It scares me how quickly I’ve gone from way up high to way down low to back up again and so on and so forth recently.
I have the best friends in the whole world though so I’ll work it through.
Goodnight. Sweet dreams.
This last week…
It’s been a funny old week and it’s only Thursday. I’m relating to my last post on my struggle to find Lady C’s truthfulness and my worry that I might get up on assessment day and just ‘act’ her rather than ‘be’ her.
Despite feeling much more positive today I fell into a bit of a lull this week to the point where even the smallest things were making me cry. Can’t master a dance step in lessons? Cry. Friends make a joke that would usually have me howling with laughter? Cry. Layer that on top of an ever growing desire to punch people in the face for the smallest of crimes and you have a very highly strung red head. Then I started giving myself nose bleeds, which only ever happen when I’m at breaking point. This in turn made me get even more frustrated with myself for letting myself get into such a state and I started to berate myself for being ‘beaten’. Silly girl going round in circles. Even though it’s not been the nicest of feelings I’ve experienced in drama school it’s made me have a good think about why I’ve been feeling like this. I realised that this is actually the first time I’ve ever found something to be really really difficult at drama school. Now, I’m not saying that the past two years have been a breeze and that it’s all been plain sailing, I have had struggles but I’ve always ironed them out to come to the best conclusion that I could at that time. And if I haven’t produced the best I could I’ve taken on feedback, reflected, vented and learnt from my mistakes.
This time is different. It’s the last day of rehearsals before assessment week and I’m still fumbling around in the dark. Once again, it’s not a nice feeling but I’m glad this has happened before third year so I can learn how to deal with a huge struggle and experience how it feels to try and navigate my way out of it…sometimes blindly.
Before you have me down as an over sensitive actor who cries and has a breakdown when I don’t find the answers I’d like to point out that this is not the sole reason why I’ve been feeling so blue and frustrated and massively up and down this past week. After much ‘bedtime’ thought I reckon it’s to do with all sorts of outside factors too, I just can’t rightly put my finger on what. I’m always the happy girl, the one who sees a silver lining in all situations (eventually), has a massive belief in PMA and who prefers to laugh through life. I’m usually the girl who is sitting laughing at something for ten minutes after everyone else has moved on because humour just stays with me. I can make myself laugh or smile at the drop of a hat and my face definitely feels more at home with a big grin plastered across it. Blind optimism is my usual life motto and I’m proud of that. That’s a good thing right?
Well maybe not all the time…after speaking to some friends this week…people who I’d trust with any tidbit of knowledge no matter how embarrassing…I’ve realised that the reason I’m feeling so on edge is because by being so UP all the time you have no DOWN time to let out any woes, niggles or itches, even if they’re tiny and barely significant. My good pal, Daniel calls this ‘bottle-necking’, just so you know. This isn’t me saying that all my optimism and PMA is going to go out of the window and I’m going to become a whingy little bitch but I’m definitely going to try and start giving myself some ‘me’ time to work things through without instantly saying… ‘things are great, guys! PMA!’. Saying all this…I’m not sure if I actually have the capacity to do this because I enjoy blind optimism so much but it might not hurt to get a little touch of ‘realism’ into my schedule now and again. I’ll see what happens.
Remember…rehearsals are for making mistakes and learning from them and if you’re listening and responding you’re being truthful. If you play your actions thoroughly and accurately you’re onto something good. Sometimes going back to basics is what you need and I found that in my last scene rehearsal. By no means are we there yet but I’m feeling better about the progress and the dynamics of the scene and I personally am feeling a lot more truthful. Let’s see what happens in rehearsal later on today. Hopefully I’ll come out feeling like I’m close to doing Lady C some justice.
I’m going to go back to my mum and dad’s this weekend to have some down time and to chill out and get focused for next week. Next week I’ll be back fighting.
Ciao.
“I pray on the principle that wine knocks the cork out of a bottle. There is an inward fermentation, and there must be a vent.”
Henry Ward Beecher
Filed under Uncategorized
Ever fallen out with Shakey?…
Ok so I need to blog about this because I’ve been a whinging little cow for the past few days all because of my inability to connect with Lady Capulet, the enigma.
I have NEVER gone this far into a rehearsal process before and had such a lack of a connection with my character. I have never doubted my abilities this much nor whinged this much since I’ve been at ALRA. I think I’ve finally just met my match. Thanks, Shakespeare…you are certainly facilitating my drama school learning experience.
In all seriousness it’s quite a good thing to happen because at least in struggle comes either newly crafted skills or the development of a thicker skin and an acceptance that sometimes you just get it wrong. However being that person who just wants to be the best all the time, this theory is sometimes quite tricky to handle, which is why I think I’ve been getting so upset these past few days. Usually when I’m lacking in ideas I go back to my Stan’s Lists to discover something new or to find a new approach but I’ve just been coming up blank every time. I thought I’d found something in the Laban efforts…I found Lady C to be heavy, indirect, bound and sustained and that she has an inner wringing quality that she hides with an outer glide. I went away from that movement class last week feeling pretty good. I come into rehearsals this week and it’s just like she’s fucked off without saying goodbye.
I think I’m mostly frustrated because I actually love Shakespeare…I bum off him. I adore his words and I adore his stories. I think this makes the fact that I’m struggling all the harder to swallow. Lady C isn’t a huge Shakespeare role, nor is there shit loads about her in the text but there’s something about her I love…if only I could put my finger on it. I guess I’m cursing the world because I haven’t been given a meatier role but I’ve managed to shake myself out of this mindset because ‘there are no small roles…just small actors’.. Haha! I’m not sure if I even believe that quote! I found more in movement exploration today and maybe finally have opened some doors to the mystery that Lady C is and maybe even finally found some truth. I’m taking a fresh look at the scene this weekend and on Monday I will be so full and brimming with PMA that you won’t even know what hit you.
For now I’ll just do what I do best. Smile.
Ciao.
“Do what you can where you are with what you have.”
Theodore Roosevelt
Filed under Uncategorized
Everyone’s a little bit selfish…
Eek! I’m very aware I haven’t posted for a little while…since before the Easter holidays and we’re now half way through our third week back. There’s no real excuse because as soon as I stop writing my mind goes on a bit of a freak out and forgets how to say things it actually means. So I’ll quickly catch you up on the work so far so I can get onto my mind vomiting.
This term is ALL about the Shakespeare and I’m loving it…not to say it’s not fucking difficult and hard work but the pay off will be super grand. Yeah…I reckon that’s a good enough way to describe it. I’m playing Lady Capulet this half term and Snout the Mechanical in Midsummer’s for the last four weeks. And there’s the realisation…this is my last eight weeks of training and then it’s third year baby! Hence why this last term is so fucking important and the pressure to get it right is so rife in the air you can smell it. But still, I refuse to see the rehearsal room as anything else other than a place to make mistakes, fuck things up and look like a twat till you find a little slice of magic you quite fancy sharing with your peers. Do I sound confident? I’m not… but I definitely know I have more direction than I’ve ever felt before at ALRA so I’m rolling with it for now. I’m not pushing too hard for character even though Lady C baffled me a little at first…neither am I resorting to half truths and I’m trying my damned best to stay away form stereotypes which could be all too easy to fall into with her. She’s a tricky lady, she loves her daughter but has no emotional connection and she’s shit scared of her husband. I have no kids and I’m rarely afraid of men so here in lies the challenge. But hey…challenge is what I signed up for so watch this space. Every time I rehearse her I find more, it’s just a case of piecing it together. Until then I’ll enjoy the words and the structure and all that wanky shit that goes hand in hand with our Will.
Life otherwise is way busy and this suits me fine. After over a year of splitting up with James I finally feel like I’ve found my feet and am pretty god at standing on them on my own and I’m definitely focused for a term’s work. Being selfish has massively come into use in the past few months and I’m not sure I’d compromise that for anything. Getting what I want has always been important to me but even more so now. Ever see a kid throwing a tantrum on a supermarket floor because his mum’s refused to buy him a Kinder Egg? Yeah…that was and kind of still is me. I’m learning to curb my tantrum-esque nature but it so still plays on inside. Not that I’m equating everything I want (business and pleasure) to a Kinder Egg but you get my drift. It’s made me think about next year and working as an ensemble which I so often preach about but also realising that we might be each others’ competition. Shit son.
This is where my selfish yet selfless debate comes in. I’ve made amazing friends at ALRA and will cherish them forever but would I stop at nothing to get THAT job…even if it meant taking something they wanted badly too? CONUNDRUM! My great friend Gemma Jones once told me…”I love you, Sudgey. You’re my best friend at ALRA but I love you even more for the fact that I know you wouldn’t hesitate for a second to trample over me to get a job.” (apologies for my paraphrasing but I was quite drunk when she said this to me) Woah. Is that true? And how far does that apply to getting what I want? I definitely don’t have the answers but it’s something I think about from time to time and also something i have to think about when temptation and ambition strike. To all my friends reading this… I’m merely speculating and love you all dearly and would pretty much throw myself under a bus for most of you. Don’t worry…if I’m going to play the selfish card you can bet your bottom dollar you’ll have a fair an adequate warning 
Am I digging myself into a hole here? Never mind.
“It disturbs me no more to find men base, unjust, or selfish than to see apes mischievous, wolves savage, or the vulture ravenous.”
Jean-Paul Sartre
Filed under Uncategorized
Three weeks to escape…
End of term two, year two. One more term left of training then it’s time to get out there. Exciting yet daunting prospect.
I adore what I do, I wasn’t put here to do anything else but MAN ALIVE am I glad to have three weeks to get my head straight again, not just professionally but emotionally too. I’m off on a mini adventure with Mummy Brods and Sister Brods on Monday morning. I’m craving fresh air and the outdoors and downtime. Then on the 15th I’m off to gay Paris with Betty to go stay with Jasmine and by that time I’ll be craving excitement and ‘new’ things and something different. Sometimes I wonder why a lot of my cravings are to do with escapism. I daydream so much in my head about adventures, situations, danger, excitement and glamourised situations and never really understand why…I guess it all comes down to being an actor and getting my kicks from pretending to be someone or something else, even making myself believe I’m someone else. It’s pretty fun, more people should try it…life doesn’t tend to ever get boring if you’re in tune with your imagination as much as I am. Just saying.
On a professional note I’ve been cast as Lady Capulet for my short scene and as Snout in Midsummer Night’s Dream for our play. I’m pretty excited to play a Mechanical, I want to explore the ‘ugly’ more, find more weight and PLAY. As an all female group of Mechanicals I think we’re going to do a pretty good job. As for Lady Capulet I’m excited to start exploring from the beginning; I’ve never really thought much about her before when considering Romeo and Juliet as my mind’s always been occupied with my slight fascination with Mercutio but it’ll be good to take on the play from a fresh perspective. I forgot how young she actually is…
Saying that I’m planning on taking a few days to rid my head of scripts so I can come at them from a fresh angle, with a refreshed brain. My mind goes into such overdrive for no reason sometimes that I swear I can feel my wires sparking…
“Man staggers through life yapped at by his reason, pulled and shoved by his appetites, whispered to by fears, beckoned by hopes. Small wonder that what he craves most is self-forgetting.”
Eric Hoffer
Filed under Uncategorized
