Even Keel

"Smart.  Engaged. Focused."

These are my cookie notes.  The assumed understanding of what I bring to the table.

I am sitting across the cafe table at a nearby theatre having my first tutorial with the course leader (department head) of MA Acting (Classical). 

In British academic parlance, a tutorial is a small class of one, or only a few, students, in which the tutor (a lecturer or other academic staff member) gives individual attention to the students^{[citation needed]}. The tutorial system at Oxford and Cambridge is fundamental to methods of teaching at those universities, but it is by no means peculiar to them. - Wikipedia

In those five seconds and three words, he wraps up as much compliment as I need or am comfortable receiving (which is lucky, because it is all I am going to get).  And on to the meat of it....what I need to work on.

In sitting in on classes and working with me in his acting class, his perception is that I am slightly Puritanical.  (Zip it, friends in Boston and New York!)  By that, he means that I have a perfectionist tendency (who me?) and an extremely strong, driven work ethic (who ME?!)   The quest "to be the best" has squashed my playful spirit and spark.  He suggests that I rediscover the play; what drives the art.  That I trust my inner creativity rather than the work.  

*For any of you that read the many, many versions of my grad school application essay, you know that this is PRECISELY why I wanted to go back to school in the first place.  So, yeah, I haven't achieved it in the first five weeks of classes, surprisingly enough.  (eye roll) *

He suggests that when I submit the official written report of our tutorial, that I find a SOFT way of wording, especially in the sections labeled 'action points' and 'goals', so that I don't steamroll the idea.  Yeah ok, my action point is to develop internal love and trust in myself.  Ok.  Got it.  Check.  And my goal is to allow the idea that what is in me is enough.  Done.  Next?

Actually, <giggle> it has been over a week and I still haven't turned the written report in.  Take THAT puritanical work ethic and suck it!

I then give him my perspective on what has been helpful and frustrating and wonderful and curious about the Boot Camp of the first four weeks.  We move on to discussion of the first part of my dissertation: a character study of any character in the Classical canon (Greek through Elizabethan/Jacobean playwrights).  I knew when I auditioned for school that I wanted to dig my teeth into Lady Macbeth, and I tell him so.  He hesitates.  Cocks his head.  He says he would rather me try a character that is more in line with the goals that we have talked about.  Instead of a driven, focused, direct, strong character...he would like to see me explore a soft, undriven, comic, 'slightly drippy' character.  Something along the lines of Celia in As You Like It.

Which threw me into a bit of a quandary.  Do I follow the passion and the spirit that led me to Lady Mac?  After all, what I'm trying to reignite here is that flame of passion.  But wait...did I come to school to ignore when someone with insight and quality and outside perspective wants to give me a direction in which to learn?  Did I choose Lady Mac because it is in my comfort zone?  Would I be better served by exploring what seems - at the surface - less exciting to me, in order to stretch and grow?  

So I spend the weekend reading plays and watching plays and listening to recordings of plays.  And it finally bubbles up:  Although my personal demeanor in class is focused and driven and direct....much of my career in the past ten years has been comic, slightly less intelligent, best friend sort of roles.  THAT is my real comfort zone.  I am at the end of one age range of characters and at the cusp of another.  I do not want to research a character that I have 2-5 years left to play - I want to sink my teeth into someone who is in the horizon of 10-15 years ahead.  I am fine with exploring the softer, more malleable sort of character as a way to stretch personally...but I want to do that in the frame of 'leading lady' or 'character' roles.  Someone I can play in my 40s or 50s.  So after much consideration, I choose Gertrude (Hamlet's mother).  

None of this really throws me too much.  It is the kind of challenge I like.

No.  What gets me falls dead in the middle of the tutorial.  And it took me the rest of the day of classes to digest it and realize that it really shook me.

"We want you to have a slightly more even keel to your perspective," he says.  "Not to let the bad days be so devastating, the good days not throw you so off balance.  We want you to have good and bad days, we just want you to be able to balance them a little better," he says, wincing slightly.

heart sink.

My professors think I'm emotionally unstable.  

I explain to him that if he thinks I'm a perfectionist NOW, he should've seen me a year ago!  That I've been trying to let go of the need to present the 'I'm fine.  Don't worry about me.  Everything's great.' face to the world.  That sometimes I have good days, sometimes I have bad...and I'm working on being ok with both - and allowing people to know that I'm not perfect...to share honestly what is going on behind the curtain.

He winces again, tilts his head and reiterates that he wants me to search for an even keel.

Damn.  This makes me want to cry.  (If that didn't just prove their point that I AM emotionally unstable!)  I am actively working on the primary goal of letting go, easing up, and generally letting down my perfectionist front - and my first step in that arena is met with a negative perception.  It doesn't make me want to let down my guard any more.  It makes me want to slam that wall back up and keep up the good front that I always had.  To keep a unruffled exterior - no matter what is churning underneath.  

I go home and immediately jump on Skype.  My boyfriend lovingly listens to me as I read all the notes I took from the session (yes, yes, I took notes.  WHAT?!? hehehe)  He says that he thinks the most important thing he hears from it is "playful spirit".  

And a lightbulb popped over my head.

Playful Spirit.

If I approach my classes with a playful spirit...it won't matter if I stink today or blow the exercise or have a breakthrough...it will all be in my stride.  I mean, seriously, how serious can I be about this?!  I know it is my art.  It is my way of expressing what is inside me to the world.  But it is acting school.  Just acting school. And simply talking to someone who really knows me - who has gotten close enough to know that playful side of me (because, yes, it is a more private side of me - no less valid or strong than the driven, focused side - just more private) - helped me put it all into perspective.

Guided in this direction, I found that when taking risks in class, it is much easier to fall flat on my face without beating myself up.  Not that it takes all of the highs and lows away.  Today, for instance, was a big first for me.  I was in the rehearsal rooms in the basement of The Globe Theatre - working on a Gesture Symposium that we are performing in this November.  ME!!  In The Globe!!  <sigh>  Just over a year ago, when I stepped off the airplane on my first trip to London, I went directly to The Globe to see a show.  The living connection to a rich theatrical history - it is such a thrilling place.  And my lovely boyfriend is coming to visit me for the weekend tomorrow!! Good days are still phenomenally good.  I just don't lose my footing when they happen.  

Contemplating my playful spirit the day of my tutorial