Hour

I was supposed to work tonight in class but we didn't get to me because the other exercises got really very deep and took a lot of time. I'm not complaining. They were interesting to watch. Still a lot of not-following-impulses or not showing emotions or not calling partners out on their emotions, but there was also some breakthrough type stuff happening and people going places I had never seen them go before, so that was great.

The teacher talked about ego tonight. He thinks we all need to have the biggest egos in the world. We need to be able to take them off when we get on stage so that we can take everything personally, but we have to think the world of ourselves in order to be able to survive (emotionally) the things we put ourselves through. We have to hit the absolute lowest lows a person can hit, but still have that one little glimmer of hope that makes us fight for what we want even though we have nothing. And if we get the job, we have to do that every night for two months of rehearsals plus six weeks of shows, if not longer. We have to have huge egos to be able to survive that.

I don't have a huge ego. I think we all know this by now. I have a bit of an ego. I know I'm a good cook. I know I've written some good songs. I know I'm a good actor. But I'm also the first one to say that there is always something more I can learn. At one point, the teacher asked one of the women in exercise what her strengths as a performer are. That's a good question for all of us, and one I've thought about in the past few days. I think my greatest strength as a performer is also my greatest weakness - my versatility. I have played so many characters - men, women, a four-year-old boy, old people, young people, creepy people, weak people, strong people, strange people, loud confident people, mousey people, and my latest creation - the creepy-Stepford-wife=octopus-like hooker. I love that I have played so many different types. It has allowed me to explore all kinds of different parts of my being, and I think I've done really well in all of these different roles. But I think it's also a bit of a weakness because it makes me difficult to cast. When I was with my old theater company, it was easy to cast shows from the company. There was the loud, silly guy. The loud, crass girl. The romantic leads. The funny straight man. And then there was me. I don't think they knew where to put me most of the time, so they would cast everything else first and then just fill me into the blank spaces wherever they could. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but as an actor, it can be a bad thing to not have a type - if people can't categorize you, it can make it hard for them to cast you, or to know what roles to submit you for. If there were more Johnny Depp style roles for women, I could be that type. But let's face it, there aren't. Willy Wonka is a man. Edward Scissorhands has a human female counterpart, and if someone were to build a robot woman, you've all of a sudden got a porn film on your hands, not a touching story about misfits who find each other and are then torn asunder.

But anyway. I think I need to take a minute to list what I think my strengths are as a performer, in the hopes that maybe, one day, I'll have the kind of ego my teacher thinks we should all have.

I am versatile.
I am adaptable.
I am flexible.
I am very good at reading my partners and reacting to them.
I create interesting characters.
I am good with improv.
I move well.
I think I give my partners a lot to work off of (though I would need someone else to corroborate this. A couple of people in my class have remarked that I'm a lot of fun to work with because there's a lot going on, though, so I think this is a safe one to say. See? I don't even have enough of an ego to say "I give my partners a lot to work with" and stick with it).
I can sing (especially Bobby McGee).
I can dance.
I am reliable.
I work really hard.
I am passionate about this.

On paper, I look like a pretty good actor, huh? New Year's Resolution #2 for me - learn how to believe that I am a great actor. Time to grow an ego, darling. Time to grow an ego.