Acting for Dummies

You know what would be awesome? (And not at all because I most definitely need it, preferably by Wednesday.) A remedial acting class. Not Stanislavski telling you to remain in character from casting through to the final performance, not Meisner using sexual battery as a fun teaching tool, not how to research and invent a historically accurate backstory that fleshes out your character's motivation.

Rather: This is a stage. Stage right, stage left, up/downstage (and why it's called that). This is how the lights work and how to "find your light." This is the "fourth wall" and what that means. This is how rehearsals work. These are the technical aspects that you can expect. These are the conventions about sets and costuming. And above all, these are the illusions about which audiences are expected to suspend their disbelief.

Because I have spent my whole life thinking that if you understand and empathize with your character, if you think about how they would speak and move through the world, how their voice and body would be affected by their situation and state of mind, you should be able to act.

And I have discovered, on the eve of tech week—also a term to be discussed in my imagined remedial class— for my show, that my idea is WRONG and there is NOTHING natural about acting. You are NOT supposed to act like your character would. You are supposed to act like an actor on stage. And now I can't unsee it.

To whit: people on stage are terribly RUDE to their fellow characters. They spend 90% of their time, even while having the most intense, heart-wrenching conversations, looking at that invisible fourth wall rather than their scene partner. Their bodies are nearly always facing one direction in this diegetic world. They should not be moving (or not moving) like normal people because that is apparently boring to watch. (This never would have occurred to me personally because I genuinely enjoyed all 3.5 hours of Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. In fact, I think it could have been longer. Yes, I am, in fact, also boring.)

But here I am, my lines all memorized, thinking about how my character would behave in this space were it real, how she would speak to the other characters. And IT'S ALL WRONG.

We open in five days.

Shit.

Panic! On the Sofa

 I'm not depressed. At least not yet. 

But I have this pulling-in sensation that seems like it is a prelude to depression. I have gone through this before, when it seemed like the thing to do was just to stop talking to anyone, stop looking at social media, prepare to disappear. The thought of interacting with anyone to pursue publishing books is just too much. 

I am struggling to find things to say to even the few people I (sort of) want to interact with. The kids call and I have nothing to say. Lucy calls and I have nothing to say. I spend part of my afternoon thinking of things to talk to Jose about when he gets home from work so that he doesn't worry about me.

I'm not sad. I'm a little panicky. But I'm having a hard time looking forward to anything. I just want to sit here and knit down my stash until I die, which, admittedly, will take a while. 

But I am being PROACTIVE. *eyeroll* I am going to theater auditions for roles I will never get and acting classes where I can pay to make people watch me perform, and more importantly, I go to places where people smile and hug me when they see me. Even if it's acting, I'll take it.