It's snowing

Somewhere before 3 am, I look out the window and I see that snow has drifted into the corners of the neighboring roof.  I go downstairs to look at the front window, I can see it falling in the light from the streetlamp, but it isn't sticking.  I go upstairs and read (insomnia, as usual.)  I look out again an hour later, and it's still pouring down, but not sticking anywhere.  Finally fall back asleep.

Now it's morning, and it has stuck, enough to cover everything in white, still coming down.  Everything muffled.  Traffic in the distant, a quiet roar; nearer, the caw of a crow.  Think I need to go out in it.

Walked around the lake, the western side was somehow out of the wind and so I felt like it was warming up.  Then I got to the south end and either the wind picked up or it just wasn't hitting the other side, strong and really cold.  There were white caps on the lake, and the waves where crashing up against the wall and splashing across the path.  My face and hands were freezing, so I took a detour about a half-mile later on a path that goes up toward a main road, and away from the water.  At one point I looked back and the water looked steely, and I thought I wanted a picture of it, so I stopped.  My hands were cold, and it took a minute to get the lens cap off, and to hit the on button.  While I was doing that, I hear a loud cracking sound, and look to see a tree fall across the path I'm on, about ten to fifteen feet further along from where I was standing.  Suddenly, there are people everywhere.  Someone runs over and looks under the branches to see if anyone got trapped (I don't think there was anyone else near when it fell, there was a shout, but that was me.)  It took about five seconds to fall, but there was something strangely gentle about it.  Perhaps I was seeing it in slow motion.

You know, I'm not freaked out in any way, but there's this small part of me that thinks, "I could've died today, and I didn't...why not?"  (I don't want to die.  It just makes me think about what I'm doing with my time.)

Later, at home, some random woman walked out of our bathroom.  I said "hi" to her.  There is an off chance she was my downstairs housemate, but I didn't really recognize her.  And now my smoke alarm is chirping so I'm back out to the store to buy a new battery.  It's been an odd day.

At least the wind has died down a bit.  It's gorgeous outside, a silvery light (as a friend of mine used to call it), but freezing.

Here are some pictures of the walk.  Fallen tree is the last one; the path to the right was the one I was following.

Muddy pathway, Nov 29/L Herlevi 2014

Yellow trees, blue sky, November 29/L Herlevi 2014

Windblown, November 29/L Herlevi 2014

Tree that fell today, November 29/L Herlevi 2014

Keeping the door open

"Yes, and..." is better for keeping the doors open for change than "no."  Re-framing the change in the positive.  It's important to be on your own side, even if it feels you are the only one.  I think I'm there now, I'll learn what I need to learn and move on.  If I have to work harder than anyone else, then I guess I will.

And in light of all that's happened, keep looking for the best in yourself and in one another, you might discover it.  If you focus only on the worst aspects, that's all you will find.  We will become more fearful and divided, building thicker walls.  There is no future there, none that any of us really want.

What does it mean to love your enemy?  To behave on your highest impulse, even when you want revenge?  To find common ground?  To practice empathy?  Would it change anything?

Sunday

Curiously, now all I want to do is work on theatre stuff.  Feel like I have something to prove.  And some direction to move forward in.

Tired

Spent a long time this morning slow-reading the Frankie monologue.  Still need to get the Emilia down, but it's interesting if I do it one word at a time, how much I actually remember, and how much time I have to think about why I'm saying what I'm saying.  It's an exercise you usually would do with a scene partner as you start working on a scene, you'd sit across a table, or just facing each other, and read each word at a time.  (It can be slightly uncomfortable to do, releasing a lot of nervousness, or maybe that's just because I've always worked on those in front of other people.)  I don't know how it'll affect the delivery tomorrow, but it helped today.  Still not solid on the driving action, not with either of them.

Had a memorial service to sing at, and then had meant to walk with the other monologue, but took a nap instead, and then it was dark out, so tried to read it sorta' quietly on the bus until someone sat next to me.

Rushed to a dance performance, David Rousève/REALITY "Stardust," at Meany.  All I knew about it beforehand was that he used a Twitter feed in the background, and that it was partially to be annoying, to make a statement about how much we check our phones and email and Facebook even when we are with someone else, because perhaps we fear we might miss something important, and because I had heard that, I wasn't reading them all initially and was trying to watch the dancers.  But...they were important.  The whole thing was the story of a teenage boy, African American, gay, who initially lived with his grandfather, and then went into foster care.  And all he wanted was to be loved.  (And that story was told in the Twitter feed.)

It destroyed me.  I had my hand clamped over my mouth by the end to keep myself from sobbing, and it's the first show in a while that I jumped up for a standing ovation for.  Just powerful.  I felt myself alternating between heartbreak and anger, that there's that spark of humanity in all of us, and that anyone would snuff that out of someone else.  What right do you have?  That you would never know that because you need to have power over someone else to feel good about yourself...what effing right do you have???  That this kid looked at Van Gogh and got it.  Heard Nat King Cole and found a kindred soul.  Thought of pigeons as ghetto angels...and then how someone could take advantage of him, kill his soul that was just starting to find itself.  (Was he a saint? No, but none of us are, we all deserve to find our way in the world, or reason for being, should such a thing exist.)  Sure...it's "fiction" for the stage, but it's happening somewhere for real right now.  Someone takes someone else's power away, or slaps a label on someone and decides they know all they need to know about them.  They know nothing, and the label builds a wall, prevents them from seeing a human being, or learning anything.

Even when you know someone well, there are secrets you never reach, what makes anyone think they can know a stranger on a snap judgment?  They don't.  We don't.  We make up stories to keep ourselves separate, to justify our actions, our discrimination, our fears.

The labels we choose to put on someone else tell more about our own prejudices than they do about whomever we choose to label.

There are too many bullies in the world.  Open your heart.  Become more human.

Wednesday

Find I was free, saw a Facebook post regarding a closing night show, tickets $5, so I went.  "Horse Girls," by Jenny Rachel Weiner at Annex.  Campy and fun, for being a bit of a slasher.  The girls are supposed to be about twelve-years old, obsessed with horses (yes), but only one (Anastasia Higham as Margaret) really pulled off the young age.  Rest came off as mid-teen.  It was cute, I liked it.  thought the lead did a good job with emotions, I don't know who the actress was, they didn't have any programs left.

I've decided that my problem is that I'm not risking enough.  I think about it, but I don't follow through; I'm holding back.  It's the knowing what I need to do, but always finding excuses of why I need more information before actually acting on it.  Had a conversation with a friend about it last weekend, there is a point where you need to stop always reading the acting books, and actually practice the exercises.  He was saying the same thing about himself.

Anyway, decided to go back to Emilia and Frankie for the monologues.  Tried to daydream for Frankie this morning, about what's going on with her at that moment before she's asking him to leave.  Couldn't get anywhere with it.  Seem to have difficulty daydreaming when I have to do it.  Also, went for a walk during lunch where I could say lines out loud without a lot of people around.  I'm trying out the idea of taking a line or word I'm stuck on and practicing saying it with as many emotional states and emphasis as possible.  The idea was suggested at the cold-reading event.  It's to help free up the words from preconceptions of a set meaning, and also, to help you access what you think in your head, so that it comes out that way when you say it.  It doesn't always (it often doesn't.)

Joined another short-term choir for the season.  We are singing for a fundraising event/caroling competition (Figgy Pudding, benefits the Pike Market Senior Center and Food Bank.)  We only have two rehearsals, not sure what we will wear or sing, but you know, I'll find out soon.  It'll be fun, and we get fed.

Walking home last night, both Broadway and Westlake were being decorated with Christmas lights, and the Nordstrom Santa (land?) was being constructed.  It hardly feels close to the holidays for me, in spite of Thanksgiving being a week away, and the change in the weather.  Fall quarter is almost over.

The cold and sun have left, and the warmer gloom has returned.  No shooting stars tonight. Well, none that I can see.

More to think about

Henceforth get thee away!  Reading Shakespeare on the bus, and now am thinking to myself in Elizabethan English which is both amusing and a little annoying-and yes, that's the best sentence I could come up with after verses of mistaken identity, accusations of sorcery, and servants taking the blame for every last misunderstanding.  (And yes, had I begun sooner, I might've written this post that way...maybe next time.)  Not actually sure why it stayed in my brain so long.  "Comedy of Errors."  Not sure if I will use a monologue from this or go back to "Othello."  (I am inconsistent with punctuation.  I know it.)  They are with the Abbess now, but I haven't finished it.

Went to a cold-reading workshop.  Will try to find more opportunities.  I just need to do it, and I like having the feedback.  I need to get over my self-consciousness, let myself to flirt with text (been an issue before), and figure out why I'm shutting down my impulses before I even know they exist, or at least how to stop doing this.  It was an issue all last year in Meisner as well.  Has not always been, nor has my squelching emotions.  I need to take the judgement off of these things (of myself).  I wasn't always like this, I used to be pretty fiery (not always the best choice in life, granted), but within the past several years I haven't been.  It's not like that was ever particularly safe at any point, so why the sudden stop?  If not always helpful in life, it would be useful in theatre; I'd like to get it back.

If I can get past the self-consciousness (making a boring choice? a dumb choice? a foolish choice?), maybe I can learn a foreign language, too...well, a lot of things.  It held me back there as well.  So much of this is boldness.  Pushing out as far as you can to see what too far is, and where you can come back to.  ("Make big shapes I can move in."-Rilke, my mantra for taking chances.)  Need to be brave enough to be a fool.  To look like a fool.  To sound like a fool.  To actually do it, out loud and, not just in my head.  Thinking is not the same as doing.

No risk and nothing ever changes.

Monday

Unless I can get this Emilia monologue to work, totally new monologues next week.  We need to present two for the final class (like a real audition) plus also do a side for a call-back situation.  We'll probably have an outside audience, possibly a casting director (because people requested that.)  So, a lot of work to do.  At least, need to choose, so I can do the character work.

Went to the drop-in Suzuki session tonight.  Took time off of work to go; there were three of us, plus the instructor.  We did marches and slow-ten (not sure how to write that.)  I like the slow-ten.  Feel very uncoordinated and amateur otherwise; started to get the marches by the second time through.  Started to.  Learned an arm movement we hadn't done in the intensive, which confused my body-brain connection.  It's still: the centering, the actual movement, the stillness, the holding of the stillness for as long as possible before moving (as quick as possible), the rhythm, the moving in sync with everyone else, and the switching of sides (not to mention just trying to remember what the movements are supposed to be), and the focus.  And then we did the whole sequence again, switching sides of the body, to the non-dominant one, which always throws me off.  Perhaps it's like learning to play the drums, or the piano, or whatever it is where every limb is doing something different and you just have to learn all those things and then forget about it.  When I was learning how to play a drum kit a number of years ago, I remember the moments where I had each limb doing a different thing, and I'd get excited about that, and then think about it, and then lose the groove...actually, that's acting, too.  And I guess that's part of why this is good for that.  (Acting is holding all those parts of the character in your body and voice and mind, and using yourself to communicate their story for them.  You do all the work, and then it's there, and available.)

Anyway, it's only an hour, and in some ways that seems so short, but in others, plenty.  I think the only thing I might have been able to do at the end of the hour would have been statues, and not very many of those.  I was super shaky.  Fatigued.  And really hungry.  (And then I had choir rehearsal after, so wiped out now.) Surprising how much energy it takes to hold focus, intention, and stillness.  I'm not sure when I can go again, but it's the sorta' thing that needs a lot of practice.  I enjoy it, when I get over the nervousness.

Onto the next thing

Feeling sick to my stomach most of the day.  In the morning, I went for a long walk to make the most of the sun, to see what birds have come, (so many birds, and when I walked to the shore for a closer look, they swam over, expecting to be fed) and to work on the memorization of a monologue.

Later at clown group, I think we have a start on a few things.  The show feels very soon.  Once home, I had to force myself to go out again, had a ticket to a (final, I think) Beckett show.  This one more based on inspiration than an actual Beckett play.  And as such, and because it was physical/clown, and because it had some hope in it, I probably liked it the best of the bunch.  Not all the dialogue worked for me, and again, there was more hope and redemption involved, so, not necessarily as true to Beckett, and there seemed to be more a sense of cause and effect...at any rate, possibly because of all these things, I found myself more involved in what happened.  And while I didn't necessarily laugh, (a lot of the audience did), I did find that I cared what happened to the characters, and I liked the way it was staged.  (And since I felt sick the whole time, I was glad it was relatively short and I could come back home to curl up again.)

I was late arriving.  The bus had to wait at an early stop.  A man had entered the bus, I'm not sure what was going on with him, but he kept trying to sit on the driver, had difficulty maneuvering himself about, at one point his pants dropped down to his ankles, and I saw the driver's hand point, presumably to pull them back on, which he eventually did.  He was finally able to find his way to a seat and sit down after about five minutes of this.  Not dressed for the weather at all, wearing just a couple of thin shirts and the pants.  The bus plowed forward, to make up the time.  At any rate, I wasn't the only one late for the show, about five others.  They held the start.

What possessed me to go find frozen yogurt when I got of the bus, every storefront I pass darkened for the evening, though it's not yet 10 pm, already shivering from the cold air, is beyond me.  The shop is open, and I, the sole customer.  I walk home carrying it in un-gloved hands, no chance of it melting.  Perhaps it will settle my stomach.

Looking up as I near my house, the sky is magnificent.  So clear.  So many stars.

Such sky

Above the rush-hour traffic, the crowds huddled and hurrying to get on the next bus, the noise that ends the workday, the clear sky fades from blue to black.  The stars prepare for their nightly dance.  All is still.  A holding of breath.  Waiting, and full of possibility.

Anything can happen now.

Almost Friday

This wren is hopping around and peering in all the windows...perhaps it wants to come inside.  Cold out.  Breezy, too.  The sun is welcome, at least for me, my mood is better without the gloom.  Still feeling relatively uninspired.  My creative endeavor being making broth on Tuesday and making soup this morning.  Lately, I feel a bit of pride if I cook anything at all.  Lord knows I spend enough time thinking about it.  We're meeting on Saturday to work on ideas for the February show, there's a possibility of one in December as well.  The creativity is sometimes easier in motion, and bouncing ideas around off other people

Unexpectedly have tonight free.  Rehearsal got moved to yesterday, and between that and Tuesday having been a holiday, I've lost track of days.  Got a bunch of plays staring up at me, (every time I walk into the library to return anything, I end up walking out with one more than I had, so the pile keeps growing.)  Couldn't see well enough last night to read: eye exam, left me blurry and, even five hours later, looking like a love-sick seal, with my massive pupils.  Could kinda' read the music at rehearsal, didn't seem like reason enough not to go, I've missed too many this season, so I went.  I believe the right play is Comedy of Errors, or at least that is written down in relation to nothing around it.  I do have it now.  Not sure what I'll do on Sunday.  Just not feeling Emilia from Othello.

Not feeling any of these monologues at all, but you can't wait for inspiration to move ahead, just have to keep trudging through, believing that if you do the work, eventually you will see progress.  It's not all for nothing.  I keep thinking about what J said, "If you really want it, you'll make it happen."  (I know that was issued as a challenge.  I accept that, think about it daily.)  And I do, more than most things.  Just feeling doubt.  I know I've done good work in the past, so I'm capable, just not getting to the same level at the moment.  Unsure of what would get me there.

I need to find or make more opportunities to work with other people.  The isolation isn't really working for me.

Generosity

Cracked, November 10/L Herlevi 2014

Think I just read the wrong play, can't recall what the right play was.  My audition teacher/coach gave me a Shakespeare play to look at, but I can't find where I wrote it down.  Ended up reading "All's Well That Ends Well," and a stripped down version at that (no stage directions, really.)  I'm looking for a comedic Shakespeare monologue.  I didn't present anything in class, and need to come up with something for this week, I can't remember if this is a six- or eight-week class.  If it's six, we are half-way through, and I don't have anything close to being presentable.

Went to a drop-in improv class earlier tonight.  I'm trying to come up with some clown material and am feeling blocked, or stuck.  Thought the improv might help ideas flow, or to at least get to a place where that can happen.  I thought it was just going to be he and I (which intimidated me a bit, I've never done this type of improv before, just with character work and clown, so I didn't know what to expect-no one else had shown up), and he was helping me start something.  A couple other people came in a little late, and we did story generation work.  He's a very generous teacher.  He's never done clown, but has an idea of what that would be, so was trying to work with improv techniques that would go in that direction.  I'll probably go again, maybe bring some other people along.  I'm doing a different workshop next week, more related to auditioning.  (Of course, all that is a moot point if I don't get a head shot.)

Birches, November 11/L Herlevi 2014

The temperatures have gone from almost 60 to somewhere in the 30's, with the wind.  At least it was sunny; spent most of the day outside to make the most of that.  Now I'm sitting here in my coat still, trying to warm up after waiting for the bus.  I'm not complaining, though the heat doesn't seem to make it's way into the attic.  There were people sleeping in doorways with just a single blanket.  That would be miserable, I wished I'd had extra hats or gloves or something to offer.  It'll probably be in the 20's tonight with a wind.

Internet connection is goofy, so that's all I'll write.

I am grateful for the roof over my head.

Restless and irritable

is how the show left me feeling last night.  One of only four shows I've wanted to walk out of, in the past couple of years.  Part of this is related to seeing a lot of shows lately, you're not going to like everything, though there are usually elements in every show that I liked, including most of these.  And for the record, I didn't walk out of any of them (2 theatre, 1 dance, 1 film.)  Two of those shows just needed a really good editor, one needed a deeper grasp, and with the other, the choice of  material was bad.

I sat with friends last night, we were all a bit irritable afterward and snipping at each other.  Apologies have been made.  In general, I don't care for existentialism nor theatre of the absurd (so that's my baggage), but if it's done really, really well, I can handle it.  And since it's part of the canon of modern theatre, I'll go see it.  Part of the problem I think, in doing it here, is that France in the 1950's is not the US at any time in our lifetimes.  The theatre is about lack of meaning, and the pointlessness of it all, the giving up trying, and in general, Americans historically have a "can do," optimistic, gonna try, mindset.  So, we are not steeped in a culture of nothingness, and an end of hope.  And I'm not sure how you learn it enough to get it across.  So performing it without that background, however one would acquire it, seems like a difficult task.  I asked another friend about it today, he said the point of Beckett was how to carry on, when there is no meaning.  (In general, a lot people would end up killing themselves when they lose any sense life having meaning, so I guess being able to carry on would be good.)  I enjoyed Bill Irwin performing Beckett, but I think he's spent so much time with it that he gets it, and can communicate through it.  I also think the pieces with clown elements in them, work better than the straight acting ones.  Clown inhabits that uncertainty, loss, resigned place better.

The explanation today helped, but I'll probably never really enjoy it like I do other art forms.  I'll just go to it knowing it will push my buttons, 'cos it does really get my goat.  And although, I'm never gonna like it, I'd like to understand it better.  And take it in really small doses.

Also, somehow as a result of that show, a brief sentence from a friend, a lot of walking in the sun and thinking, and watching "Before Sunrise" (seriously good dialogue, those movies), I went into an emotional void.  Things that having been bothering me for a long, long time, suddenly don't anymore.  They just don't matter anymore.

Friday

Always nice to be surprised by a show.  Went to see "Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike" by Christopher Durang at ACT earlier tonight.  And while it started slow, and I thought R. Hamilton Wright as Vanya and Marianne Owen as Sonia seemed to be hamming it up a little in Act I, they both just nailed it by the end of Act II, she with her phone conversation (and there was a cheer from the audience when she changed her mind and said "yes" to the date; it seemed that everyone wanted her to be happy, to have something in her life go good), and he in his rant against the disconnection of modern society, in the middle of the performance of his play (which was also taken off of the avant garde play in "The Seagull.")  So by the end, it ended up being one of my favorite shows of the year.

It had a stellar cast (R. Hamilton Wright, Marianne Owen, Cynthia Jones, Pamela Reed, William Poole, and Sydney Andrews) and the set, lighting, sound, costuming, all worked together in the service of telling the story, no element out of place, or competing for attention (not always the case.)

The story is Sonia, Vanya, and Masha are middle-aged siblings.  Sonia was adopted, Vanya is gay, and Masha is a movie star.  Sonia and Vanya spent all of their earlier adult years caring for their parents and have never worked outside of the home.  Sonia is miserable, Vanya writes plays.  Masha was gone all those years, but she was the one working to pay all the bills, as well as give the other two stipends.  She comes home unexpectedly for a neighbor's costume party, and brings along a boy toy named "Spike," probably half her age.  She announces that she is going to sell the house.  There is also a housekeeper named Cassandra who enters the house with sweeping negative prophecies.  (Neither she nor Spike have any connection to Chekhov.)  And Nina is the attractive niece of the neighbors.  A young, aspiring actress, that Spike discovers and invites along to the party.  Masha expects to be the center of attention, dressed as Disney's Snow White, but it is Sonia who steals the show, dressing up and pretending to be Maggie Smith on the way to the Oscars, which brings out a more social and sparkling side of her personality.

The next day, Sonia gets a phone call from someone who met her at the party and wants to ask her on a date.  If she's ever been on a date, it's been over 20 years, she eventually agrees.  Nina reads Vanya's play and convinces him to have it performed/read for the group.  She plays a molecule.  Spike starts texting in the middle of it, and when confronted for that, says he can multitask, which sets Vanya off on his rant.  Spike admits he is running off with Masha's assistant.  She sends him away.  And then relents to not selling the house.  (The abruptness of that choice wasn't really believable to me.)  It ends with them listening to the Beatles.

I think my enjoyment of it was (fortuitously) increased by my having read, and seen, so much Chekhov lately.  And while it was loosely based on Chekhov's writings, there were a lot of references: the cherry orchard, the thought of losing the family home, the play, "Uncle Vanya," the character of Nina, the idleness, the unhappiness, etc., as well as some direct lines from "The Three Sisters."  So, that was a nice coincidence.

Speaking of Chekhov, I'm halfway through the Lydia Avilov book.  It's interesting, though a bit of a clunky translation (can't always tell who is speaking.)  Also, partially through my third (and final for now) reading of a translation of "The Three Sisters," this one by Richard Nelson.  I prefer the McGuinness and the Friel translations.  Apparently, Mamet also did one, but I'm on to other things after this one.

Missed a show I had a ticket for that started at 11 pm.  I'd wanted to go, but I'm tired, and didn't feel like waiting for a bus on 3rd Ave at 1 am.  (It was 60 different, 60 second acts.  Really wanted to see what people come up with for one minute of performance time.)  Maybe next year.

Torrents

Rainbow, November 6/L Herlevi 2014

Looking out the window I saw a rainbow, ran out to take a picture of it, it started to rain.  Finished getting dressed and out the door, raining harder, standing water in the streets.  By the time I got off of the bus, it was torrents, wind pushing it uphill in gusts, rivers in the streets.  No where to step to avoid the standing water.  Drenched by the time I got into work.  Ever grateful for the radiator, drying off the dress, and reminding myself that aside from an earthquake or a blizzard, there are other reasons to keep an extra set of clothes at work. 

Emergency Shoes, October 31/L Herlevi 2014

The rain continued to be interspersed with bright blue sky, sunny and breezy, as if nothing had ever happened.  Wringing it all out of its system to feel better, like a massive mood swing.  We are in between things.

(I have no idea why the formatting did this.)

In a break in the weather, ran to the library and traded in one Chekhov for three others.  Wild Honey, a short play anthology, and a book called Chekhov in My Life by Lydia Avilov.  Seeing one more Chekhov-based work and then two more Beckett, and then I don't know what's going on with me...I can't keep track any more.  It's all on one calendar, except all the singing gigs.

Re-read Frankie and Johnnie during an idle spell.  Not sure if I'll keep the monologue, though I like the play.  Thinking about "driving action," not sure it's strong enough.  There are a couple other sections I might try to make a monologue out of, but they change the subject a lot.  Might look at Riches, too, since I already did a lot of character work on her.  I need something ready by class.  Trying to come up with clown ideas, too, I have some, but they are vague at the moment, need to be worked.

At any rate, trying to focus on what I can control (as our audition teacher keeps saying, but applies to life as well), and to lessen worrying about what I can't.  Easier said than done, the part that hurts is stubbornly holding onto that.  Staring at the lack and making it seem bigger than what is there.  I'm aware of the good.

Oh, darkness of approaching winter

Still in a funk.  It's kinda' a perfect storm of gloomy weather, not eating enough, not sleeping enough, the sudden earlier onset of darkness caused by the time change, and not feeling like I'm good at anything because I've been trying to learn a lot of things over the past couple of years, and I don't feel like I'm progressing, and I'm not sure how to change how I'm approaching it, and I'm feeling a little isolated, among other things, though, that's a lot in itself.  It'll pass.  I'll tell people, have already told people.  I won't pretend like it's not there.  Saying it out loud takes away its power.

The courage to do any of this is good, it's just the being stuck at a point that I'm having trouble moving beyond that's frustrating.  It seems to happen a lot, it did with photography as well, and I still haven't named the barrier, or answered "why?"  Actually, now that I think about it, another reason I took the (recent) first acting class (aside from wanting to be a performer) was to try to work around a block I had been having with photography.  I figured whatever was getting in the way of moving forward could be addressed from a different perspective.  It wasn't an issue of skill, (though it is now with acting , and dancing, which require practice) but rather a wall, beyond which I'm not following through.  We all have those, thoughts that get in the way.  Thoughts we aren't always aware we have, buried so far down in our being we take them as truths. But if they keep clipping our wings (as someone else put it today), they keep us from pursuing our lives.  They aren't true, just some message someone gave us long ago, doesn't matter why, only that we believed it, buried it, and lived as if it were true.  (I'm referring to judgments, the ones that bully us in our heads.)

I have a free night, already picked up my mail, and walked home, the long way.  It was peaceful.  The rain had stopped by then, and the standing water had begun receding.  It was very quiet.  Highlights were passing two separate cars getting jumped (must be the time change, traffic's been awful the last couple of days, too) and a raccoon crossing someone's yard, right as I turned on my street.  Otherwise, just lost in my own thoughts.

Looking forward to reading (I really love reading Dickens.)  Or watching a movie.  Working on the monologues, too.  I always feel funny saying them out loud at home: I have housemates...they do all know about the acting thing, though.

Less than two months until it gets lighter again.  And while I like all the holiday decorations, winters get harder every year.

Just ate way too much salt...olives, cheese, and crackers.  Feeling parched.

Really should be sleeping

Another night of Chekhov (three short stories and a short play), and I'm exhausted.  Not from the Chekhov, just haven't been sleeping enough.  I'll have to read those now, too.

Finished the second version of The Three Sisters, and seem to have misplaced Othello.  I could borrow another copy, but I think I'll work on one of the contemporary monologues in class this week, instead.  I've been having trouble figuring out the motivation for one, and could use new eyes on it.  Or choose a different monologue from the play where intentions are more clear.  I mean, she wants him to leave here, but there are a lot of different ways to say that or mean that; and I haven't been able to get clear on the how.  She doesn't want him to go away forever, just right now.  He doesn't seem to really have boundaries, or get hers.

What keeps us from waking up even when we know it would be a good thing to do?  What makes us think anything will ever change when day after day things play out the same?  There probably is a place you could let yourself be fulfilled, less tortured, loved...what keeps us from going?

Fk.  It's all just making me lose faith in myself, that things will ever change, or that I'm anything more than a dilettante.  Cure for that is to work, but I need to find a new way of doing that, 'cos what I'm doing now isn't making any difference.  I feel like I'm stagnating or sliding backward.  I'm just feeling out of my league.

Fail better.  Fail more.

Tuesday-Talking out loud

My eyes are blurry from getting olive oil in them.  (Used it to remove mascara.)  Between that and the fact that I really need reading glasses, I had a difficult time filling in the voting bubbles neatly.  The trees are blowing about, and the sky is lightening, I should probably leave soon.  I like that the mornings are brighter, but not that it's dark when I get off of work.  Two more months and the days get lighter again.

I think I'll start asking my classmates for more feedback on the monologues, I sometimes probably offer too much, but the way the class is set up, seems to provide for that.  Normally, you never would, but I find it helpful to see what is hitting someone else, and if they have suggestions of things to consider, I'd like that information to work with.  (Especially with the Shakespeare.)  I find the feedback loop of performer asking or telling what they see the reason for the monologue is, and then the response, etc, great for distillation and clarification of why you have to say this now, and what change you want, helpful.  I have trouble seeing that in my own work, I suppose it's the lack of distance, plus unless you film it, you can't actually see what you are doing (physically.) If there is an audience there, why not ask what they see (both physically, and mind pictures)?

And watching the other people work, and hearing the notes and the feedback, is also useful.  The counterpart monologue to mine got run again, and figuring out what he is really saying is helpful to me, it's one of our last contacts before mine.  (I think he's telling me he loves me, and that I deserve better in life.)  Also, someone did a piece from "Orange Flower Water," and hearing the discussion and feedback of the text and the character made me like it just a little (hated it when I read it last year.)  I can better see the character's frailty and loss, and so can relate to why she did what she did, even if there really are no excuses.

My Shakespeare monologue just doubled in length, I'll need to do some research for that one.

Time to go to work.

Beautiful

Went to another Chekhov show tonight, "The Three Sisters," Directed/Adapted by Paul Budraitis, and performed by the senior ensemble at Cornish.  It opened last night.  I missed the 7 pm bus, caught the next one, which was running late, and got dropped off no where near the theatre with 10 minutes to curtain.  Ran.  Made it, the ushers came in to sit right behind me, but then it didn't end up starting for five or ten minutes after that.  I'm glad I made it, it's only playing two weekends, and this was the only night I was free.

Beautiful staging.  Minimalist, three-dimensional metal outline of rooms in the house, everyone always on stage, and when they weren't in the scene, wearing big masks over their heads.  I had seen a photo of that earlier, and was wondering if they were going to perform the whole play that way, and wondering how the sound would carry...they played the scenes without them, sometimes they did background vocalizations through them, which created a subdued sound dynamic under the scene being played, which I liked.  I'm still not sure "why" the masks, but I liked them.  I love the staging particularly in Act IV, both with the house shrinking to a box (or a cage) for the sisters (the shrinking of possibilities at that moment?), and the way the duel was staged, the latter of which was unexpected, and so worked really well.  (Go see it if you are in town.)

He definitely has a style: a sense of uneasiness; sound, lighting, mood, set design, staging: dark, minimalist, touching a void; I would definitely recognize his work, even if I didn't see his name on it.  When I saw that show, "Cold, Empty, Terrible," last week, it was so much like his, that I wondered if they'd seen his work.  Kept thinking, "this reminds me of Paul," throughout the whole thing.  (Take that as you will, but there was hardly any dialogue, and not a lot of explanation to hang onto...mind wanders, makes associations.)

I connected more with the play the further along it went, there was more connection to the words, between the actors, and I think with the audience, in Act IV than in Act I, plus, it's the culmination of everything: all they've been talking about "going back Moscow," everything you dream life would turn out to be, or tried to force into being, comes to fruition, and the realization that you don't get your dream, but you carry on (like Nina in "the Seagull.")  Up until that point, life would happen "tomorrow", whenever they could return to "Moscow," and so they stagnate in anticipation of that day, some future when life would be better.  But in Act IV, it comes into "Now." (Spoiler alert, they never return to Moscow, but they do emerge from the box.)

It's late.  I'd like to spend more time with this play.  When I read it, I think, "I want to come back to this," and I thought that tonight as well (and also during "The Man Who Could Forget Anything" show.)  I feel like there's a lot I want to think deeper about, but because I'm also trying to read through it, it stays on the surface.  Things like: what the characters represent, both in context of the play, and in the current climate; what was going on in Russia at the time; cultural context; the idea of finding meaning in doing work; the way Natasha treats people; thoughts about happiness and fulfillment; the difference in mentalities of Russian thought vs US thought and how that affects what you believe your life can be; evolution, and the future, among others.

Maybe I'll write more later, or edit for coherency.  I still have music and a monologue to get solid by tomorrow.  But I liked the show.

Ooh, wait.  Time change, get an extra hour.

Show Poster, Oct 31/L Herlevi  2014