Waiting

I suppose if all I accomplish today is laundry, that might be enough.  Sitting here reading Mamet's True and False, Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor.  About half-way through it, it's mostly essays, so easy to read.  I don't want to agree with him, however, I find myself reading this and saying, "yes" out loud: over and over and over again.  I'm agreeing with most of what he's written.  If you want it, there is no fall back.  If you want it, there is no substitution for actually doing it.  Know your lines, live in the moment, whatever happens happens, rather than deny or try to analyze it, seize the moment and use it to get what you need.  Your job is to present the writing to the audience, and the audience is why you are there.

It made me think about how the first acting class I took was in community college, and how up to that point, I didn't know anyone.  How I was terrified of standing up in front of anyone and saying anything at all (what today I would call self-consciousness, then I probably would have said shyness or insecurity, both of which I had, probably still have.)  Anyway, it was a movement class, and from there, because it was interactive, I met people and somehow by the end of the week, got involved in working on shows, in one capacity or another.  It wasn't acting for me at the time, I was denying to myself that I was allowed to do that.  Anyway, I feel like self-consciousness has gotten in the way of a lot of things that I have wanted, and I'm getting better at letting it go, and perhaps it will always be a struggle.  The improv and the mirror work have been the biggest help for that thus far, though I haven't figured out how to translate that into working with text, which I guess, is what I'm after.  And I can feel that's true when I feel like a lump on stage, like I want something to do (and I should find something to do which doesn't disconnect me from my partner.)  And the saying is that whenever you feel lost on stage, you should find where you need to be in the person you are working with, by connecting with them more fully...which doesn't involve just looking at them the whole time.  Sometimes I do that and I still feel like a lump.

So, I'm thinking that maybe improv would help, but it has to be the right kind, one like what we do in class, where there is still connection, not the sorta' experience where it's more about trying to think of how you can "one up" whoever is before you, but rather really paying attention and connecting to the other participants and building on what is given.  In other words, being truthful.  There's an improv intensive, or advanced clown, and the other workshop I'm doing (fingers crossed) is for getting more attuned to how I move and to get more grounded, which will also help, I think. (More specific to that than biomechanics, though I could stand to do that again, as well.  And more voice.  Those two are pretty fundamental to anything else you do, since they are the vehicles through which you work.)  And I need to start auditioning, get more experience.

Waiting for my laundry to dry so I can go out and try to find a dress for "Carolyn."  Day is half over already. And there's marching band outside.  Think I'll go see what for.