Fighting myself as an Obstacle

So, an Acting exercise from earlier this month, the Sleeping Partner, has been the most difficult task for me yet. I had a small talk with Sonia, one of my acting tutors, after I completed mine, which was the last of the day. She had given me feedback, not criticism, but heavy feedback that made me think about things I really don't like thinking about. I think it was because I was thinking this way (I wear my emotions on my face so I'm sure she could see how distraught I felt), she felt the need to approach me and discuss her feedback more with me.

Here's what I know about myself; I have a difficult time allowing myself to be vulnerable. I, the actor, Alariza wants to be able to be vulnerable truthfully because I would, frankly, be an even better actor if I could. I, the person, Alariza do everything I can to avoid being vulnerable. I like appearing strong and being vulnerable means being weak. The actor knows this isn't true, but I, myself, don't like being weak. I understand until I allow the person Alariza to be vulnerable, I the actor Alariza won't truly be able to be vulnerable, or at least take the biggest risks and acting choices. I'm so afraid of being weak, even in pretend, made up circumstances! I don't like feeling emotional pain. Give me Lady Percy, or Lady Anne—give me a disturbed Sam Shepard character—give me ANY character and I will cry, I will dive into vulnerability feet first! But once its me and its too real... I chicken out.

Sonia knows this about me. She called me out on it. I appreciate and respect her so much for telling me what I need to hear as an actor. I am my own worst obstacle. I was so positive and confident about my Sleeping Partner scene and had made bold choices.... up until the moment it began. No, up until the moment it was about to begin. At the last minute, I chickened out and re-wrote my circumstances. I always do this!!!!

Sonia at first said, “You have time. You have a whole year to work on it.” I looked at her and responded with, “That's not a lot of time at all.” She thought about it and replied with, “No, its not.”

I have been working on this for years. I know this about myself! Yes, Sonia tried to make me feel better by admitting that we all have baggage and all actors struggle with it, but it didn't help. I have suffered so much in my life that there is a mental block that stops me from feeling vulnerable and when I get in a situation that might cause me pain, I put my smiling mask on and walk around with my “Everything's going to be ok” attitude.

It sucks that I set myself up for failure yet again with this exercise, but I'm thankful to have a tutor to call me out on it and acknowledge its something I need work on. Now she knows. Now Robin will know. Hopefully, the three of us can help me with this mental barrier. I know that a year's work won't help much, but I'll be that much closer to confronting my demons. I'll be that much closer to being a great actor.

First Week at East 15

So much happened this week! This was what I had been looking forward to for months, ever since I've been accepted to East 15: the first week of instruction. I now have met all my tutors and have attended each of my courses. I am in group B. Let's see if I can remember who all is in my group: Ben and Ben, Connor, Matthew, Yeonha, Rafi, Zoe, Ingrid, Andrea, Andra, David, Nick, Marion, Jenny, JoJo, Kala, Ainsleigh, and myself. So I suppose I will now express how each other the courses made me feel and what I think about all my tutors.

Acting with Robin—I am so grateful my group got to work with him first. He seems, not only like a wise man who has so much knowledge and life experiences to share with us, but like a cool guy. There is something so comforting in his voice; he has a calm demeanor and a patient look on his face. Our first assignment with him was to do 3 activities in 15 minutes. We weren't to perform these activities, we were to just be ourselves and pick 3 activities that we can do in real time, with low stakes. He gave us The 10 Questions which is going to be a consistent frame of questioning during our training, whether we're with Robin or not. The 10 questions are:

1. Who am I?
2. Where am I?
3. When is it?
4. Where have I just come from?
5. What do I want?
6. Why do I want it?
7. Why do I want it right now?
8. What will happen if I don't get it now?
9. How will I get what I want? By doing what?
10. What must I overcome?
    So, because these activities had to be something we do in our own time, we were to omit the last 3 questions and stick with 1 through 7. He told us to keep the stakes low—as if we were home by ourselves without an audience. My three activities were watching an episode of Archer, cleaning my face, and buffing my nails. Now, this was much harder than I expected it to be. My circumstances were very basic and my stakes were low. I pretended it was late at night and I had just left the living room to retire to my bedroom for the night. My objective—to relax and enjoy some alone time before going to bed. Robin made a point of saying I chose a difficult activity—watching tv. It is a passive activity and we don't ever really examine how we perform passive activities, so acting “natural” is difficult. It was!

Tomorrow, we will begin working with Sonia and will have to perform the same assignment: we will perform 3 activities in 15 minutes, only this time, acknowledging the 4^th wall. We have to be specific about what the fourth wall is, where it is, and what we can see. This time around, I've changed my 2-7 of my 10 questions:

2. I am in my living room and kitchen in my house. They share the walls and the only thing that separate them is a door.....which we leave opened, even though we're not supposed to. The living room has a big window that sees into our backyard, and our kitchen oversees it as well. Our yard is shaped like a triangle, has a shed in the back corner, and there's this oddly shaped thing where we hang our drying laundry.
3. It is an early Saturday morning and none of my roommates have woken up yet.
4. I have just come from a morning jog
5. I want to slow my heart-rate and relax my body, especially my injured knee, and mind by performing mindless activities: stretching, making coffee, and washing the dishes. I want to complete this before anyone wakes up.
6. Its important not to just stop moving after your heart-rate is high. Its also important for me not to overwork my knee since it is still recovering.
7. I need to stretch right now because if I don't, my muscles will tense up and I will be sore later on. I also need to relax my knee because if I overwork it, more damage could be done. I want to make coffee right now because I don't want a headache later. I want to wash the dishes before my house mates wake up because I told them I would last night so I want it to be done before anyone wakes up.

My fourth wall will be those windows we have against the wall and I will see into the backyard. Since its early in the morning, I can still see the dew on the grass and I can see Connor's clothes hanging, still damp.... I hope Sonia likes what I've come up with.

Singing with Collin was intimidating! Its been years since I've sung in choirs and there are people in my group who have never held sheet music in their entire lives and already on day one we're learning, not one, but two songs! We learned “Comedy Tonight” from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and “What a Piece of Work is Man” from Hair. He even decided us up into 4-part harmony! I am pleasantly surprised I can still hit some of those soprano notes! I hit a high A! I am so proud of myself! I can't wait to see what happens this next week in Singing!

Context with Zois is going to be a great course! I feel I didn't get enough Theatre History or Context when I was an under grad, so there are things I don't know that I feel the other actors do. I had no idea who Grotowski is; I had never heard his name before last week. I know who Stanislavsky, Meisner, Suzuki, and Buto are.... and that's about it. So I made sure I took a lot of notes in that class. This is definitely going to be a course I have to take pages upon pages of notes or I will not remember anything. Damn my short term memory, or lack there of! I feel this is the course I will struggle with the most, as far as my poor short term memory is concerned. I hope I don't disappoint Zois.

Fabio and Marcin are two totally different Movement tutors. I like them both for totally different reasons! Fabio is more of the comforting nurturer, whereas Marcin is more like the strong soldier, or personal trainer. Marcin reminded me a lot of the actor who played Oberon at the Globe. He's so physically strong, but there's a kindness in his eyes that melts away the intimidation. He was accommodating to the fact I have a bum knee and let me sit out of an exercise..... I hate my knee, man! I'm so annoyed and disappointed with myself that my knee is keeping me from getting the same training that my peers are getting. On day one I already had to not do an exercise due to my knee..... Hopefully this won't occur every week in both my movement classes.

Cathleen, our Voice coach, is from Scotland and is so beautiful. I was relieved with her because she was the last tutor of Thursday and yet was the first hard-ass teacher we had all week. No bathroom breaks during class because “that's what your break is for,” and no sitting allowed. She didn't care if our legs were tired because we stood in the audience of the Globe the night before; she made a point of saying E15 trains good actors into great and strong actors, and that means discipline. We will have to get used to standing and strengthening our legs. I like her already! And I love her accent!!!!! She kept saying “wee”: we'll take a wee break, let's have a wee sit, etc. I love it!

I think I've been looking more forward to the Articulation course because its in this class we will be studying dialects and accents. Rebecca seems like such a cool, laid back, chick, and this is her first year teaching at E15. She's a newbie at the school like the rest of us, but not new to the profession. When she worked with me one-on-one and listened to my reading, she told me what I already know about my accent: I have a strong Californian accent and press hard on my R sounds. I tend to speak in the back of my throat and to speak in British RP, I need to bring the sounds forward in the front of my mouth more, to create a brighter sound. I'm so excited! Bring it on!!!

And finally, the week ended with Laban with Tracy. I realized I've been pronouncing his name incorrectly all these years. Well, we pronounce it differently in California all together, I guess. Its LA-ban, not La-BAN. She seems to be a calmer hard-ass. She looked down at Rafi for not wearing all black. Ooh, that's a good note to make for myself: Blacks for Movement and Laban. Voice= comfy clothes that you can move in, but it doesn't have to be black.

Wow, what a long and amazing first week. It was extremely kind of E15 to let all the MFA International students see a show at the Globe during their first week. It gave us this magical glowy excitement because in two months time, we will be performing there! We were all so tickled to be there, and the show itself was so amazing. I've seen Midsummer so many times now, and have been in it twice. I thought I'd be sick of it... but seeing the performance I did and that caliber of professionalism... it was humbling. I felt like we looked like children at Disneyland. This IS our Disneyland. We're here.... I'm here.... I'm in London, England, getting professional training by these incredible people. Who am I? How did I get this lucky? Wow....

I can't stop saying “Wow!”