Day Three Belonging

CLASSES:
Movement: Lots of exercises, and a handout about Meyerhold to read as homework. Also a piece of Ulysses to memorize. Score, I already know the whole poem. We presented our one minute life stories today, and everyone gave feedback in the form of "What I noticed or affected me most was..." It was an intimate experience, and I was surprised and gratified to find that the hits people had were all things I was trying to get across in one way or another. My entire background is one movement class, and the neutral mask class. It will be interesting to see where we all go.

Speech: This was more work on simply making sounds. Nothing really to add yet, no specific homework, just more playing with girning.

Voice: Kate was our instructor. She teaches Sundays, and Brennan Fridays as Kate is in the show at the Empty Space. We did stretches and muscle relaxations followed by tremor work. It seemed much easier than when I had her beginning a couple years ago. The nice thing about ETI is we do these during drill sessions, so I'll remember them better, as they do help to loosen up my body as well, make a great warm up. The homework is to find a 12-20 line Shakespeare monologue, in verse for using in class. It can be anything we love, and I'm trying to figure out when I'll have enough time to read or scan some plays to find one. I don't know why, but I'm thinking of going through Richard III and Othello again.

Acting: We worked on script analysis, going over Opposing Forces and Essential Desire, then some beat work. Sounds simple, but it was a lot of work, re-exposure and reinforcement of things we have done before. John says there are only seven essential desires, that all others resolve to them in some way, and I wasn't able to write them down.

For the opposing forces exploration an actor was told to think of someone who is gone from their life, and person's very best quality, then their very worst quality. The rest of the class split up top opposite ends of the room one telling her why he was great and she should return, the other half telling her why he was scum and she should forget him. She moved towards the side that felt most compelling, then through steps she argued against with two sides, then told why each was wrong, then each was right. Each character in a play plays both sides of the argument in some way, and this was a powerful demonstration.

For the essential desire, my scene partner and I were the demonstration actors. For both of us the desire was self worth, and we had to come up with what the other actor could do to give us self worth. Mine was she could hug me and kiss me on the cheek. We started off with the form of saying, " hug me and kiss my cheek.", and using that line while maintaining eye contact to get what we wanted. The other actor's name was changed to "You fat whore" bridging us to the world of the scene from 27 Wagons Full Of Cotton, by Tennessee Williams. Then my name was changed, and we went to strong lines based on the scene, often with one person repeating a line and the other with only an action to play. It evolved, and I crossed the sensual and compassionate line, becoming a brutish seducer, who ultimately would not lose even if it meant rape. Going there, thanks to the generosity of the other actor was new territory for me and I found I could work there fully connected and invested in both characters.

OBSERVATIONS/CLICKS:
Finding I communicated accurately in the movement piece of doing my life story in a minute and could do what was asked in the acting exercise had a big impact on me with regards to ETI. For the first time I feel like I am truly where I belong right now, and not like I snuck under the ropes to hang out where I want to be. It is incredibly freeing at the moment, and I expect it will reduce the butterflies before class tremendously.

In the acting exercise even though I allowed my sensuality to surface in an ugly way I had no problem maintaining safety in a very physical scene, which was a big part of my wall for these areas of resistance. It was made easier by my partners generosity and trust. I had to trust myself and my partner. The latter was the easier part. Go figure. I'd bet that is the case for most good actors, once most of the typical beginner's walls are understood. It only takes seeing the damage one reckless person can reap to make you overly cautious.

There is something about being truly relentless, which is asked for in many characters that is freeing and utterly dynamic. I went from sweet teasing and innocent distant to abusive language and physical coercion and back again several times with lots of permutations. It was initiated by John's coaching and was amazing. Duh. It is like real life when you're arguing, trying all sorts of different angles, with different limits than you'd normally apply. By that I mean you're not restraining how far you'll go in the argument on stage, but you are acutely aware of the physical safety for your scene partner. It is simple, constantly building, and wildly serpentine. You can't simply take one tack and continually build, it quickly dies, becoming no more interesting than a stone falling through the air. No one cares it is accelerating, it's just falling. Peoples attention will wander and likely miss the impact, and the same for the performers which is even worse. It is very basic, and something I have understood logically and probably did but didn't assimilate. Now it's an organic understanding.

This is a build on the realization I had at the end of the first quarter of the Meisner Progression. We did a scene from Glengarry Glenn Ross, and I played Jack Lemmon's character. I struggled to make several changes, and after the quarter I rented the movie which I hadn't seen for several years, and watched Jack Lemmon make as many changes in a single line. It was incredibly freeing, leaving me wondering why I found it so difficult to change. Probably I was changing the intention of the text to evolve out of the previous and following line. Too subtle. The physical, voice, and text work is all combining to free us moment to moment, word to word. There is a power and a joy in it.