Day 12 (BCII): Meisner Plus

In the group repetition this morning, I chose to stand in the corner against the back wall, which is the three-way repetition corner. (I forgot about that when I chose to stand there.) We have an odd number of people in class, so Scott made that particular corner the place for three-way. Somehow, I wasn't prepared to repeat this morning, and definitely not with two people, I hated being in that corner. I felt like I should be competing with one of the other two to get into the repetition, but I wasn't finding any pinch-ouch, and then I found myself starting to wallow in self-pity because I wasn't as interesting, the new person stepping into the three-way would invariably start repeating with the other person, not me--RAR! I hated that I was wallowing, and I kept gently reminding myself to stay in the moment with the other two repeating, but I ended up not jumping in as much as I could have, should have, would have. It put me in a pissy mood, so I was finally able to jump in when someone's behavior pissed me off, and then I was able to let go of the wallowing and move forward, finally.

The second half of the class, Scott worked with us on our scenes for the Scene Study class, since Carrie had apparently asked him to, and since these are the scenes we'll be auditioning for the Advanced Program with. Scott decided he wanted to work with my scene partner first, which by default also meant me. Again I was completely unprepared and unfocused to work the scene, and after taking a few moments to prepare, I stepped into the scene, said my first two lines, and I could feel it was so fake and disconnected I immediately stepped out of the scene again, "That was really bad, I'm sorry."

Scott reminded me to take my time to focus, and I asked if I could use a psychological gesture, he said of course. I chose Smashing because that one makes me feel powerful, and my character has all the power in the scene. After that, the scene went better, I felt more connected, and Scott worked with my partner, who is having issues with the scene, with my performance. He is not connecting to the circumstances and has been relying on me to create the sense of fear in the scene for him. He tells me that I don't scare him, he laughed in my face when I radiated my gesture at him. All in all he made me feel like a ball of fluff. And after class, I was talking to some other classmates, and I realized how disrespectful his attitude towards me has been, and that I have not been standing up for myself. I also asked Scott about all of this. He told me that it is not my responsibility to make the circumstances of the scene real for my partner, it is not my responsibility to scare him, to be scary. If my character were meant to be a huge, scary woman the story would have been written that way, but it wasn't, it was written with the character being a normal, sweet-looking person. Scott also gave me a lot of good feedback about how to improve my performance, a lot to work with. I also realized from what he told me that I have not been dealing with the reality of my scene partner's disconnection with the scene in my own performance, and even though it is not my responsibility to create the circumstances for my scene partner, I can see how by my not dealing honestly with my partner's behavior, I am not committing 100% to my own performance, and that in turn makes it harder for him to take me seriously. Although, I still feel he's not going to take me seriously no matter what I do, based on some of the stuff he's said to me, and I'm afraid of loosing my character's intentions in favor of trying to get my partner to deal honestly with me and the circumstances. Meaning, Scott suggested that I take my time in the scene, enjoy playing my actions, but if my partner keeps reacting the way he has been, I won't be able to play that realistically. In order to deal with him honestly I'll be forced to work much harder and fight to keep the power in the scene because he's not taking me seriously, because he's already decided that I'm not scary, that nothing I do will scare him. ARGH! What a fucking, frustrating mess.