Blah

Well, I think we're all in the same boat together, which is nice. I talked to some of my classmates last night and we all feel like we're doing awful. If nothing else, we can all take comfort in a level playing field, yes?

I didn't feel like working a lot last night, which is fine, though I ended up going up twice. I started and exercise and I followed someone in on her exercise. The first one was interesting - I was working with a woman I haven't quite been able to figure out yet. I don't know if the exercise helped me see her better or made her more mysterious. Though it did serve to illustrate a point that the teacher was wanting to make, so in that respect, I think it was good. And it was a rather physical exercise - lots of movement. The second one, I think I screwed up from the get-go because I went to enter the scene at the same time as someone else which broke my focus from the woman already up there, and changed her truth, but I proceeded with what my original observation had been. I should have observed her anew when I entered. And that one was just...odd. I dunno. The teacher didn't say much to me in that one.

One thing I am noticing though, is that often times, what I'm feeling is not what is being read by my partners or the instructor. Which makes me wonder what I'm hiding and how I'm hiding it. They do see something in me, though it's not always what I'm feeling - they see playfulness in my move for power, or they see fear in my frustration. I can see how they would see those things - they are more textual than subtextual if that makes any sense. I think I would like to open up enough that they can see the subtext in addition to the text. Might help them get a better reaction out of me. Up the stakes, so to speak.

I dunno. Like most things, I just have to keep plugging away at it. One day, it will all click and be amazing.

Yes and No

I had one good exercise today, out of the four I went up for. I was a smidge behind on my impulses, but in general, it was deemed lovely. I had one exercise where I lost all emotional life. I had one exercise where both of us just kind of stopped. And I had one exercise where...I dunno. I just didn't do well.

On the positive side, I jumped up to work a bunch, without necessarily waiting for someone else to go first. I worked with both men and women. And I worked where I started things and where I joined someone already on stage. I helped one woman in class get to (in the teacher's words) the most honest place she's been so far, so I think that's good. I got better at following my impulses. I kicked a phone which was not good, but I knew it wasn't going to go far enough to hurt anyone.

But I dunno. I don't feel good about the work I'm doing in class. Maybe I'm trying too hard to connect with people or have different exercises each time or hit all of these weird mini-goals I set for myself (like working with both men and women, being the instigator and the instigatee, etc). I probably need to just relax and be. That's what this is all about. I need to get rid of my own agendas and just do the exercise and see what happens. And/or I could always talk to the instructor and see what she thinks of what I'm doing. Find out if I'm a lost cause. Find out if she thinks I need to work on the same things I think I need to work on, or if I'm missing the boat completely and need to head in another direction.

I don't think I'm the only one who is struggling in class. Though somehow, it's cute when the one girl won't (or can't) admit that she wants to climb into the guy's lap, but it's frustrating when I'm not having any impulses, if that makes any sense. Like I should be doing better. Maybe I'm just being too hard on myself.

And now I have about a half an hour to prep for an audition tonight. I'm using a new piece and I'm not sure how it's going to go over. I don't know that I have prepped it as much as I probably should, but my older monologues are so dusty; I really don't want to pull that crap out again. Besides, if it scares the crap out of me, I'm probably doing the right thing, right?

Kind of Sad

I had signed up to take the physical theater movement workshop again this term, but the class didn't fill, so it was canceled. This makes me sad for many reasons.

I was looking forward to some intense physical activity one night a week (something other than running in place in my apartment).

I need to work on following my physical impulses, and this class over the summer really helped me do that. I wanted to be able to continue this work.

I think it is a nice complement to go from a physical Meisner class to a verbal Meisner class. Yes, both classes hit on both (a little), but I think the two work well together. You learn how the physical inspires the verbal and how the verbal inspires they physical. As actors, we need to use every tool available to us, and these both need to be developed and focused on and utilized.

But I think it mostly makes me sad because of the potential commentary on the state of actors in this city. We're all too lazy to take a physical movement class. Everyone wants to be an actor, but nobody wants to develop their physical skills. What gives? Isn't half the fun of acting the play of it? Running around and behaving like children? I guess this is why we see so many half-movements on stage (i.e. people who lean into their scene partner and yell as opposed to moving towards their partner and getting in their face, or people whose arms are glued to their bodies, or people who only act with their hands and voices) - nobody took the time to develop their full body physical impulses. That makes me sad.

And the selfish reason - if nobody else signed up for the class, I don't get to develop my physical impulses either. Drat.

What I Wanted to Do...

When I got up there, I was going to be in the space and adjust the chair, and maybe notice the flower. And I was going to be open and receptive and let them see me just being and I wasn't going to force anything and I was going to follow my impulses and I was going to be nervous and giggly and brilliant and sad and I was maybe even going to cry.

When I got up there, I fixated on the bear. Almost instantly. I tried to connect with the bear. I felt sad for the bear. I tried to reattach his leg. I got tired of him and felt half an impulse to do something else, but the impulse left so quickly that I missed it completely so I did nothing but return my focus to the bear. Exactly what I didn't want to do. Exactly what I shouldn't have done.

I feel like I did not do well in class tonight. I didn't jump up instantly, like my first impulse told me to -- I waited until a bunch of other people took their turns. And I fell into a comfort zone when I got up there instead of being open and vulnerable and living truthfully. And I know exactly where that came from. Right now, in my everyday life, I have to fight every impulse I have with everything I have in me just so that I can get by. So I don't say things I'll regret later. So I can keep a job. So they don't throw me in the loony bin. Right before I left work, I had to leave my boss' office very quickly (after fighting the urge to tell him he was full of crap) so that I wouldn't either cry or start throwing things. And I have to do this every day. Every. Day. And within an hour of class starting, I'm supposed to turn all of that off, take down every defense mechanism, and live truthfully, following every impulse. There was part of me that just wanted to go up there and cry about the day I had. There was part of me that wanted to just go lie down and suck my tongue and twirl my hair. But I fixated on the bear because he was there and he was safe and I didn't have to look at the rest of my class and I didn't have to let them see that I'm a wreck at the moment.

I came home thinking maybe I'm not cut out for this. Maybe I'm too afraid to actually be any good at this. Knowing that this is what I really want to be doing, but afraid that I just plain suck at it and always will. Like that feeling that maybe you never will meet your Prince Charming. You know he's out there, but he's already married or lives somewhere you've never been and never plan on going. I want to be in this class and I want to be good at this. I want to be great at this. And the only way I'm going to do that is to learn to live truthfully.

If I just randomly start yelling one day, I'm just practicing. Just so you know.

...

Ho

Lee

Fuck

I can't even begin to describe tonight's class, but of course, I have to try.

I was tackled. I was thrown. I was kissed. I was embraced. I was leaped over. I was crawled under. I was spun. I was pinned. I was scared. I was loved. I fell in love. I fell out of love. I disgusted. I frustrated. I excited. I amused. I hurt. And now I do hurt - I'm achy all over. Everything from my little toe to my spirit, but my spirit is achy in the good way. I hit so many emotions today, and pushed them as far as I could take them. I broke down and cried at one point because I just had to. But then I came back, got myself together, and threw myself back into the fray.

There was a moment when my arms wanted to move, so I moved them. There was a moment when I wanted to twirl, so I twirled. There was a moment when I wanted to do the doggie break, so I tried, but my partner didn't quite get it so we did this weird feline rubbing thing. There was a moment when I needed to move my upper body in circles parallel to the wall, so I moved my upper body in circles parallel to the wall. I don't know if I can tell you what it feels like to be that free. To follow every impulse. To speak when you need to, and to stand still when you need to. I'm not advocating this kind of behavior for every day living necessarily, but just try to imagine how well you get to know yourself when you are listening to everything your body is telling you to do. And when your body is telling you to do things based on the other people and objects around you. And then you connect with that person in that moment and you both do what your bodies tell you to, be it dance or jump or roll or kiss or melt and crumple and laugh.

It's funny. I was talking with the teacher before class about how the class is going and what I'm getting out of it, and I get buzzed talking about it. As the class was progressing, he was getting buzzed watching us. You could see it when we would talk about an exercise - he kept losing his words he was so excited about the work we were doing. I have to give him a lot of credit for creating that environment, and for letting the class go where the class needs to go, the same way our movement goes where it needs to. He put his faith in us as actors, and as students, and in return, we put our faith in him and in each other. I wish everyone, everyone, could experience that once in their lives. To be somewhere you are trusted and loved and accepted and given license to go to those scary places knowing that you are still trusted and loved and accepted when you get there and when you come out on the other side (as long as you don't actually cause physical harm to anyone else). And scary places can be places of lust or love or tenderness, too - they don't just have to be about fear or anger or pain. It all depends on who you are and where you are in the moment.

I had a moment tonight when I broken down and cried. There were only three of us in class tonight which was, in a way, wonderful because we were able to establish that comfort level and we were all able to work a lot. But there was a moment when we had all been fighting and pushing and shoving and pulling and just all kinds of angsty. And it ended with the three of us kind of in a heap and I just cried. It was a release of sorts, a frustration with all of the negativity. But then I also had to deal with the reactions my partners had to my crying. Did I want them to comfort me? How did it feel when they did? I think there are the seeds in there of something I need to look at in me. On the up side, even though it took a lot out of me to go there, I was able to get myself together and dive back in. The problem a lot of actors have with this kind of work is that they can't put it on the shelf when the exercise or class or performance is over. They take all of that with them and dwell on it and stew in it and question who they are and whether or not they are worth anything and all of that stuff. It is, essentially, why Heath Ledger died - he couldn't separate himself from the Joker which led to the anti-depressants which led to the overdose and there we are. The up shot being, that's not me. The down shot being, that's a lot of actors out there. I get afraid for them sometimes.

I wish you could experience this because I'm not doing it justice. Just know that I came home energized and exhausted and knowing that this is exactly what I am supposed to be doing. And that I have the potential to be really really good at this.

And thus begins the next wave of relief tears.

New Session

So this session of classes is ending a bit abruptly for me. Last week's Wednesday class was canceled due to instructor conflict (she had a show opening that she had to go perform in), and I can't go tonight because I'm in tech for a show of my own. I'm glad to be in a show - I can't even tell you how good it feels to be performing again - but I feel like I didn't really get an ending to this class session. Our Tuesday class this week was postponed to next week, too, due to instructor conflict. I think it might feel weird to go in for just one more class. I dunno. It does leave me looking forward to the next session when I can get in there and really start working, you know?

I got something in the mail that I can't tell you about yet, but that had me kind of bouncing off the walls with glee. More on that later.

Scraped and Sore

Wow. Last night was an intense physical and emotional workout.

We started out by giving the teacher some feedback on the class so far. Nobody wanted to say anything, so I started out by saying I'd rather not do the class barefoot, partially because I'm not big on being barefoot most of the time, but mostly because the floor that we're working on has god knows what all over it - dust, dirt, nails, paint chips. It has already cut my foot once, someone else's foot once, and I think something snagged a hole in my shirt when we were doing floor exercises last week (either that, or the shirt had a hole in it when I bought it which would make me very sad). I understand that we either need to all be barefoot or nobody can be, but I'd rather not be. Which then got the ball rolling - people asking questions, making comments. I never thought of myself as an instigator or a leader, but I guess sometimes, when I have to be, I can be. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

The rest of the class was incredible. We started to make progress - taking the things we had done in previous classes, and applying them to story and character and dialogue and improvisation. There was still lots of running and jumping and playing, but there was also fighting and fury and fear. The good kind of fear. I don't think anyone was ever concerned about their own safety. I did, however, manage to scrape my arm on the wall, and I did something in a fit of rage that left my right thumb feeling, well, not right. But it was great. I loved being able to tap into all of those emotions.

We also had an opportunity to watch our classmates work (we were split in groups, so we watched the other group) which allowed us to provide and receive feedback on what we were doing. I found this extremely helpful. One of my issues with the first repetition class was I wasn't sure if what I was doing read to the audience. Last night, I got feedback that some of the things I was doing were reading, and were reading really well. So that is encouraging.

It was also interesting to see the different personalities of my classmates in a very real setting and very real situations. Up to this point, we have interacted with one another on a very physical level, but with almost no verbal interaction. Last night, we had to discuss our ideas and plan out our scenes. It was interesting to see what ideas people come up with, who is more dominant, who is a leader, and who is a follower. I left kind of wondering what my other classmates thought of me.

I like this class. We have next week off, but then one (possibly two) more. That should give the scrape time to heal, and should perhaps give me time to build up a thick enough skin that I don't even notice next time I cut my foot.