My favorite form of punctuation is the ellipse. Because so...much can happen betwixt those three little dots...
Thursday, November 20, 2008
She is me and I am her yet she can be without the Me at all
You know you've been dressed as a 19th century maid too long when another actor is talking to you in the green room and says, "Yeah, but you're playing you in the waltz." and they mean "you" to be your character. And you call them out on it and they say, "Well yeah. Of course. You. I meant You." But they're still talking about your character.
I've talked before on this shoot about how when I was a little girl I used to look in the mirror and think about the phrase, "I am me". I'd stare and say it over and over in my head and it used to freak me out after a while.
I am me.
It still freaks me out, how and what makes this "me" Me.
Finding the me of characters is clearly important. But absorbing them to that level is rare, I think. Possible when spending that much time with them, in a run of this length. And I've plaid house maids before, so I won't lie that I drew on that experience. A little house maid named Celia Plimco, in fact.
One of my favorite critics said that as he sat in the audience, he knew I was in the show, kept waiting for my entrance and then after it happened, he didn't even know it until half the scene was over. He said that I, "Me", seemed so Other that he just accepted that she was a different person. I was a different person. Which is kind of the point.
Acting!
Ding.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
How to clear a room at a cast party:
First tell a few poop stories.
Then talk about how weird it would be if women laid eggs. Like you're sitting on the subway and Oop! Sorry about that. Reach under your skirt, pull out your egg and offer it to the passenger on your right. "Did you have breakfast yet?"
Then laugh really really loud at your own joke and look around as the last person quietly excuses herself to get another drink.
Monday, November 17, 2008
13 down, 4 to go
Damn this is a long run.
It's been wooshing by though. I have had absolutely no life other than this play all autumn. I have been completely stuck up its ass. I had time to shave my legs and go grocery shopping on Saturday. I about fell over, it was such real person behavior.
Last night we had a cast party at this guy's house who is in the play. Being cast in a play with a chorus of dancers makes for interesting cast parties. We danced and danced in the living room to James Brown. Then one of the dancers showed us this crazy club move that she does called "Whacking it". She kind of dislocates her shoulders and whips her arms around like noodles in a very provocative and alarming and sensual way.
I hope there's more whacking it at the closing night party on Saturday.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Dissection
Last night, after brandishing giant gardening shears, pulling out bloody intestines and splattering them everywhere to the accompaniment of manic carnival music, screaming and laughing like a crazy person, I turned and calmly walked off stage into the back stage bathroom with my fellow bloody actor where a stage manager waited for me and calmly removed my bloody gloves and my bloody doctor's coat revealing the ball gown underneath like she has so many nights before, our hearts still beating in our chest from the nightmare scene we had just performed, it hit me.
I love my life.
I love that this is my life, that I get to do this.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
You give good face
Do you know what the consistent feedback I get from my performance with this show is?
"You have the best facial expressions."
"I love your facial expressions."
"My Dad said you had such great facial expressions."
You know what? Thank you. But you know what else? That's kind of like telling someone that they like your shirt. I am, surprisingly, doing some other work up there other than making faces. There is a bit more to acting than making faces. I'd like to think the faces are fueled by, I don't know, the rich inner life of the character I've created, the motivation in the scene, the reaction to my fellow actor on stage with me, my intention in the world that I have crafted to be in and play.
"Gosh, you have the BEST facial expressions!"
Humph. It's not just this play either, it's the last play, the one before that, the one before that.
You know what else that can be called? "Mugging". Mugging is bad. I shouldn't mug. I suck.
But I give good face.
It's just my face! Sure, there's a certain amount of control I exert upon it, but... It's just my big stupid face.
Oh well, I guess it's better than the other feedback I've gotten which is, "You looked like a little china doll up there." or, oddly, "I thought you were a Victorian ghost at first".
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Don't read this
You know what is incredibly difficult? Having several scientific accounts memorized and then pretending to read them out of a book. This becomes even more difficult when the book in question happens to be Jane Austin.
I think you all should try it. Pick up a book, any book. OK. Now look at the page and make your eyes move across the page as though you are reading the words on that page only say something else while you're doing this, something you have memorized. Not something you have memorized really well, but... Let's say, give someone directions to your house while you are looking at those other words.
I'll give you a minute.
Doot de doot dee doo
See?! It's hard, isn't it! Because your brain looks at a word and sees the word and registers the word, right? It's a brain fuck. I have to do this several times during the play. Oh me, it sounds like such a stupid thing, but it really is the biggest thing I'm struggling with. Not to mention keeping in mind the chronological order of the accounts so that I'm flipping forward in the book and backward when I should be. I've been making my eyes not focus. Looking at the page, making it a blur and THEN saying what I'm "reading". But this takes so much focus I sometimes forget to remember the whole point of why I'm reading them which is to get the scientist to come who is masturbating behind me.
Oof. It's tricky.
You'd think other acting things other than pretending to read would be a bit more challenging, but I'm here to tell you, they're not. I'll play a murderer any day, get inside the head of a schizophrenic baby killer, give me that! But this "reading" thing is driving me batty.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Everyone keeps sending me emails asking how opening weekened went (actually just my sister, but let's pretend)
Well, we opened. Cracked that sucker open.
It was such a massively insane tech week, we didn't quite plan on any sort of opening night festivities, so I come out after the show Friday and there are crickets... Most depressing opening night ever. I was all echoing in the lobby, "Guys? You guys? Anyone? Aren't we going to go out for a drink ink ink ink ink...?" Everyone was just so exhausted. We hung out Saturday night. It was fine.
I tripped on stage I think three times in one show. I've decided that it's a character choice. I trip going up stairs, trip on my costume, trip during the waltz, it's just my character's thing, see? She's graceless.
But the room for error? The things that could have gone wrong that didn't? Tripping is fine. I'll take tripping.
Sunday was the most beautiful day ever and we had to be little moles in a cave all day for a two hour photo shoot following an hour early call following a two and a half hour show. Matinees do something strange to your brain. Especially daylight savings time matinees. You condition yourself the whole time, the rehearsals, the performances up to that point; this is a nocturnal activity. This is when these things happen, night time. So, matinees just make me gassy.
During the talk back with the audience on Saturday, we were all really able to tell from them how important this show is. It's nice to be reminded of that. You get so close to a script, to a story, to words and you forget what it was like the first time you heard the story, how you thought it was such an important one to tell. It's nice to be reminded of that.
Tonight I get to go back and tell it all over again. And the next night and the next night and the next night. If anything, the story seems to have evolved since the last time we performed. It has always felt important, but... to tell this story now... I just feel really fortunate to be a part of telling it, of trying to understand it. Where we've all come from. Where we are now.