Bawk!

In my acting class the other night my coach, Neal, was talking to us about connecting with something that has happened in our lives that is similar to what is happening in the scene by asking "when have I...?" Whatever comes to mind, use it. "Play the action," my coach said, "and trust that what's underneath it will really come through."

I realized that that is exactly where I get stuck. I don't trust what comes to my mind when I'm trying to draw from own experiences.

I was working on Ibsen's A Doll's House and my coach instructed me to research influence. So, I asked myself, "when I have been influential?" I asked this for several days and finally grew frustrated with myself because the most prominent thing that came to mind was a situation in which I was not influential. When I mentioned this to David, my partner in the scene, he said to just use it. But, I protested, of course. How can I play the action of being influential if what comes to mind is a memory of not being, and desperately wanting to be, influential? David gently urged me to just embrace it anyways and see what happens.

So, when Neal said to just trust that what's underneath the action will come out, I had to make note of it as it became very clear to me that that is exactly what I need to work on: trust. Instead of judging whether my own experiences are good enough before I even try to use them, I need to just trust that they will be what I need in that moment.

And, I should say, after I opened up to using my non-influential memory, light was shed on the text for me and it had a whole different meaning then it did previously.

It's so silly how much I let myself get in my own way. And then I fuss and rant about how I'm not a "good" actor. I had an acting teacher in college who was such a bitch and I loved her for that because she was always straight with you. One day, she did an exercise with me to try to break me out of the restraints that I put on myself. It was one of the most embarrassing moments, I'm even shy to talk about it here.

My teacher had me stand on a block in front of the class. We had been studying Commedia and and she had me put my mask on. Then, another female student stood on a block behind me and when ever my teacher gave a signal, the other student hit me on the back of the head. I was then instructed to squawk like a chicken and whenever I was hit on the head I had to become more intense...try to take it as far as I could go...Squawking and flapping my arms. In the middle of it my teacher would clap her hands and I would have to switch into reciting a Shakespeare monologue that I had worked on the term before. The Commedia mask made it very hard to breath, my throat was dry and growing hoarse and I was sweating from being so hot and worked up. I kept dropping the intensity when I would shift between the squawking and the monologue and the student was instructed to hit me harder. The purpose was to push me to lose control and I only got there once, I later wrote in my journal. It was hard to look at my classmates when I was finished...I was flushed and felt like crying...and yet I couldn't help but feel lucky that my teacher had worked so hard with me.

What she said afterwards worries me when I think back on it. She said that you only need to do that kind of work with an actor once or twice because it will change them so much that they will remember it. So, why am I still stuck...in my own way...afraid to trust...afraid to lose control? Beyond the trust, methinks, another reason I hold back is because I'm afraid of what will actually come out when I do tap into and use my own experiences. (This is tough to describe for me.) So, what is it going to take? Squawking like a chicken on a bench while wearing a Commedia mask and being hit on the head obviously didn't do the trick.

For now, I'm going to work on trusting more, judging less and be willing to make mistakes.

Love,
Aislinn