"oh, fie, fie, fie!" #2

I did my Shakespearean monologue again today. It wasn't very good. Last time, I was in the moment, etc., but today I just didn't seem to get it. And that fact was reflected in the multitudes of notes I got from people. Now, they all weren't totally constructive (not to say that they were mean), but the general idea was that there was something missing.

So Mimi Mekler told me to play in the sand with my scene partner, who was supposed to be my brother, like how we did when we were kids. Now, here I am, a little sad that my monologue didn't work.

Side note: These last couple weeks have been a little hard for me. I keep on getting criticism that cuts my heart, even though I reasonably know that it wasn't personal.

Okay, so I'm on the verge of unreasonable tears, and I'm in a scene playing in a sandbox with my brother. So what do I do? I find an excuse to cry. I'm a kid, right? Alex Fiddes ruins my moat so I tuck in my knees and cry until he fixes it. Then we go on building the sandcastle.

Then Mimi says, "Okay, now, start your text."

The rest is a bit of a blur. It all seemed to touch me a lot more. I cried over my brother dying and how I could save him but wouldn't. It was all real. After that, I was upset for the rest of the class.

And I wonder: Is this really how it's supposed to be? Isn't it unhealthy to do this to yourself? I think there's something really big to be learned here, and maybe, today's monologue has been the reason I've been so emotional lately - so I could learn how to use it. Maybe. Does that sound too crazy?

Acting's hard. Being real in a situation that is decidedly not real.

I want to be good at this, even if it drives me crazy (and I think it might).

"if i get up, i might fall back down again"

Sometimes people compliment me. Often, it doesn't really matter, because I refuse to believe it. (Why? I don't know. I think it has something to do with the way my older sisters made sure I was never vain.) I like them though. It would be better if I could just hear "I like you", rather than try and analyze what the complimenter said.

There's a compliment I've heard a few times in the last little while and it scares me. Is it vain to talk about? Who cares. This is my blog, my place to be self-indulgent.

People tell me that I'm strong.

And then I laugh. Me? Strong? That's very nice of you, but I think it's just because you don't know me. Because if you knew how many times I fall apart and how often I'm held together by threads, you probably wouldn't be saying that.

But then, I keep hearing it, from different places - from people who know me. Maybe it's me that's got it wrong. Maybe I don't really understand what strength is.

And maybe, it's not even my strength.

God is made strong in my weakness, right? Maybe, God's strength is that he threads my pieces back together. Maybe, that's what they meant.

I don't know if I understand this yet.

I've always wanted to be strong.

changed, not necessarily improved

Hey, dudes! I've changed a bunch of stuff. I also found some new blog entries that I never published for one reason or another.

I didn't publish this one because I got in a car accident before I finished it.

This one, I didn't publish because I was frustrated with the HTML, and I was already frustrated when I was writing it. But I fixed it.

dream of the day: to be emma thompson

I don't want to be someone who reviews movies because:
1. I don't watch a lot of new movies.
2. People always disagree with me, so I don't want to be responsible for making you see a movie you don't like. I mean, I really liked Punch Drunk Love and I hated Love, Actually.

BUT, you have to go see Stranger Than Fiction. Gloria and I went with expections of a Will Farrell movie, and we were both pleasantly disappointed. It's wonderful, it's thought-provoking. And Emma Thompson's performance may give you dreams of being her. Her character's angry, weird, and honest, with all these wonderful quirks.

The story is really original and interesting. I think the writer Zach Helm is someone to look out for. Plus, they have some really simple graphic designs through out, which enhanced the mentality of it all.

Okay, so just watch it, and fall in love with it, and thank me. I'm going to go add this one to my Facebook profile. (Now, you know I'm not joking.)

there are 3! permutations of singer-dancer-actor

At the beginning of the music theatre program, everyone had to sing a song for everyone and tell everyone how they considered their skills: singer-actor-dancer or dancer-singer-actor or whatever. I went up in my cute, shy way and said "Umm... well, I think I'm least bad at acting." Everyone laughed.

The internal dialogue at that point went something like this:
I don't think I'm a singer. I'm definitely not a dancer. I guess that leaves acting, right?

I asked one of my friends (outside of this program) who is in music theatre what her strength was.

"Well, I really consider myself an actor, but everyone and their cats can 'act', so I usually say I'm a dancer."

And it's true. Dancing is a real tangible skill, whereas acting is so subjective, so when do you say that you're an actor? When can you say that it's a skill you have?

Next time, someone asks me which of the three is my strength I'm going to say "Acting... but only because it's the most subjective." I think that's the funniest way to go.

what you said isn't what i heard

In Voice & Text class today, we had to do this exercise where we got down on one knee and took someone's hand and had to say "I love you" convincingly. Furthermore, the person had to receive it before you could go on. It's seems easy, but it's HARD. "I love you" is such an important phrase and it isn't always (and maybe very rarely) sincere.

What I found hard was receiving it properly. In this exercise, you didn't have to necessarily return the feeling, but you had to receive it. It was difficult to just take what was said. I'm beginning to realize in my classes where we receive critique on our performances that this is true more than ever. So easily, I take things personally even when, intellectually, I know the criticism is true and subjective. I'm not the only one either. When you're up to perform, you're so vulnerable, and a word can hit the wrong note that resonates in a sensitive place.

Interesting, eh?

epiphany needed

When I was a kid, I used to do piano competitions. I don't really know why. My piano teacher, Mr Element, thought it would be a good idea. I would do this thing every year: We would drive out to St Catherine's or Detroit to a hotel and dress up a bit and wait all day for our half-an-hour time slots.

In retrospect, it was kind of funny. There'd be regulars. Some kids that I wouldn't talk to because I'm shy, but I'd recognize because they were snobbish or super friendly or had annoying parents.

Anyway, I'd do really really bad. I would go up and be so nervous that I'd forget how to play the song I'd been practising for months. I'd forget what the first chord was. So I'd try some out in front of everyone, and they'd be wrong. I'd start to cry and the adjucator would feel sorry for me and let me see the music, and then I'd get started and be fine. Or I would play the whole song with the wrong pedal. It wasn't really fun for me. I'd cry a lot from those competitions.

One year, things were different. I resigned to the fact that I was probably going to screw up, that it was very likely that I'd make a huge and horrible mistake, and that I'd go back to the car and cry a little bit and that was it. It sounds like a pretty depressing admission, but it was actually kinda freeing. That year, I won first place in that competition.

I think I need a similar revelation for singing. After Monday's awesome Shakespeare, on Tuesday I did a really bad job on It's a Perfect Relationship from Bells Are Ringing. And it's not like I forgot the words, but I couldn't do so well because I was nervous. Marie Baron, my teacher, totally intimidates me. She's starred at Stratford and been on Broadway, and she really knows what she's talking about. She is very classy and controlled in her mannerisms: she shows very little that she doesn't want to. Anyway, after performing she told me (in her extremely sweet voice) to say, "Fuck it. I'm going to do badly." And I said it with as good articulation as I could, but I wasn't in a place to understand it.

I need an epiphany, and I know exactly what it has to be. (Marie Baron told me.)