Last Sunday, I auditioned for South Pacific, the musical to be put on by the Irene Dramatic Society: an amateur dramatic society that puts on professional productions. 
I’ve been cast as Cable – a principal role! -, the American soldier whom falls in love with a native. Oorah!
Life is great.
It’s a paradox that defines me: not afraid to go into a difficult or troubling moment to understand, to confront face, but yet unable to stay in a moment. Or maybe it’s no longer a paradox; maybe I think that I go into the intensity but I actually I don’t. It’s not clear yet.
I’ looking to not seem inadequate in that moment. On my Todd, as I am, quiet or pensive or withdrawn, I feel exposed, naked, vulnerable, open to ridicule. opne to misunderstanding, which often means hurt. Opening, even if not requested, i an invitation to see me a I am with myself. If I’m misunderstood, it’s rejection of the invitation.
Lauren, like many others, picked up on my tendency to resort to humor in difficult or troubling situations. It’s not new information and I’m fully aware of it.
A large part of my appeal with people is that I’m witty, funny, and humorous. It’s the way I am. Recently, I’ve been getting myself to really think about comedy, in that I think about jokes and sometimes plan them ahead of time. Some of it is done consciously and others aren’t, although I can figure out how and why I get to a certain joke or line. It’s fun, it’s intellectually stimulating, and I get validated by it. I can get tired of it, but the fact that people continue to latch onto it encourages me to keep at it. [Not in original notes - addendum - I get tired of it often because I feel that it obscures other parts of me.]
Perhaps it’s a form of economy of experiences: use any opportunity, even if personally difficult or offensive, into comedy, into value. Make something out what is bad. Hit back with your wit and intelligence. You don’t have weapons, remember? You’re not a douchebag, you’re not a rude or cutting person. You can’t or inept at defending yourself.
Right?
You feel guilty about fighting back to defend yourself. You don’t have the right to; you’re not good enough. You’re not cool or acceptable.
No. Not anymore.
The moment is to be lived and to fight back. Comedy and intellectual capital produced is no longer the goal, the second best. The real moment or the real purpose is to take care of yourself, to be true to what you’re feeling and thinking. To think, to react, and to live. And to feel no shame with any of it.
You’re strong, you’re free, you’re entitled to be you in every way.
I saw the e-mail about Meisner classes being offered at Fusion Studio in Bryanston and without thinking about it, I e-mailed, paid, and signed up.
And I showed up on my first day with my notebook and pencil, and started taking notes, enjoying the fact that I’m a ’student’ again.
I got up to do the repetition, the bedrock of the Sanford Mesiner acting method. And as I did it and got feedback from the instructor Lauren, I improved.
Third or fourth class in, I went to a dark place during a repetition. Lauren had been speaking to us about truly being the moment, not thinking, reacting, listening, and staying in the moment. With my partner JT, he made an observation about my weight, then how I looked. And I erupted in a hot, bilious anger. And I went to that dark place from high school, a place of humiliation and constant adequacy. Lauren gasped when I erupted. And I stepped back, covered my mouth, and turned around to have a moment to compose myself again.
Like when I swim, when I act, I’m home. As much as that moment was dark and suffocating, it was home – to be in the moment so open to how I really feel.
With subsequent classes, I’ve been improving and I’ve been getting good feedback from Lauren. I’ve been getting more and more into it. I spend time before every class to prepare, going through notes from the previous class, and doing any exercise that Lauren would have asked us to complete.
My main building area is the same one from high school and even, my own life. The Joker complex. Lauren picked up on it very early on. I know I need to work on it. I had felt and resolved before that it’s simply the way I am and I won’t be able to change it. However, class prep has helped me a lot in digging deep (as my friend Didi says) and understanding why I still hold on it to that complex. At the last class, I avoided the impulse to joke … and found how my repetition improved markedly.
Will share my prep notes from class as I go along, especially those pertaining to the subject of the Joker complex – always cracking a joke or being funny.
