So last night I went to my first masterclass with a director who I've been dying to work with for months, years now probably. And it really shook my foundations.
Not so much because I didn't think I was up to standard, but because of the standard the director expected from all of us. For a few minutes I was thinking 'wow, maybe I'm really not ready for the professional world. I should go home right now!' It took me a good hour and a half of talking stupidly and grinning and being a complete blubbering fool whenever the director talked to me until I realised they weren't all out to get me.
Yes that's right folks! For the first time in a long, long while I was the youngest and most inexperienced person in the room. AND IT WAS BLOODY TERRIFYING.
Thrilling, too. Overwhelmingly exciting! I don't think I've ever felt that intimidated in a class, ever. The actors in the class have all been working for decades, and are all at post-graduate level. At the same time the director was really warm and open and encouraging that we were all to be gaining from the class what we wanted to, that she wasn't a teacher, more so a facilitator. And that's how I felt and I finally relaxed about half way into the class and really got into the workshop. Although I'm still terrified about next week.
The main focus of the class is Anne Bogart's Viewpoints. This seems really interesting and I don't want to get into too much detail yet before I really understand it. But it seems to take into account duration and tempo and movement on the stage, repetition and . Apparently it arose in response to the overly initiative, impro happy American actor, who always felt like they always had to start something. We had a talk afterwards about allowing yourself to take inspiration from someone else's movement or gesture, and creating something new out of that. Also the inspiration found in repetition...I must sound like a complete novice getting so excited about this brand new art form. But guess what, I am!!
Made me think about drama school again...having the language and the physical and intellectual history to be able to really understand this sort of stuff...but then I thought if I can go straight into working on something like this, that would be even better...still confused. But right now happy to leave it.
Am also actually finding some zen. Am using this period of inactivity (ie. unemployment) to spend time thinking about what I eat and how I treat my body. To work on my monologues daily. To write. It's funny how if you have a plan for the day you tend to stick to it. Much better than waking up then spending the rest of the day running round in circles trying to decide what to do. Makes life a lot easier.
Although I still am nowhere closer to waking up when my alarm wants me to...
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