Our voice teacher told us that good performance exists somewhere between dead and ridiculous This relates very much to our exploration of Commedia as well. This week has been utterly confounding. It began with deep frustration surrounding my desire to be funny with a promise to myself to abandon all desire to be funny and simply be open to the process of being on stage free falling. So, as soon as I took on the unknown a character named Squirm blossomed. She is garrish and sweet. Ugly and deeply desirous of love. She is charming in this squirmish way. I started to discover her through out the week. By Friday I felt so sure of my "hit" on her and presented for our performance lab. It fell face flat. Squirm was not squirming. She was writhing and dying in Micael's arms. And it was completely obvious. The feedback after the piece was rather harsh. "What happened Micael? It was like you were performing through a wall? Where did all that good work you did this week go? It's like it should have been funny but it just was not."
And now I scratch my head in contemplation and am just...at a loss. I don't know. I don't know how to remain consistently good with this work. How can something work one day and then fall flat the next day? And how much time do I give to exploring this? Why do I sometimes blow it? Maybe I was taking the work too seriously? Maybe I was dialing it in because it was Friday and I just wanted a beer? Maybe I wasn't listening to my fellow actors? Maybe I wanted it too bad? Maybe I was not remaining present? Maybe I was not listening to Squirm but rather just pushing? So hard to say....and the heartbreaking aspect is that I don't really know...and I am afraid to go back on stage with Squirm.
Sigh.
Sigh.
Sigh.
This is NOT easy. Am I cut out to do this? Man. Oh Man.
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