Don't Fear Drowning, You were born Swimming

Scene study. *Gasp*

Anyone who has known me through my professional acting life, knows that I struggle a lot. I'm not putting myself down, but there aren't a lot of things that come easily to me. I don't know why I act, I just know I have to.

Anyway, I've been taking classes with Susan for over a year now, and this is my first foray into scene study with her. Working with Susan has been one of the best experiences of my life, and I think pretty much anyone who has worked with her would agree. She's tough and great. So, it hasn't been easy, but it has been one of those things that very much has been worth going through. Well, as I mentioned before, she gave me and Mike a scene from Measure for Measure. I love that play really. MM is so mature; there are no clear lines; no one is completely without sin, and even the end is ambiguous. I've seen productions where the end is happy, and I've seen others where it's just creepy and off-putting.

So earlier I was bitching about why she gave me a hard scene to do. I mean really, it is the hardest scene in the class. There are other really great scenes, but definitely not as hard as ours! And the big heavy in the scene is Isabella, a.k.a. Me.

Maybe there are places, emotionally, that I don't like to go. And I have good reasons. Trust me. But I guess that really wanting to be actor means I have to. So something happened last week. I was feeling horrible all week long. Depressed, stressed, conflicted, hurt, terrified, etc. And I kept thinking "why do I feel so shitty?" Until I realized, it was the scene. I was taking it in more than I ever have. So that scared me a little, because why now? What's so different about me right now? I guess there are a lot of reasons. None of which I want to talk about :)

Back to the scene. So Sunday rolls around and Mike and I finally have to have our second go at putting this together. It was like getting smacked in the face when you don't expect it. We got through the whole scene, I think mostly because Susan didn't want to stop the momentum. And then we did the sit-right-across-from-each other-and-LISTEN exercise (if you've done scene study with Susan before, you know this one). Well I guess it was effective because I couldn't stop shaking or choking back tears the whole time. That's putting it mildly, and I'm afraid that putting it too clearly into words diminishes the experience a bit. It was something else, and Susan was proud. But I still couldn't stop shaking. It was draining. Susan even emailed me later on that evening to make sure I was okay.

I'm still nervous about our last class, this coming Sunday evening. But I think I have a good idea of where exactly I need to come from every time, regardless of the monologue or scene. Like I said, this was a turning point.