So, opening weekend for Honeymoon At Graveside Manor went well over all. On opening night, Stan gave each of us a framed photo of the entire cast, labelled with the name of the play, the theater and the date. This really means a lot to me, because now I have a wonderful souvenir of my first step forward in my acting career. It will always remind me that I am following my dream, taking action on it, not just sitting around dreaming about it.
And I've finally found what it seems the Universe wants me to learn from this. (And I almost let it slip away by waiting so long to write about it.) The lesson is to learn to know myself better, and it has be pointed out to me from several different sources.
First of all, I watched Angelina Jolie on Inside The Actor's Studio last week. At first I thought there wasn't a whole lot to learn from that episode, because the discussion was mostly about who she was as a person and not her acting technique. But I was impressed by how deeply honest and down to earth she was. She mentioned that her mother had studied Method acting, and so she grew up with her mother asking her "What are you feeling? What are you thinking?" So she has always been very aware of herself and who she is.
Next, I found another acting blog, Notes On Acting -- the actor states in his bio: "I'm learning to become an actor--on stage, film, and in life--not by learning to pretend to be someone else, but by becoming more myself. " He writes very honestly about who he is, and how his acting is affected by this. I'm also impressed by his discussion of technique, I've realized that my journal is lacking in that. But I have also been feeling again that I lack technique, which would explain why I don't write about it.
And that takes us to the third source, my own experience and observations within the rehearsal process and performance of this play. I've been talking to and observing 'Judy'. She was telling me about a conversation she had with a guy that she had liked, and she knew exactly why she reacted the way she did in that conversation with him, she understood the psychology of it. And in observing her, every night before performance she goes out behind the theater and warms up, finds her center.
I have no clue how to find the center of my character Suzanne. But I have done very little analysis of either the script or the character. Bad Izzie, not doing her homework. But then again, this is a farce, "no analysis required". As 'Judy' said, the biggest job of the actor in a farce is to create the characiture. And I guess I've been doing that reasonably well, Stan gave me positive feedback several times earlier in the week, and after that I really didn't get any notes from him. But at the same time, I have no clue how Suzanne is perceived by others. Which isn't surprising since I have no clue how others perceive *me*. And I frequently feel disconnected to anything real during the performances, it's all "Acting", not acting, being connected to the moment, listening and reacting. And again, it's a farce, it's not meant to be deep. But the other thought that keeps popping into my mind in regard to that is the movie A Night At The Roxbury. That is basically a farce as well, but the thing that impressed me about it was the actors were all connected honestly to their characters and objectives, as ridiculous as those were.
Which brings me to homework...I just didn't do very much for this play. And I'm kicking myself for it again, just like I always did in my acting classes. So now the question is, do I truly lack technique, or was I just being lazy again?
And now I feel like I'm rambling...or are there two separate topics here? I'm too tired to figure it out now, so I may have the opportunity to write more on this topic tomorrow, but after that I won't have time until November. :( No more posts until then...
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