she would do just fine, but still. I want to play characters. I want to play characters who are very different from who I am so that I can learn more about myself and about the world. Besides, when you play someone who is different from who you are, you get to exercise your imagination to try to figure out why you are completely behind this choice that your character is making that you would never in a million years make. Take some sci-fi show, for example. In my average, ordinary, every day life, I would probably never make the decision to go out in category 5 hurricane winds and rain in order to flip a switch to shoot a nuclear missile at a lake in order to clear things up. Nor would I ask anyone else to do so. But in the case of this particular small town that is about to be ripped apart by severe weather patterns, I have to go do that or everyone will die and I have to get 100% behind the choice to save the town at the risk of my own safety. And if the thought of thousands of people dying isn't enough, I have to imagine that one of them is my kid or my husband or my mom or whatever it would take to push me out that door to save the world. As an actor, I have to be able to do that. So why not practice in class? Make the choice you would never in a million years make and then find some way to justify it.

If for no other reason, then just because it's fun.

If You've Ever Wanted to See Me Get Bitch-Slapped...

...you should have been in class tonight. I got walloped and walloped good. In her defense, I was blackmailing her for ten million dollars, but she slapped me across the face in a way I've never been slapped before and in a way I never hope I get slapped again. And in a way you'll never understand if you're not an actor, I am really frickin' proud of myself. I did my job. I effected my partner so intensely, I pushed exactly the right button, that she had to slap me. I get to take some credit for that. I also get to take a little credit for not slapping back like I very badly wanted to. And after the exercise, the teacher liked that we both created these textured, complicated characters and that we weren't afraid to be ugly. I'm proud of that. Maybe its building the ego he so sorely thinks we all need, but I'm proud of the work I did today. I still need to find the opportunity to be soft and fall in love, and I'm working on that. But I'm taking steps and learning how to take risks. That's a really good thing. Let's hope a little of that bleeds into my real life. Minus the getting slapped bit.

Armor

Or armour for our friends overseas.

I had an excellent exercise in class yesterday. So said the teacher, even. I was frustrated through most of it because I felt like my partner was very much in her own headspace and it wasn't supposed to be an exercise about her, it was supposed to be an exercise about us. But anyway. The teacher had to coach me a bit to take down my armor. Which normally, would upset me a bit because I get tired of having armor there so the fact that it is still there and still shows up all of the time bothers me. But she also said that it was perfectly natural for the armor to come up, given the circumstances, and that I wouldn't have had the full support of the audience the way that I did if I hadn't completely fallen apart before I put up the armor. See, in the scene, I'm getting ready to tell my boyfriend that I'm pregnant. My neighbor comes in and tells me she slept with my boyfriend, got pregnant, and he made her abort. One option, while she was telling me these things, would have been for me to rail against her and tell her I didn't believe her and I had to talk to him and throw her out of my house. But I didn't. I took what she said as true and lived in it for a moment. I cried really hard, and I shook a lot. And then I built up my armor because that's what you do when your foe has vanquished you. But then I didn't know how to take it back down, and I needed coaching with that. All in all, though, the teacher said there was some excellent work, so I'll take that.

I was drained afterward though. I was talking to a classmate of mine afterward about how much strength and energy it takes to do this and how empty you can feel once your exercise is over. If I do get to a point someday where I get to do this professionally, and I am paid to go to these places on a daily basis, I don't know how I would have the energy to go out and party and get high and mess around with other hot young stars. I just wouldn't. I'm going to be a very dull celebrity who just wants to go home and go to bed after a long day of work. And you know what? I'm okay with that.