Taking My Time

Yes.

I am still in London.

And yes.

I’ve been quiet...licking my wounds from a very tough year.

I’ve reflected on my growth and my destruction: my misery and hopelessness which crushed an awakening of hope and vigour.  I’ve tried to get some perspective.  And I know that like all heartbreaks, no sort of prodding or exploration will give me the insight that the simple measure of time will.  Some time has passed.  More will follow.

I am starting a new year here in London.  I have an agent who seems happy about pursuing a career with me.  As with all cities, it takes some time before repeat submissions from your agent gets you through a door with a casting director.  Time.  More time.

I had a terrible theatrical experience directly after school which reminded me why I have no interest in amateur theatre.  In the interest of not burning a bridge (not that it is one that I will ever set foot on again) – the company and director will remain unnamed.  As a friend here in London pointed out, “There’s fringe..and there’s FRINGE.”  On the flipside, some of the unpaid theatre here is actually rewarding and has great potential.  A friend of mine was in a pub theatre show that got picked up for a West End run.  Sometimes it gets you in front of the right people.  And sometimes it is just good to do to remind yourself that you’re an actor.  In the fall, I was thrilled to be a part of the CASA Latin American Theatre Festival Scratch Night – where short new works were staged in hopes of being picked up and fostered into a full-length show.  We created a piece called ‘Private Thoughts in Public Spaces’ as a devised piece.  For those of you outside of the theatrical world – devised means that there is no set script or choreography from the outset.  We discussed ideas, played games, did contact improv, tried, failed, explored – and under the guidance of a director and a movement director...pulled together an exciting and imaginative physical theatre piece which won the Scratch Night.  It is to be developed into a full-length production for next year’s CASA Festival here in London! 

 © Gema Juan Bernabeu

I’ve had the good fortune to have some paid work come down the line, too (which pleases both me and my agent).  Most of the corporate film work I’ve been cast in has been specifically because I am American.  The casting notices always make me giggle because they call for a ‘Native American’.  Although I did get cast as Matachana in a quite terrible production of Pocahontas with a touring children’s theatre backin my early 20s – let’s face it people – I’m as WASPy as you can get.  Irish?  Maybe.  Native American?  Not a chance.  But the castings here are referring to your dialect.  They aren’t looking for Brits who do a good ‘General American’ accent...they’re looking for a native...American.

I’ve just begun showing up to some commercial castings and using my RP (Received Pronunciation; also known as BBC English) dialect.  And surprise, surprise...I even got cast that way!  It is for a German tyre company – so maybe they didn’t even notice that I wasn’t a Native Brit.  I got flown to Cologne for the weekend to shoot the commercial.  Wardrobe fitting on the Saturday.  Shoot on the Sunday.  My biggest concern was that they would be ticked to find out that I wasn't British - after faking my way through the audition.  We set up for the first shot of the day...and after a handful of takes, the director said, ‘Perfect.  Now we do it in German!’

We what??

‘It is very easy ‘ ... and he rattled off my line in German.  ‘Um...I think I may have to write that down...’  So, he wrote it down for me.  In German.   So, I quickly jotted it down phonetically as best I could – and set it to memory – because they had not moved the cameras and were ready to do the next take.  My own little Lost In Translation moment.  I’m sure they’ll end up dubbing it by a Native German...(as inevitably my pronunciation was horrific)...but it was a reminder to keep cool and roll with the punches on set.   

Plus: I’ve added Cologne to places-I’ve-travelled.  Add that to Brussels, Bruges, Paris, Portugal, Sweden...and within the UK: Salisbury, Stonehenge, Bath, Durham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Oxford, Shrewsbury, Brighton, Brecon Beacons (Wales), Isle of Wight...and a drive through the Forest of Dean. 

Seeing lots of theatre, lots of friends and keeping inspired day by day.  Helps the time pass a little more gently.

Hey y'all, watch 'is!

I am in the final stretch of my MA.


Classes are done.


The final show is closed.


I've written and done provisional revisions on all three of the essays to hand in for my dissertation.


While pondering out loud to a classmate on how to come up with a title which would encompass all three essays:
(1) Hamlet's Gertrude: A Woman Divided by Point of View
(2) Lady Macbeth and Hedda Gabler: A Study of the Jungian 'Terrible Mother' Archetype
(3) *as yet untitled* Reflective Essay on my experience of the year
he laughingly suggested something along the lines of 'The Fall of the Strong Woman'.


I started laughing.  Then stopped abruptly.  "That's not funny."


I'm thinking more along the lines of Mark Twain's quote: "I never let my schooling get in the way of my education."


When I first auditioned for the school (and into my first couple of crit sessions) I remember hearing how 'risky' it was that I take on training at this point in my career.  I couldn’t understand what my tutors were on about.  Risky?  Training?  Training in anything makes you stronger.  Honing my craft, practicing what I love, strengthening my creative muscles, trying new approaches…how could this be anything but beneficial?  To anyone?  At any point in their career?

I think I am beginning to understand what they meant.

The course was not necessarily designed for where I am in my career and life.  One professor even emailed me, “there is little we can teach you technically or professionally.” 

What I had been searching for was a re-inspiration.  

In my application letter, I wrote:

I am a leading lady in stature, age and voice, and would love to be able to tackle the great female roles with the clarity and strength that they deserve. 

But almost immediately upon arrival, I was encouraged to abandon the leading lady roles.  No Lady Macbeth.  No Titania.  No Lady Anne.  No Cleopatra.  No Katherina.  I was encouraged instead into softer, more fragile, ingénue roles.  This was, I believe, to strengthen me in a direction that I was not apparently suited for.  To help me grow and stretch in a direction that seemed against my ‘type’ or ‘personality’.  I understand this push.  Training is to help root out our weaknesses and to work on them.  But one of the things I addressed in my application was that I wanted to get the training because I wasn’t landing these leading lady roles.  I wanted the opportunity to finally explore the roles I had been waiting all my professional career to tackle, and instead, I was very explicitly pushed away from those types of roles.  Along the way, I expressed my concerns that the ingénue roles are pointless for me professionally, as at 37 years old, I am a highly unlikely candidate for Desdemona or Rosalind.  I suggested that I look at character roles – things I might play further into my 50s and 60s rather than roles that I would be unlikely to ever have the opportunity to play again.  I do think that my exploration and growth into that 'softer' area was beneficial.  But on a whole, it gave me a sense of dissatisfaction both with the roles and my own work.  Spending a year doing difficult work that you never feel successful in becomes tiring.  There were few victories or breakthroughs along the way – so it felt tediously sufficient or at best, serviceable.

I came to school to reignite a passion.  To get the fire going in my performance.  To challenge myself to really create amazing work.  I had instead become convinced that all I am capable of as an actor is mediocre work.  That I could fulfill the basic requirements, serve a story line, not draw too much focus from the leads…but that I did not have enough shine or interest or magic to create something great.  I started to notice a personal disconnection from my work.  A diminished vigour in my investment and approach.  

A part of this was the fact that I had a tutor who had made it clear that he wanted to, as he put it bluntly to my classmates, 'knock her off her center'.  I do believe that in his heart he was attempting to help me, but we have very different ideas of what creates great art.  I have a hard-won balance in my life.  And I believe that my ability to create good art comes from being a whole, balanced, creatively full person rather than an off-kilter, unpredictable, unhappy one.  I have been through years of my life when I was completely unable to create art at all because my heart was so broken I couldn't see straight.  That darkness and unbalanced place shut me down to the creation of work.  My insecurity and ragged edges locked my creative heart down rather than opening it up.  I spent time and energy and years regaining personal balance, and then launched myself into school in the hopes of a springboard from which to swan dive back into a joyful career.  And to be honest, when I was no longer in the dualistic place of trying to juggle the desire to be emotionally available and free under this tutor's guidance with the fierce guarding of my personal stability from which I knew my good work would be able to generate, I felt my shoulders drop and a great sigh of relief.

As I started writing my reflective essay, I began to dig back into what was useful, what helped me grow, what made me feel alive and vital.  I started to refocus on my sense of 'play'.  So much of my confidence in my ability up until this point has based on getting roles and achieving success in my career based on my 'work'.  It is a huge intellectual and emotional leap to disengage from the idea of 'work'.  As I've said before on the blog, it is how I judge if I have earned my place.  Work = earned = valued.  Play is a whole different beast.  I'm hoping that part of my feeling of disconnection is actually part of detaching myself from this value system based on work.  Play is not as important.  It doesn't have the same judgement of right and wrong.  It is more creative and explorative.  And by releasing my strangle hold on the importance of getting it 'right', I've found myself feeling vaguely detached from the passion I so sought to regain.  And maybe that is not such a terrible thing.  Just unfamiliar.

I spoke with my Dad yesterday about the idea of each city having a Word.  One word that defines the city, and if your personal word matches the city word, you fit in.  For me, New York's word is 'Achieve', which is similar, but to me a vastly different word than Los Angeles' word 'Succeed'.  Washington D.C. 'Power'.  Boston 'Learn'.  So, will my internal word match London's word?  What is London's word?  I may have to discover that as I've decided to throw myself into the pool here and see if I can swim. 

Dad said, "I think Easley, South Carolina's word may be: 'Hey y'all...watch 'is!!'"  (Which if you say it with a full Easley drawl, is pretty much one word.)

Maybe I'm still an Easley girl, after all.  Because with no particular reason to think that I might have success, without much in the way of confidence or passion, with a rocky road behind me and complete empty slate ahead...I'm jumping into the deep end with both feet and yelling on the way down: "Hey y'all...watch 'is!!!"

my heart's crippled by the vein that I keep closing

My love affair with the theatre.

A Professional Demeanor

I have a professional demeanor.

Here in London, that seems to be a dirty word.

It reads as 'disconnected', 'dispassionate', 'cold', or 'guarded'.

Whether or not I am able to bring openness and honesty to the table in my work seems to be directly linked with my ability to take direction with or without emotional volatility??

I am pretty unapologetic about my professionalism.  I am happy to try direction whether or not I agree with it.  Primarily, because I have paid $50,000 to come to school for the year under the assumption that the people that I work with have something to offer me: I feel like I would be remiss not to try something they (or a guest professional that they have brought in) suggest.  Secondly, I honestly try to keep my openness to direction in all working environments.  Just because something feels 'right' doesn't mean that (a) it is the only choice, (b) the strongest choice, or (c) that it works within the vision for this production.  If I try something and then don't agree with it, I am happy to engage in a discussion and defense of my original instinct in order to further unpick the direction that I was offered, or to search for an option that neither of us had yet considered.  But I don't feel like "I would never DO that" is a useful statement for the growth of any actor at any stage of their career.

Of course the work is personal.  It is what you create using nothing but your voice and body, your mind and heart.  It was suggested in class yesterday that working for years in this industry forces you to have a thick skin.  The amount of rejection - rejection of your voice and body, your mind and heart - is only bearable if you are able to have a certain amount of resilience.  But I see a difference in a thick skin professionally - one where you can take criticism and direction on your choices without feeling emotionally wounded....and a thick skin emotionally - one where you can no longer access the emotions that are required to share in order to create this art form.  Here, though, a professional approach seems to be thought of as an 'American' quality that is one and the same: if you have thick skin, you are emotionally unavailable.  End stop.

I defy that.

I choose to be open and willing and ready to try.  I choose to make strong choices but not be married to them.  I choose to take direction without being argumentative, or emotionally hijacked by the idea that I have been personally rejected.  I choose to allow my strength and stability, my strong sense of self to be a root source for my ability to be vulnerable.

On a personal note - nothing much has changed on the where-do-I-go-from-here front.  We finished Showcase, and although I had a brilliantly talented and generous scene partner I have no idea whether the work I created was good or not.  Every once in a while it would really get me down at the end of the day - since I am constantly faced with the ghost of the art that used to bring me such joy.  To feel disconnected from it, to be unable to feel confident in it or even clearly judge what 'works' or 'doesn't work' can be emotionally draining.  But the only way I know how to deal is to 'boot-up' and face the day.  I go in.  I do the work the best I can.  I take suggestions and criticism and advice on how to improve it.  And whether I feel it, or as is the case: not, I bring that professionalism to the table.  Things won't change because I force them to.  They won't change because I stare them down, or poke them continually, or strangle them with my desire for them to go back to the way they were.  On the positive front, I feel much more confident about my decision to head back to NYC, since I have had zero agent interest in me here.  It is a small reassurance that I was pretty accurate in my instinct that my desirability as an actor here is pretty limited.  It makes the choice so much easier.  It would be much more difficult if I was longing for home, still unsure of whether I should be an actor or not ... and had a career path opening up for me here.  Sometimes comfort comes in the strangest packages.

The Big Question

Back in 2006, while performing in The Underpants at Lyric Stage Company, I was interviewed for a feature in the Boston Globe.  Louise Kennedy reported:

Lawton herself takes a modest view of her abilities. "I'm very hard-working, and I'm very dedicated, and I'm willing to try anything. I don't get embarrassed very easily," Lawton says. "I don't think I have a lot of natural raw talent. I have a willingness."


Looking back on that statement, I still feel that holds true.  I have continued to develop my craft, but that reflects more of my fierce dedication than anything else.  Scanning through the rest of the article, I see some things that have changed: I was married, I hadn't held a 'day job' in over six years, I was happy to stay in Boston for my career...and at the close of the article, I see the biggest change:

"I had a teacher say to me, `Just do it until it's not fun anymore. As long as it's fun, it's the greatest job in the world. And when it's not fun, it's the worst.' "

So has there ever been a time when she hasn't found it fun?

She laughs again. "Not yet."

I have, for the first time in my life, been truly faced with the question about whether I am supposed to be an actor.  Almost twenty years into a (successful) career, and 2/3 through my MA training and I am seriously doubting whether I am meant to be on stage.  


The search for the joy and passion were what tempted me back into school in the first place.  Theatre hadn't become a joyless place, but the career itself had started looking more and more like a job.  I wanted to rekindle the glow - both professionally and personally in my work.  And I look back over my time here, and I've definitely had flickers of that reignited.  And to be honest, in many ways I feel that I love theatre more deeply now than I ever have.  Somehow I haven't been able to maintain that glow of joy in my performance, though, and it does seem to be the note I get most often from my school critique panels.  


Something interesting happened in the full mainstage production which we just completed.  I started the rehearsal process excited and inspired by my two roles.  (I think 'thrilled' was actually the word I used).  I had been challenged by my tutors to push beyond my usual solid (what I have referred to as 'serviceable') work and allow myself to be brilliant.  With these two smaller roles, I felt the unique opportunity to play and push boundaries; to create something memorable and new.  


Now, the rehearsal process was unlike anything I've ever experienced in my career.  Our cast of 18 jumped in on the first day with group improvisation and devision, rather than a traditional read-through of the script.  As a matter of fact, we never had a read-through...never heard the entire play until the end of the third week when we did our first run-through.  A week into rehearsal, and because we were rehearsing scenes out of order...I still had not spoken a line out loud.  I found it difficult to keep the story line straight, and to develop a strong sense of the journey of the play.  The design team was devising along with us, so although we had a clear dimension of the stage, we had no clue what costumes (or shoes), props, or set pieces would be in play.  It was much like rehearsing a film (you jump into the process mid-stream, with only your scene and lines in hand), except without the clear vision of storyboards to lead your way.  I could see how this process would be highly successful with a much smaller cast - and I would love to participate in devising theatre in this actor-led, organic manner.  However, my experience was that for 18 people to successfully organically stage large group scenes and maintain audience sight lines, or to improvise battle scenes with quarterstaffs on a deep thrust stage requires a huge amount of time (and danger) to undertake.  


Now, anyone who has ever worked with me knows that about 2/3 the way through a rehearsal process I have a major meltdown.  I have my lines, my blocking, my script well-actioned...everything should be falling into place, but it is still mechanical and disconnected...and I fall into an absolute panicked-weeping-mess.  "I don't know what I'm doing."  "I'm lost." "What the hell do I think I'm doing being an actor?!"  I seek help, I get it, I struggle, and I usually connect and start having fun again.  It is something predictable for me, so even though it always feels like the end of the world, there is something in the back of my mind that also knows that this is just part of my process.  I love rehearsals.  I probably love them more than performing.  I love the permission to explore and fail and play.  And even the predictable melt-down is not a drag...I know it is a temporary phase.


So, yes...I had my meltdown.


And while the director summarily dismissed me with, "You just think you're struggling," the movement director took interest in helping me.  She came in an hour before rehearsal one morning to work on physically differentiating my two characters.  I still was feeling disconnected from the work, but I focused on creating the hooks for each character.  I employed every single technique that I could remember from the last seven months of training and threw each of them at the roles.  I did vocal work, animal work, Laban movement, textual analysis, Lorna's in-depth character work (both the written and physical work).  I tried opposites, counter-intuitive choices, Yat work, answered my Stanislavskian questions.  I started coming in an hour or two before rehearsal with a fellow classmate to do creative warm-ups to try to free up my mind and body to make unpredictable choices.  


Nothing.


I finally decided - screw it - I'm just going to go back to what I know.  What I did before school.  But I couldn't figure out what that was.  And there it was.  We were at performance.  I had been given more rehearsal time than I have EVER had to put up a professional show, and opening night came and went and I wasn't....I wasn't....present.  My confidence: shattered.  My ability to judge my own work for quality: evaporated.  My joy: absent.  The holy triumvirate of the actor - and all had abandoned me.


And I become overwhelmed with grief.  True grief.  I have felt this kind of sorrow only one other time in my life.  "I love you.  I have loved you all my life.  I don't know how not to love you.  But if I stay with you - it will destroy me."


And so, dear friends, I am standing in unknown territory.  If there is one thing I've always known for a fact - it is that I am meant to be an actor.  It has always been clear.  And now it is not.  


I still have time left on this course to explore...and I don't discount the strength that simply going home to New York might revive.  But as a close friend just reminded me: the last 8 months in New York, the ones when I had been accepted into school and wasn't auditioning were some of the happiest she has known me to be in a long time.  So maybe this is more of a slow dawning.  I certainly don't feel reactionary.  I know to many, it seems like I had a singular bad experience and I'm overreacting.  "Don't let one show throw you!"  Trust me, I've been through bad shows before.  I've had directors that I butt heads with, teachers who have wanted to undermine my personal balance in order to create excitement in my art, bad experiences on stage.  I've been miscast, misguided, mistaken, and done jobs I'm not proud of.  But none of them has shaken my very core.  Every other negative experience has left me hungry to create better art.  This one has left me feeling like I don't have better art to give.


I still need processing time.  I not only need to digest this experience, I need more time to grow and explore.  And I don't feel like the question is answered.  If I decide to stay with acting, it will be after a long, hard consideration of whether it is capable of bringing me happiness - and MUST be accompanied by some reemergence of confidence and self-critical judgement.  If I decide to change course, then I know that theatre will stay in my life - it just will have to be redefined in what capacity.  
My friends have been quick to comfort, my family has extended their support in whatever I choose, my boyfriend has reminded me that I am going to be fine - no matter what.  I feel very blessed by the amount of love that has surrounded me.


So, ... um.... no nice little bow to wrap up this one.

Just one big question.

Faith, Here It Is...

Yep, that's me.

Looking smoking hot as my 2011 version of R&J's Nurse.

I had such a blast.  She had a completely different physical life from me.  From a released hip which resulted in a different walk, to always being on the verge of a smile, to the release gesture (as seen in the picture, rubbing hands on the thighs)...she lived in a different place than I did.  I got put in a Free Form performance group with a classmate playing Friar Lawrence, and was delighted to see the chemistry and symbiosis which arises out of two characters from the same play.  They just seem to click because they share a similar world, a similar language, a similar story.

Just a quick posting to show you what a variety of 'characters' played in our class today.  Directly behind me is Lorna Marshall...our teacher extraordinaire.  Working with her has inspired me more than I can express.  I will use what I have learned in her class for the rest of my career, and will chew on some of the insight she gave me for years and years to come.  I will miss this class, but her thoughts will continue to spring new life in me.

End of Term

First term is drawing to a close.

Tomorrow is our final assessment: movement/character study - something I am really looking forward to.  I have been investigating the Nurse (from Romeo & Juliet) with rigour and passion.  The homework:  I went through the entire play first writing down FACTS (what we know about the character: age, location, marriages, children, family life, etc).  The next section of my notebook was on OPINIONS (what other people say about my character) - for example "good nurse" "honest nurse" "O, she is lame" with who said it about you.  The third reading is to write down KEY WORDS (words that your character speaks about).  I created a chart with key word categories across the top (eg. Nature, Family, God/Religion, Body, Insult, Money, Travel, Emotions, etc.) and down the side I separated it by acts of the play.  Each time a key word in popped up in a line, I ticked the appropriate box.  This gives you a true sense of the words that your character says - words that the audience hears coming out of your mouth.  For the Nurse, it was a surprise. As much as she is usually portrayed as a wise-cracking bawdy, what actually comes out of her mouth is primarily about God, with speaking, travel and the body following.  She speaks about the body with the detachment of a medical professional - without lewd connotation.  You also get to see act-by-act how your thinking/speaking changes over the course of the play.  The final section is for INTUITIONS (anything you just have a feeling about - not supported by the text.)  This section is to allow your gut instinct a place to be released - and referred to later to see if it was correct or off-base.  The homework gives you a clear picture of what the text says.  Shakespeare writes each of his characters with a different voice.  They use different words, speak with a different musicality.  It is our pleasure as actors to mine the treasures that are in the text.

The next step was done in class - and was about putting the work IN THE BODY.  Instead of making intellectual, emotional choices - we approached it from the outside --> in.  We fed the body with the information, allowing that to inform our understanding of the character.  We brought in the first speech (or scene) of the character - the first time the character is introduced to the audience - and used it for the following exercises.  Vowels:  speak only the vowels of each of your lines.  Listen to the different vowel sounds in Lady Macbeth's first line, "Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be what thou art promis'd" and Titania's first line, "These are the forgeries of jealousy; And never, since the middle summer's spring, met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead..."  Immediately you get a strong sense of the sound and music your character uses.  Next was Scoring: we stepped out the syllables.  Does your character speak in simple, straightforward words, or use complex language and thought?  With the Nurse, it was primarily monosyllabic, "And she was wean'd - I never shall forget it - of all the days of the year upon that day."

The next three exercises are to understand the energy of thought (still using the first speech).
1.  Anywhere there is punctuation, turn 90º.
2.  Walk in between those shifts.  Is it a long walk between the thoughts, or just the turn?  How much (mental) space must you cover to make the leaps between thoughts: turn that into physical space.
3.  Wherever you walked a few paces = drop to touch the ground
Wherever you walked many paces = drop to touch the ground, and stand back up.  This exercise changes from distance between thoughts to the energy expended to jump between thoughts.
(You may find that there are certain topics that your character has to spend much more mental energy on - eg. Rosalind when talking about her father uses lots of energy, when having battle of wits she is quite at ease.  The Nurse, however, spends lots of energy just to get through a simple sentence.)

The next day of class we worked on EMBODIMENT.
Sitting with my homework notebook,  I went through all the FACTS as "I" statements, allowing them to settle.  I read through the OPINIONS, allowing them to impact me.  I went through the KEY WORDS with the most checks, to see what words I remembered and let the lips form them.  (In religion category, I might remember "Lord" "heaven" "beshrew" "Christian" "faith".)  We then went through a reverie - an imaginative journey into waking up as the character as a child.  What was the bed like? The fabric? The clothes? Breakfast? Were you still hungry or full? Activities for the day? Who says prayers with you?  Again we did the reverie waking up as the character 6 months before the play starts.

Then we moved to our feet.  We started to move as the character with clear physical choices.  Where is the weight? The breath? The focus?  How do they sit? How long do they stay still?  Are they used to carrying weapons?  What is their release gesture (lowering shoulder, sitting into hip, brushing hair out of eyes)?  We then tested this body against the first speech.  By reading the speech out loud, we changed the body as needed in response to the words.  We introduced the public vs. private self (what is the difference in weight, focus, rhythm?)  and then revisited the first speech with the public and private self explored within the text.

So....yeah...that's the prep work so that we were able to get ready for the assessment day.  We are to come in dressed as the character in 2011 London.  There is an amazing amount of freedom to dress within the parameters of 'normality' - something that wouldn't draw stares on the streets of London today.   We have chosen who we are in modern terms (for my Nurse, a New Orleans Katrina refugee working as a nanny for a wealthy family who has relocated to Chicago).  We have an interview with our teacher and 5 other of the "characters" - on modern issues (war in Iraq, gay marriage, education reform).  You quickly realise how much of the homework has worked its way into your thought process.  You know when you would speak up, and when you would keep your mouth shut.  You quickly make alliances and enemies with the other members of the panel.  You have an understanding of what issues are hot buttons for your character and which ones you have little to no opinion about.  With our group of 6 (now no longer strangers) - we spoke our CORE SPEECH.  The core speech is the speech in the play where your character is challenged; where things must change.  The core speech is spoken to and reacted off of the other people in your space.  If they move away from you, you might need to follow them, OR you might need to find someone who is supportive in the group to start speaking to.

The final (and really exciting) part is the FREE FORM.  One person in the group begins their core speech.  At any point, if something they say sparks a reaction in you, you may respond with any of your lines, in any order.  (This requires an absolute backwards-and-forwards memorisation of your core speech, by the way.)  You may say one line over and over.  You may continue through a chunk of your speech.  You may say one or two lines and stop.  The group creates a dynamic piece of theatre by reacting in the moment off of each other, using Shakespeare's text in order to respond.

I know, I know...very technical description of the exercise, but it is a very different approach for me.  I am so used to the inside --> out method of working.  To put the character in my body so strongly before any intellectual choices are made has been phenomenally exciting.

We had our scene assessments on Monday.  Just for a bit of added pressure, the casting director from the Royal Shakespeare Company was running a "mock audition" while watching the scenes.  Surprisingly, the added pressure did not amount to nerves.  It was more relaxed and confident than the assessment last term.   For this one, I did the Hamlet/Gertrude closet scene.  My scene partner was lovely.  He brought some of the best work I've seen: working in the moment, bringing passion and levels into his work.  My work?  I felt much as I have for the last two months of work:  serviceable.  I don't feel as though I have made any sorts of breakthroughs in my performance this term.  I did have a wonderful lighbulb moment when rehearsing for the Hamlet scene - we decided to do a run where we 'over-acted' it.  And I realised that I CAN'T overact this scene.  It is not reality television, it is larger than life.  It requires something more than small acting.  I've always been afraid of "acting with a capital A".  And to get away from my bad habits as a teenager, that was probably a good thing.  But equally, I cannot bring film acting to a stage version of the closet scene.  It requires SO much more.

The main discovery for me in the last few months has been much more of a personal nature.  With the amount of work that was piled on - I found myself under a crunch.  No matter how much work I did, I was always behind.  And my first instinct when I got under the gun was to slip back into the groove (ok, ok, RUT) of my former work patterns - specifically, a choke hold on it to force it into what I think it needs to be.  The sense of play, the sense of relaxation and fun ran away screaming as my stronghold came in to GET IT DONE RIGHT.  It took me about a month to realise that I was even doing it.  I looked around, noticed that I wasn't having fun anymore, and wondered what the hell happened?!?  Oh, right, my body jumped in - "I know how to deal with stress and overload!  I know!  I know!  I've done this before."  I had to gently thank it for trying to help me, and remind it that I am trying out this new approach instead.  It is very much like riding your bicycle and driving along a tram track.  Your wheels just WANT to go into the deep groove of habit.  It takes a conscious choice to pull your tires out and set along a new path.

So it is.

Disappearing Act

I've been watching all the Facebook updates from Boston and New York broadcasting the snowstorms and brutal cold.  My updates have been primarily about ibuprofen and hours logged doing homework...and we've had our own share of 10º weather.  Ok, ok... 10º celsius.  (50º fahrenheit)  At least the weather is being gentle.

I just wanted to make a quick appearance here and explain why I've been off the radar, and why you won't see me or hear from me for a while.  We started back the term with 12 hours of scenework acting classes replacing the 4 hours last term.  Both teachers expected to have scenes ready to roll from the first week, so we all set on a scramble to get memorized and rehearsed to get the kind of feedback, work and learning that we had come here for.  Both of the first two weeks also saw an added 14 hours of class time, vastly reducing the amount of time we owned outside of class hours to do preparation.

We met with our academic advisors to get feedback on the first 4000 words of our dissertation (the character study), and to get approval on our proposed ideas for the next 4000.  That research topic can be an ANYTHING - as long as it relates to our field.  (It is surprisingly difficult to narrow a topic to a manageable size when the entirety of the scope of human knowledge is available to choose from).  I have chosen to look into dreams and the unconscious creativity in approaches to acting.  I am hoping to find how exploring the use of acting out dreams and accessing the unconscious mind can open up the conscious creative choices an actor can make.  I'm making some leaps here, so I'll mostly have to focus on social psychology and then draw parallels to the acting world.  This next part of my dissertation is due in 5 weeks.

In 4 weeks, we have the dress rehearsal for our Performance Research Project.  This is a group presentation and paper presented to all of the school's MA programs, hoping to create new knowledge through a phenomenological approach.  Our group is researching mirror neurons.  Through practical experiments and audience feedback, we are hoping to show how mirror neurons connect an audience visually to the actors.  This is relatively new neuroscience, and is just beginning to be applied to the acting world.

In 3 weeks, we have two separate assessments (to grade us on our learning/growth this term): scenework and movement.  Both of these are worked on completely outside of class time.  For my scene, I'm working on Hamlet/Gertrude closet scene.  For movement, we have character work which will be assessed by coming into class as the character and being able to be interviewed - and speak improvisationally - as the character.   Yes, that means in iambic pentameter: with the type of words the character would use (monosyllabic? polysyllabic? descriptive? other-focused? direct? alliterative? rhetorical?)

In 6 weeks we begin rehearsals for Antony and Cleopatra, and must be off-book (completely memorized) before rehearsals begin.  I am excited about the show.  I've never worked on the play before, and I am double cast as Octavia and Diomedes.  Octavia is Antony's wife and Caesar's sister.  Diomedes is a man and a soldier (and I am THRILLED!)  I get to create two completely different roles, and with any luck I will be in there with the boys throwing down the heat in the battle scenes.  FUN!!

Before this countdown list of upcoming projects have arrived, we have the regular class load.  I am working on two other scenes to be presented in class.  I spent 7 or 8 hours this weekend doing written homework for movement class (for a separate assignment than our assessment).  I'm still trying to work out how to increase my vocal musicality without losing resonance and audibility in voice class.  And we have 3-6 hours a week of stage combat class in which I am simply trying to keep up.  I just bought some bamboo sticks so that I can rehearse my sword work outside of class.  The class makes me ache both in body and mind - it moves at a tremendous pace.  We very rarely revisit a concept once we have covered it once in class.  We are expected to put it into our muscle memory and add to it.  I love the class and am incredibly frustrated by it.  Frustrated because I have many moments when my brain says to do one thing and my body does something else....love because, well, I get to kick ass!  We started with hand-to-hand combat (punches, slaps, kicks, falls) and have added sword work.  We have started with fencing swords and will move on to rapier and dagger.

All this to say, when I have a day off, I have spent 10-11 hours of it doing research, rehearsal and homework.  When I come home from class (except for the 12 hour/stage combat days - when I fall directly into bed with or without dinner) I spend the remaining hours of the day doing research, rehearsal and homework.  So, nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel, eye on the prize, stiff upper lip, putting my back into it....I will be diving into the work that I love and not coming up for air for the next month.

When we get into rehearsals, I look forward to going out for a drink, watching a movie or catching up on skype.  Until then...well, I wish I could say I'm thinking of you, but I'm probably thinking about mirror neurons or parry four or Emilia's relationship to Iago or something like that.

sprouting, rooting, growing

Here it is.  The end of the first term.

Christmas looms on the horizon; snow was falling in big fat flakes today.  I have piles of clothes, toiletries and Christmas gifts in staging grounds around the apartment - preparing to be packed and dragged from London to New York to South Carolina to New York and back to London.

It has been difficult to process the past few weeks of class in either a private journal or a public forum.  But it is worth poking a bit - to see if I can scare some formed thought out of it all.

We finished up our clown work last week.  Our task was to bring in a prepared clown piece in a group of three.  I had the pleasure to work with two smart, talented and enthusiastic classmates whose honest approach and sense of fun boosted my ability to play.  As I mentioned in a previous post, clowning in the Lecoq based work we were exploring is a delve into what is funny and vulnerable about YOU.  Stripped of character and barriers.  My 'sad clown' developed more deeply and personally into what is uniquely me.  That is to say, the part of me that people would laugh about behind my back was the part I embraced and highlighted in my clown.  I became a high strung perfectionist whose sadness was an inevitable devastation caused by my inability to be perfect.  Our group did a song and choreography routine to 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' - which was appropriately train-wrecked by planned 'mistakes', which each of our clowns handled in their own way.  Much like neutral mask, the clown has to do very little to read very big....as long as it is grounded in honesty.  A small tilt of the head or a tiny step away can read volumes.  I actually have no idea how successful it was in performance.  And with our critique panel tomorrow giving feedback on our clowning and scene assessment - I wanted to start writing about this tonight more as a reflection of the work rather than the reaction.  Clowning was interesting, challenging work.  Absolutely not something that comes effortlessly to me, but worth the exploration in a way to unlock some of the social barriers that creep into my work. 

I found myself looking around my last class of the term today in a bit of shock.  Call it an old-lady moment.  We are 1/3 of the way through the course, and I was having the 'I can't believe I'm actually here doing this' moment.  Shouldn't that come in the first couple of weeks?  I guess the reflective part of my brain has been dialed down for the past few weeks, so it came as a 'new' realization - one that I know I've probably had before.  And if the reflective part has been dimmed, I would probably say that the actively engaged part has been on.  I've just been exploring.  In movement, in acting class, in clowning...I haven't been making note on all that I've been learning, because I've just been experiencing.  No major lightbulb moments...but building a new vocabulary of ideas, ways of working, ways of thinking of myself....exploring the unknown in a way that doesn't seem brave because it doesn't seem scary.  It just is what I want to be doing. 

A good place to wrap up.  Just a bit difficult when I go home and inevitably have to field the 'what have you been learning' question!

I feel a bit like a plant.  The first bit was the most difficult: breaking through my hard seed shell.  But with some moist soil, I quickly stretched toward sunlight.  Then I began to grow in both directions:  higher and deeper.  Now I am just developing.  A few more leaves, a few more roots.  Nothing to sing about in the day-to-day: but growing stronger and with each new leaf unfurled, soaking up more and more sunlight.

Dream Big

Last night's online chat to a friend in Los Angeles:

Me: So…I’ll probably NEVER put this in my blog…but I totally ROCKED my scene this past week in class.  It was the first scene (out of 9) that the teacher not only didn’t tear apart…but he really seemed to enjoy.  Score one for the older chick.

D:  Right on.

You SHOULD put that on your blog….

Me:  if I do…I know I’ll only hint at it.

That I had some reassurance.

But it is too public a forum (where my classmates and teacher could read it) to want to be too vocal about…..

Hmmm….I wonder what I don’t want people to know?

That I had a great day?  That I got recognition?  That I have an ego?

I think it is probably the fact that I don’t want to tempt the fates into slamming me back down.

That if I take credit for the ‘genius’ moments…then I have to personally claim all the failures too.  And it is more that this work is just passing through me.

I am neither the alpha nor the omega of the creative energy – just a willing vessel.

It was a great scene...it was well received.  And I found myself reticent to share it with you.  Talking it aloud with a classmate, I almost convinced myself that the reason was because I have been working on the idea of 'the work' being separate from me.  That the work is "it" and it is "out there".  That sometimes it is good and sometimes it is crap, and that doesn't mean I am good and it doesn't mean I am crap.  Getting a sense of distance from the creative work you produce gives you the ultimate freedom to try really bold choices.  When your sense of self-worth is wrapped up in the work, it makes it much harder to throw out a choice that is wild or unexpected (because it has the possibility - maybe even the likelihood - to fail that much more spectacularly).  And in the same breath that I was giving this excuse, I realized that I have no problem revealing my shortcomings, my disappointments and my failures and how they have affected me in this most public forum.

So, why do I have such a wariness about sharing the successes?

Well, that's a damn good question.

It made me think of a visualization exercise we did in one class.   It was meant to be a dream of the best possible sort.  We were asked to close our eyes and picture ourselves coming out for a curtain call at the National Theatre after a fantastic performance.  We see the audience leap to their feet in applause.  We take our bows and then head back to the dressing room.  Fans come backstage.  What do they say?  What words do they use?  The reviews come out.  What have the critics said?  We were asked to picture ourselves at an award show - which one? The Oscars? The Tonys?  BAFTA?  Drama Desk?  What is the introduction of the work we win for?  What is our acceptance speech?  

It was a question of what each artist wants - in the perfect world?  Do you crave to hear the word "genius" from a specific critic?  Do you want a little old lady to put her arm on you and quietly whisper, "You made me feel something.  Over ten years now...and I thought I'd never feel again.  But you made me feel alive"?  What is the core of your art?  

I knew specifically what each of the strangers, friends and critics said about my performance...the words I wanted to hear...but when it came to the awards show, I found myself at the event (and in a gorgeous dress) but not getting called to accept an award.  It wasn't sad or disappointing.  It was just as happy and positive-minded as the rest of my visualization.  It was just a very clear picture of what I actually prioritize in my career.  

There is a great naiveté that we as artists must stay in touch with:  "I have the RIGHT to be amazing, to be astonishing - because, actually, that is my job."

Her point in all of this was to get the warm-up to be not just a 'health-and-safety' stretch, but to transform ourselves (physically, mentally and emotionally) into the being capable of an earth-shattering performance.  The job of the actor is to be connected...so we should avoid any warm-up that allows disconnection.  For me, this was useful - in that I had always approached warm-up as a way to get from 'Caroline' to 'zero'.  To strip away all the extraneous physical gestures, vocal limitations, emotional trolls that would stand in my way in a role.  This change of thinking said that instead of bringing myself to zero, I should rev myself up to 100%.  Instead of the limited choices I may have walked into the room with....bring all the choices that I could possibly dream of...ALL of me.

Now, that lesson was important...but the bigger lesson for me was the idea of dreaming BIG.  Every time I step on stage, I should be aiming for a performance worthy of those words I heard in my imagination...the connections I made with my audience in my fantasy.  

"I want it all, George.  And there's not a chance in hell we're gonna get it all anyway...but if you don't WANT it, we've got even less chance than that." - Chapter 2, Neil Simon.  

What's Lost and Gained

I had my handbag stolen.  It was 2 feet away from me under my coat at the club.

Bank card. Drivers License. Phone. Camera. iPod. Journal.

gone.

All of it I really loved.  I had a white Blackberry Curve that matched my white ceramic Chanel watch (super chic).  I had an iPod touch had a red case with white racing stripes (given as a going away present from a dear friend back home)...and newly downloaded Angry Birds game to keep me entertained on the train.  My camera was less than a year old...and had been grabbing both keepsake travel photos as well as quick snapshots of new friends.

So it is lost. It's just stuff after all.  I keep hearing the line from Harold and Maude:


 "Well if some people get upset because they feel they have a hold on somethings. I'm just acting as a gentle reminder, here today, gone tomorrow so don't get attached to things. Now with that in mind I don't mind collecting things. I've collected quite a lot of stuff in my time. Yeah, this is all memorabilia — but it’s incidental, not integral, if you know what I mean."


The only thing I really minded losing was my journal.  I keep notes daily about classwork and discoveries both for personal reference and as a resource for the final part of my dissertation.  This was a new journal, only three weeks old.  But it still is irreplaceable.  Or is it?  I talked to a classmate today about the possibility of re-writing and seeing what had really absorbed over the past three weeks.  It might not be as detailed in description, but it might be more poignant in depth...in that it would not be the things that I simply wrote down, but that have made their way into my true understanding.


Did I lose faith in London?  Nah.  Have had things stolen in every city.  


Did I lose my experiences? My friends?  My sense of safety?  Nope.


Did I lose the fun that was to be had for the rest of the night?  No!!


What did I gain?  I gained a real life understanding of how happiness is not contingent on life going just as you planned it.  I gained a true sense of the community that does love me and reached out to help me: from the friend I had just met that night that called my bank from his phone at 3 am so that I could cancel my card, to the classmate that bought me a rose on the street corner to cheer me up, to the high school friend of my brother's that offered to wire me cash if I needed it.  I was amazed by the support and love that poured out to boost me.


So, today when I was coming home from class, gripped in a massive wave of insecurity...I started thinking about this sense of loss and gains.  I started trying to unpick what had thrown me on this sudden 'LOSS' side of thinking.


I feel like I've been working with a pretty unbound flow recently - enjoying the work - reveling in the play. I've been continuing to find new avenues for strength and exploration in my voice and movement work.  I've had my first round of clowning.  As frightened as I have been from the first week of class, when our teacher gave us the outline of the course, I knew that after neutral mask, after half mask and after commedia...I would have to face down clowning.  eep.  Give me lines.  Give me actions.  Give me a character.  But please don't put me on stage - with no guards or defenses - and ask me to be funny as Caroline!  (This clowning is based in more Lecoq style training rather than what you might think of with circus clowns.)  It is basically about tapping into what is most vulnerable and unattractive about you - personally - and showcasing it for the entertainment of others.  Sound scary?  Yeah, did to me, too.  But I found a great pleasure and challenge in the work.  Because I have worked for many years in comedy, I definitely found a comfort with the entertaining part - but that was more about my desire to work the audience than allowing them behind the mask, as it were.  As I explored, I started to edge into the realm of the 'sad clown', a vulnerable and deeply open self... and will continue to delve into it.  


Today I played a tea bag.


That's right.  A tea bag.


We were assigned to carefully study and portray an inanimate object - and portray its story: beginning, middle and end.  I know, I know...I had the same reaction at first.  I'm paying HOW MUCH MONEY to pretend to be a tea bag?  But this really wasn't one of those "be a tree...feel the wind" acting exercises.  First, it requires keen observation.  Each time I poured hot water into my cup, I found new things to try. Oh! There is an air bubble trapped inside it that keeps it moving up against the top of the cup!  Oh! When you dunk it in and out of the water, the top part exposed to the air is actually heavier than the part still in the water! The more specifics I observe in life, the more I can bring into my performance. This is true of every thing that I observe...people, ideas, objects. Secondly, it challenged the imagination.  Instead of creating an exact replica of the inanimate object, we were to embody the texture, the weight, the tempo - and allow our imagination to fill in the gaps, and to inform an interpretation when our bodies were unable to match the required action. (How do you float to the top of a cup?  How do you dangle, dripping, above the cup?)  Because my process is usually so incredibly linear: text, actions, obstacles, given circumstances etc....I have been happily exploring the non-linear, the creatively circumspect, and the imaginative inroads.  It has been part of my work over the last few weeks that has been most rewarding - and hardest to define.  


So, if the work has been good....full of exploration and creative flow...if I'm working from a sense of general gain....why do I suddenly feel at a loss?


I looked more specifically at what was underneath my insecurity, and found that it had much to do with worrying where I fit with my classmates.  I worry that even though I have felt an expansion in my approach, that it may not be received well.  I don't trust my new pathway - and if I am honest about it, it is probably because it doesn't feel earned.  I place so much value on what I've EARNED in life.  Hard work = something to be proud of.  If I'm working less directly, if I'm exploring more creatively, it is hard to feel that I have accomplished something.  It feels - what? too easy maybe?  The other part of this has to do with how work is received by an audience.  (Also known as: "Do they like me?")  I can feel that my work is going well, that I am learning and growing, that I continue to have solid work ethic and am dependable as a friend and a scene partner - but that does not mean that someone else is going to look at my finished product and like it.


And this is where I MUST let go.  I cannot control the reaction or the taste of anyone - classmates, faculty, the general paying public.  I can only do what I can to bring life onto the stage.  Specific, creative, delicious, unpredictable life.  The rest is out of my hands.

I bear a charmed life.

I performed at Shakespeare's Globe!

(Ok, ok....so I wasn't on the mainstage treading the hallowed boards.  And I wasn't speaking classical text.  As a matter of fact, I wasn't speaking at all.  But it was thrilling nonetheless.)

I participated as a member of my MA Acting class in an interactive symposium on Gesture - doing an experiment with two of my teachers on Bulwer's Gestures.  The three day symposium was a chance for scholars and practitioners to come together and explore the use of gesture in theory and performance.  Our performance was based on early modern gestural manuals and the information they provide about early gestural practice.  It is also being considered as part of future actor training in our school - as a way to wake up gestural life (responding to the actor's most common question: 'What do I do with my hands?').  We worked as a group exploring the meanings of each of the common and rhetorical gestures that accompanied certain thoughts or ideas as noted by Bulwer in his manual.  Each gesture had a Latin word or phrase that accompanied it - things like "to show irony" "to betray impatience" or "to explode".  As we discovered, the right hand was almost exclusively used in early modern gesture - the left hand being so deeply recognized as evil at the time.  Things like "to steal" would be gestured with the left hand.  With a basic understanding of how to bring the gestures off of the page, we then were led in three groups by three separate actors (from last year's MA course: one actor was working from a rhetorical Shakespearean text, two were working on a scene from Hamlet.  Each of these actors looked at their texts individually, and chose from a list of the translated Latin verbs actions to accompany both their actions and reactions (without seeing what the gesture associated with that word was).  They then taught us the series of gestures - in pure form - that they would be exploring in the scene (which we did not watch them rehearse and incorporate).  This pure series of gestures is what we brought to perform for (and to teach to) the audience.  The audience then watched the scenes performed by the actors using each of the gestures within the scene as a way to connect to and physically express the thoughts.

It was an extremely well received presentation.  The audience was abuzz with questions - and even more fascinatingly, even with their small tutorial - their hands were actively engaged in asking these questions.

All this keeps circling back to what I keep chewing on from my movement class: what the actor's body DOES, the audience FEELS.  Our understanding is so much more about reading people's bodies than hearing their words.  I don't think that was the case in Shakespeare's day - as the society had a much more tuned ear.  Television has 'viewers' - which has informed how we WATCH performances.  Even though a theatrical audience implies 'audio'...we see much more than we hear these days.  Our understanding happens on a very base level through the visual.

Movement class seems to be where I feel like I'm doing my best exploration and growth right now.  Of course, having a teacher who plants ideas like "Your very small preconception of yourself is inaccurate.  The idea of yourself is minutely small compared the all of who you actually are."  Think of a small box called the Polite Self (who you are on the train, to the cashier, with the dry cleaner).  The box around that is your Social Self (the you that your acquaintances and colleagues know - the one that functions best within the world).  The box around that is your Intimate Self (the you your closest friends, family members or lover knows).  Around that is your Private Self (contains all of you that your conscious mind knows about).  Around that is your Unfamiliar Self (a total of the conscious and subconscious self - the self you get glimpses of in dreams).  Most of us consider "who we are" to be the Social Self...the self we present to most of the world all of the time.  Even if we acknowledge the Intimate, and maybe even the Private....we still define ourselves as (and as actors - generally bring to the work table) - the Social Self we are most comfortable in presenting.

Just starting to chew on this idea of bringing the much larger vision of myself into the work opens up all sorts of possibilities for exploration, discovery and play.  

Which is very exciting.

This is why I came to school.  To get excited about the work.  To rediscover the play.  To bring unusual and interesting choices to my acting.  I am the first to admit that my desire to 'get it right' combined with my extremely analytical literary analysis usually create an understanding of text that is very clear ... but also very predictable.  The performers that we enjoy watching (and as I'm discovering...the performances I enjoy giving) are ones where the choices work in surprising and unexpected ways.  This involves a certain amount of risk - risk of failure (those choices that make the performer and the audience go 'blechk!' and spit it back out like a child with their first bite of spinach).  But what we are missioned to do is to bring LIFE to the stage.  "Life" implies failure.  We don't live and learn anything in life without it.  And what is scary is not actually the failure, but embarrassment.  

Who cares about embarrassment?!

Up next?  My first scene for class (Twelfth Night - Maria/Sir Toby Belch) and clowning (getting on stage without line or script or character - just bringing the true Caroline - and making an audience laugh.)

Bring it on.

Doe, a deer...a female deer

I open my eyes.  I hear frogs and crickets and some forest sounds I can't quite identify.  My head swings briskly up, my legs still folded underneath me.  I scan the space.  There are other creatures around, but I can't quite make out what they are.  Dawn is breaking, which is my best grazing time, so I stretch my legs out, shake the dew from my fur and walk out into the open space.  I grab a mouthful and chew just enough to swallow then snap my head up.  Something in the wind or some peripheral view of how the world stopped moving in its usual pace caught my attention.  I quickly scan - and find a pair of eyes on me.  Hunched forward and moving ever so slowly towards me.  I am on high alert.  My heart starts pounding.  I am being hunted.  I am in an enclosed space, so I have to choose wisely.  If I move too soon, I will be moving towards my predator.  I stand as still as a statue - only my nose and ears move as they try to catch any clues to further danger than the one in front of me.  My blood racing and heart pounding in my ears, I see the enemy's crouch deepen and I spring sideways to dodge the initial pounce and dash as far away as I can, looking for a hiding place.

This week started 'animal work' in my acting class.  For over an hour we were guided through night and day, hunting and resting, rainstorms and heat by our teacher.  We had spent the week prior preparing ourselves by choosing an animal that represented the character we are writing our dissertation on (our choice was to be based in the text), researching the spine and muscular system of the animal, and studying the movements and behaviors of the animal at a zoo and in videos.  I had been struggling with making my body match up to the doe (Gertrude from Hamlet).  My legs are much longer than my arms, so in order to get my back and head in proper alignment, my legs had to be folded awkwardly underneath me.  My neck vertebrae is much shorter, so although I could approximate the head-bob while standing...once I was in all fours, my shortened neck couldn't replicate it.  And I got tired.  After 20-30 seconds of rehearsal, I would fall on the floor exhausted.

But here I was, in class, keeping engaged for over an hour!  I have never been so sustained in a constant state of fear for so long in my life.  In our enclosed space was a jaguar, an African wild dog, a wolverine, and a hyena...all of whom were hunting me.  Also in the space were a silverback gorilla, a snowy owl, an elephant, and a black bear...who were not trying to eat me, but frightened me nonetheless. There was no resting.  I was in constant guard of my life.  (I have long since decided that a deer in THAT environment would have had a heart attack!)  When we were asked to lay down and go to sleep...all I could do was nervously watch until the ENTIRE room was still and quite before I could rest. And even then, I had to keep popping my head up to check.

After the main exercise, we transformed into a creature that was half-animal, half-human...something that walked upright, but maintained many of the characteristics of our former animal selves....and in that creature spoke a few lines from our character in the voice that emerged.  After the exercise was over, our teacher said...'Now, your mind probably interrupted you for two different reasons during this exercise.  The first was to say: This hurts.  I don't want to do this anymore. The second was to say: I'm an adult.  I'm paying massive amounts of money to crawl around like an animal.  This is ridiculous.'

The first is a complaint from the part of the brain that seeks physical comfort.  He suggested that we replace the complaint with the thought 'Who knew I could DO this with my body for this long?!' When we were 4 or 5 years old, I would have thought nothing difficult about crawling around all afternoon pretending to be a horse or a monkey or an owl.  Who knew my body was still capable of such feats?!  I thought I was exhausted after 30 seconds of practicing in a peaceful meadow living deer...and here I found myself able to sustain the exercise in a high-stress environment for over an hour!  I rock!!

The second objection was from the socialized part of the brain.  It is the part that doesn't want to make mistakes and look like an idiot.  It is also the part of the brain that is tracking ourselves.  It keeps mental notes: kind of like an outside view (which as an actor is a very crucial part to keep engaged if you want to be able to repeat with precision any gesture or moment or performance that was successful in rehearsal).  He suggested we turn off the judgement/complaint voice, but to keep that part of the brain engaged...to watch, track, and make note of the physical and emotional journey.

I immediately started to see connections in the foundation of some of Gertrude's choices.  If she is acting out of fear...it makes sense why she stays with Claudius, even after Hamlet has revealed that Claudius murdered her first husband.  If she is constantly checking over her shoulder and unable to protect herself, she is going to side with the biggest, baddest stag out there.

Now you might be rolling your eyes and saying...all well and good...but is any of this any USE to the acting process?  Not in the pure form of the exercise, for sure.  But it can absolutely give you a physical way to express the character (think of Robert DeNiro as a duck in Taxi Driver or Marlon Brando as a bulldog in Godfather - they both used animal work to help with physical aspects of creating their characters).  But for me - I take it as Stella Adler presents it - as a way to help the actor rid themselves of the social mask and to free themselves of inhibitions.

In America, theatre and film focus strongly on the work and the product.  Here in England, the tradition of performance focuses much more on creativity and the process.   I turn on the television here, and can't help but marvel that many of these talented actresses would never have a career in the US - simply because of their looks.  They just don't fit into the glossy, marketed packaging that we produce.  But the tradition of acting in which I am currently studying values substance over style, imagination over beauty.  And I am thrilled to be stretching in that vein.  What it requires is that I give over the idea of 'right' and 'wrong' and embrace the idea of 'successful'.  There is not ONE right way to approach a script, a character, a moment: there are many ways it could be successful.  As I let go of the need to get it right (which narrows my focus and choices)...I allow an amazing array of new choices to pop up.  And it may just be that the oddball choice - the one that would never seem 'right' by any definition - could be a wildly successful one for me.  Or it might be a flop.  And only by allowing the exploration of the unknown and glorious failure, can I strike gold.