Friday

One of the consequences of all this emotional availability training it that even if I get self-conscious on stage and can't always access it, in actual life I can.  My reactions to people tripping or slipping or stepping on each other were always pretty strong but have (somewhat embarrassingly) increased ten-fold, seriously, you'd think that it'd happened to me.  Example: someone accidentally stepped on a dog's tail on the bus this morning, and my gasp, retracting (?) was so loud and reactive, that the guy actually apologized to me.  I can't seem to help it.  Right on the surface, but as soon as I step onto a "stage"...nada.  That's gotta change.

I have to cry twice in this piece, there's something about "packing" the moment, but I don't know how to do that exactly.  Last night I was thinking about it, and then made myself cry, but it's not like I can disengage myself from whatever else is going on, on stage, to focus on some circumstance to hit an emotional trigger: I can't disconnect from my partner.  Both crying instances are isolated from the entrance (so no prep outside for it) and from each other.  How do you go to an "as if" and still stay present?  I'll have to remember to ask about that.  It's possible we've talked about it, but we only just started working seriously on text, which is different than the spontaneity that we were working with before: if the writer puts it in there, you have to do it, and find justification for it (I can do the latter.)  And even if you can get those things (crying, anger, etc.) to happen spontaneously in the moment sometimes, I don't think you can rely on that, so I'd like to learn how to make it happen every time.

We have to do animal observations soon, too.  I'd wanted to do it tomorrow, but I think it (the zoo) might be crowded (Mother's Day weekend) and raining.  Also, I haven't gotten under her skin enough yet to make any observations useful.  (What animal would the character be?)  And we're doing the second half of the meditation on Sunday, so that takes Sunday out as well. (I don't like to feel rushed before class.)  I had an observation about the newly discovered dark cold planet yesterday, that she might also be talking about the marriage (as well as herself.)  And there is instance after instance where they really are not speaking the same language (ie, she says she wants a drink, he tries to solve her "addiction," she's talking in code, using stories, and he's trying to solve the "problem" with a practical solution, etc.)  I really need to find a big chunk of time to sit and dialogue with the script.  Had the time last night, but watched youtube videos instead and fell asleep.  Every word is on purpose.  Everything is toward an action, to get something.  Need to figure out the beats and the wants, too.  Lotta' work to do.

Said I'd go to a show tonight (at least it's an early-ish one), guess I can work on it on the bus.