What you don't know

should not be how you base your life...or not mine anyway.

Had been to Freehold a lot lately, six times in the past month as an audience member.  Felt like I was visiting a school I used to go to, like elementary school, some place you can't return to, not in the same manner.  It was strange.  I didn't feel like it was mine anymore, if you can understand that.  This place where I had put so much of myself, that room.  I don't know why I've been feeling that way, but I have.

Anyway, went to the open house tonight, no reason I should go, I'm already registered for classes, but I did.  I still like being there.  So, they have short sessions with instructors.  I sat in on "Acting for the Camera" and "Stage Combat."  John Jacobsen (Camera) just gave a lot of solid advice, the same thing I've heard elsewhere (after the Drunken Boot day), that if you really want something, you'd find a way to make it happen.  And if you're not, why not?  What's getting in your way?  How do you get out of your own way.  And later I mentioned that to someone else in regards to not doing ETI this year, that if I wanted that, why didn't I make it happen?  (He never did it either.)  He said maybe it's not the right time for me.  That the other part of my reality mattered, too.  At one point I was 90% going to do it, and then I didn't.  And it's true that a lot of other former Meisner students that didn't do ETI are working.  It's not the end of the road, just a different one.

And someone last night said, "Why don't you say something?  Why don't you ask?  Will you have regrets when you're 85 if you never know?"  I don't really think there's anything there, but then again, what do I know?  Maybe he doesn't either.  I don't know.

These things are seemingly unrelated, but at the core of it all, it's about how you lived/live your life...how much courage you had to find out what you don't know.  And then move forward, rather than stay stuck in always wondering, passively hoping "Fate" will intervene, living in your head rather than choosing to act on your own behalf, and actually live your life.

The other thing tonight was the stage combat session (with Geoffrey Alm), totally hands on, there were only seven of us.  I've been wanting to do it, (off and on since college, really) but was recently worried about the hand injury (it was one of the concerns I had with ETI actually, but of course, I never bothered to talk to the instructor about it, I just made assumptions. Ugh.)  Anyway, he handed me a left-handed rapier.  Dagger in the right hand.  It worked.  Not uncoordinated with the left hand.  Had enough control.  It was really fun.  And I can do it.  (I had had a bad experience with an instructor, who'd seemed put out with me, that I was a hassle because I needed to modify stuff.  Didn't seem willing to work with me.  I can't bear weight on my wrist...that's the reality I'm working with.)  Upshot of all that is that I will do it in the future.  I'd do it now, but I'm already committed elsewhere.  It's something you need as an actor.  Even if I only get to the unarmed class that would be useful.  He didn't make me feel like it would be an issue to modify.

Also, I mentioned I was bored and someone asked if I wanted to assist with their class.  I should find out what that would mean.  Maybe.  And I mentioned to someone else I ran into, that I want to get some people together to read Chekhov and Ibsen, etc., out loud...I think I'd get more meaning out of it, and it's good to hear the words.  (Which is also the difference between reading something on a page, and seeing it on stage:  the actor brings him/herself into the role, hopefully makes it more alive, more real.  That's what happened with Quinn's version of Louis for me in "Angels."  And why I disagree with Mamet in his essay where he says the best way to experience a play is to read it to yourself.)  Reading it aloud would  make it easier to keep the characters straight.  (It's taking me a long time to read the current one I'm on, because I mostly read it on the bus, and I have to keep asking myself, "Wait, what's the relationship?"  Guess I could make a map.)  We did it last spring, with Ibsen, it was helpful.

Tonight was interesting on many levels.

Things change so quickly.