Okay, yesterday was interesting. It started out wonderful, in the Daily Acting Workout we were visualizing joy, which put me in a very good mood. Walking around the room with joy in our movements, vocalizing the joy, lots of fun!
Then we went into pairs for the repetition exercises, and I ended up with M. He thinks he's connecting when he's not, and when you call him on not being connected, he says, "Can I explain?" and it's like, "No, we're in the middle of a repetition!" So after the class was done, he asked again if he could explain, so I said "Yes" and he tried to justify why he felt he was connected. It sort of turned into an argument, which ended with him insinuating that by my being bouncy and smiling etc in a repetition that I was being fake. That really hurt me.
It really shook my confidence as well, because I started questioning myself, was I being fake in the exercise on Friday? D's hugging me and holding my hands had really scared me, but I hadn't acknowledged that in the moment. Plus going into the exercise with an agenda and a preconceived notion. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized I have been really pushing the "I'm so happy to be here" attitude, and pushing the being happy & friendly & nice & available attitude in my repititions. And while it's true that I am excited to be in the class, being that happy about it all week was really exhausting. I finally realized that I was protecting myself, I didn't want anyone to see that pain I found again early last week. So in that sense, I had been fake.
As soon as I realized and accepted that, the pain I felt from M's insinuation vanished. But I still wanted to discuss all of that with Mark, just for clarification and validation that I was seeing all of this correctly. And it's funny how the Universe works, because every single one of my questions was answered today just in observing everyone else work and listening to Mark's feedback to them. And the answer I got was that I figured it all out correctly.
So in Scene Study class yesterday, we got new partners and real scenes to work on. I'm paired with D., which scares me a little bit, but the scene we'll be doing is called "Doctor" by David Mamet, it's a two page vingette. My character is arguing with the Doctor because she doesn't think she should have to pay the bill he sent her--I don't think D. can hug me or hold my hands during that scene. I held back while reading through the scene aloud in front of the class, because at that point my confidence was still very shaken from my argument with M, and also I didn't want to put any kind of a character into it yet. And I'm running into my old habits which is to read the lines the way they hit me, the way I think I'm supposed to feel saying them, not from listening and responding to my partner. I think this class is going to be harder for me than the Meisner Technique class.
Then we went into pairs for the repetition exercises, and I ended up with M. He thinks he's connecting when he's not, and when you call him on not being connected, he says, "Can I explain?" and it's like, "No, we're in the middle of a repetition!" So after the class was done, he asked again if he could explain, so I said "Yes" and he tried to justify why he felt he was connected. It sort of turned into an argument, which ended with him insinuating that by my being bouncy and smiling etc in a repetition that I was being fake. That really hurt me.
It really shook my confidence as well, because I started questioning myself, was I being fake in the exercise on Friday? D's hugging me and holding my hands had really scared me, but I hadn't acknowledged that in the moment. Plus going into the exercise with an agenda and a preconceived notion. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized I have been really pushing the "I'm so happy to be here" attitude, and pushing the being happy & friendly & nice & available attitude in my repititions. And while it's true that I am excited to be in the class, being that happy about it all week was really exhausting. I finally realized that I was protecting myself, I didn't want anyone to see that pain I found again early last week. So in that sense, I had been fake.
As soon as I realized and accepted that, the pain I felt from M's insinuation vanished. But I still wanted to discuss all of that with Mark, just for clarification and validation that I was seeing all of this correctly. And it's funny how the Universe works, because every single one of my questions was answered today just in observing everyone else work and listening to Mark's feedback to them. And the answer I got was that I figured it all out correctly.
So in Scene Study class yesterday, we got new partners and real scenes to work on. I'm paired with D., which scares me a little bit, but the scene we'll be doing is called "Doctor" by David Mamet, it's a two page vingette. My character is arguing with the Doctor because she doesn't think she should have to pay the bill he sent her--I don't think D. can hug me or hold my hands during that scene. I held back while reading through the scene aloud in front of the class, because at that point my confidence was still very shaken from my argument with M, and also I didn't want to put any kind of a character into it yet. And I'm running into my old habits which is to read the lines the way they hit me, the way I think I'm supposed to feel saying them, not from listening and responding to my partner. I think this class is going to be harder for me than the Meisner Technique class.
2 comments:
Don't let people rattle you or shake your confidence!
Input/critisism is good if it is helping you to improve or look inward to find out more about who you are. But if it is making you doubt yourself or giving you insecurities that isn't constructive.
You are doing something so fabulous for your career. I hope you won't let one person's ridiculous opinion hinder your experience.
Actually, what he said wasn't delivered in a constructive way, but I did take it and learn from it. I realized that I was hiding myself, and I could see clearly what I needed to do differently to continue to grow, which was re-inforced by everything that happened in the Meisner class the next day, every repetition exercise that I watched, the feedback afterwards all validated what I saw needed changing in myself, and I've taken that and am making the changes, moving forward, and growing in leaps and bounds. GO ME!
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