When I started studying theater, I was concerned about my lack of "emotion". There was some deep fear that there wasn't a deep enough well to cull from, that any attempt I made to "be emotional" wouldn't suffice, and the bucket would come back dry.
After a while, I learned that that wasn't the issue, exactly. I had a well of emotional reserve, just waiting for me. It was truthful, and real. But tapping into, like a bank, didn't work. Nor did the idea of leaving behind self to create a character, and utilizing that underground spring. No matter what I did, what technique I studied, I couldnt get away from myself.
Certainly, in many schools of acting, you are bringing self to fulfill a role. You live yourself, through the lens of a set of circumstances and specific context, and you create the appearance of character. I think, though, that my skills were never refined enough for that; I couldn't quite set aside my conscious mind, the thinking, judging, innovating creature that was constantly on the outside. Assessing. Critiqueing. Re-working. I never really lost myself in a role.
So. I am not an actor.
But as I brought myself to other types of performance, the effects were still powerful for me, and often palpable for the audience. A recognition of my power as a person onstage; the validity and interesting-ness of my Personhood led to new places in performance. And those places are where I reside now, muddling through...
And here, now, I stand, after this enormous schism in my life. A breaking with so much stability, and I am still on unsettled ground. A heart that is full of every emotion that I've ever felt about a place, a person, a life, and a brain that is working to keep it wrapped up. Not working, actually. Comfortably containing it, and at moments, allowing those great waters to swirl together, vortexing in the well, sometimes draining, sometimes breaching the brim and spilling into the world, and never quite able to sort them all out. Its strange to feel so full, calmly turbulent. I feel as though I'm made up of opposites, more clearly than ever, and that they'll never come disentangled again. I'm aware that this concept is the basis of many eastern religions; but I've never felt so sure of the messiness of it until now. Well, sure that it existed, but now certain that it is right, that it is maybe, even, good.
Posted by meganorwig at September 9, 2006 9:44 AM | TrackBack