getting lost: how you find out where you want to be
thanks to michelle for helping me better understand this piece of wisdom.
i know how to start a rehearsal process, and i know how to end one - those are the easy parts - but in the middle there is always a time when i feel lost, stranded and hopeless. i often see actors struggling with the same issues around the same time. this play has been no exception. i think all of us have felt lost in a chaos of material at different times, unsure which direction would lead us out to a solid performance.
it is particualrly interesting in this play however, since the material is about exactly that feeling. in my last post i said what this play is not about - so now what this play is about. this play is about the struggle between our perfectionism and an acceptance of the chaos around us. fear and falling. the fear of failure and the yearning for freefall.
doing this on a regular basis, i've learned to trust the process. just keep working and trust that our instincts will take us through. but that doesn't take away the fear - you have to go through that every time. in the end, it is always our intelligence - our head and heart and neurons and cells, as chuck mee says - that leads us in the most honest direction. look at that quote again. throw yourselves into the ocean. trust your insticts. standards will fail you. approaching this script intellectually or pschologically or politically will lead you nowhere. trust the freefall.
according to michelle, if i wasn't getting lost in the middle of a production, i'm probably not trying. i'm doing boring theatre-by-numbers and not risking anything. i think she's right.
that middle stage is comming to an end, and i'm seeing a show emerge. it's a wonderful thing - and makes me horribly excited. all the pieces are fitting together (it doesn't hurt that michelle just made a chart, fitting them together, though it is based largely on structures that you created intuitively) with more power and humor and beauty than i ever imagined.
thank you all for getting lost with me, and helping to intuit the way through. now let's make it a show and bring in an audience.
Comments
this reminds me of the book, blink, and others i've read that suggest we are all tuned into a universal computer, if you will. so our intuitive responses are not just our own, but come from the wisdom of universe. ah, to let go of the fear in order to fall into that wisdom....
Posted by: Suella Gerber | October 5, 2006 6:56 AM
I think that concept that Eric has mentioned is a lesson for life...so often we are afraid of the unknown...afraid to recognize our faults, anxities and obsessions, afraid to let ourselves fall and have to find and explore a new route. But by putting ourselves out there and experiencing something new we fall upon extrodinary discovries of ourselves, others and society as a whole. This experience is worth the anxiety and fear...it is worth the fall...it is beautiful.
Posted by: Deanne Binde | October 6, 2006 1:59 PM