April 2005 Archives

Still too much of my time is spent waiting, as if what I want is so far away, rather than right next to me, right now . . .

Shortly after I started staging managing Shakespeare in 2000, I met an actor, a great guy -- a big guy: 6'1" & 195lb -- and an accomplished artist (i.e., a painter).

He didn't wait to do what he wanted, and I have no doubt that his success would have continued -- not waiting was the key to his accomplishments (he would have loved Gwen's admonition, What You Waiting For):

To Brian de Benedicts (SAG, AFTRA, AEA), a New York City actor, and a courageous man.

Thank you so much for this -- thank you for letting me be alive, to do this . . .

What the f**k is going on?

I've been applying Guskin's taking-it-off-the-page technique in practicing cold reading (see How to Stop Acting), and I seem to be having less and less success. I think trying to adhere to the mechanics of this approach has been distracting me (and Guskin warns NOT to treat it as a technique). I'm not sure where my attention is as I sight-read. I know it's taking a long time for me to pick up the phases, with little to show for it . . .

However, I occasionally have breakthroughs. I'm frustrated because I don't know exactly what's going on, but there's a VERY strong correlation between the speed of picking up a phase and the interval between picking up the phase and speaking -- with both variables, the shorter, the better. What happens, I don't quite know how (or more importantly, it's not stable, not reliable), is that an impulse forms as I pick up the phase and it's there, complete, as I end. When this happens, it's like I'm a speed reader with, I think, pretty good accuracy, but I'm not really paying attention to that at all.

The trick is to learn to trust my impulses. It's like I'm thinking with my gut rather than my head, and if I do that, sight reading becomes much easier, at times shockingly fast. I think the cause and effect runs this way, i.e., forcing myself to go fast won't work, unfortunately (if it were only that easy).

Recommendations. It's all like riding a bike (I hope). Remember how remarkable it was to see this miracle of someone riding on two wheels rather than three? Remember how I just couldn't believe I could do it when my father pushed me, and how I immediately crashed to the ground. Yet I kept trying (because I wanted to ride so bad), and then, after the 4th or 5th time, out of the blue, I was riding! And as as soon I looked down in disbelief, there was a shift of attention or awareness from riding to being aware I was riding, and down again I went. That's what this cold reading is like.

Just keep practicing, get used to 'letting go' -- that was the trick to riding a two wheeler. My body seems to know what to do.

Took two weeks off (not sure why it went on this long), but now with daylights savings time and the coming of spring, I feel like moving forward again. However, I'm feeling overwhelmed with all that I feel I need to do/would like/love to do -- where will I find the time?

Rather than worry about this, I'm going to prioritize and simply "do what I can" with available resources. I don't ever have to do 'everything,' just a few -- maybe just 1 or 2 -- goals, just think about/focus on what's most important, and commit that that. Most are relatively short term goals anyway.

This week: definately finalize a couple of decisions about classes, steps to acquire 2 more monologues, improving my cold reading skills, and, perhaps most important, a commitment to daily practice:

           3-4 nights/week: rehearse two monologues and work on cold reading. This will only take 40-50min at most, but this type of daily work, I believe, will be a big help in the long run. The goal is to have a set of monologues ready to go at a moments notice. Currently I have 2 -- I need to have 4, two more, comedic, which should be fun.

Goal:

   . . .  by the end of May, I want to have 4 monologues down so that I could do a 10-15 minute one-man show with a 2-3 day notice. And this is a state of readiness I want to get used to maintaining. Over time, I can drop one and acquire another, but I always want to have 4 ready-to-go. If I rotate two into a 15-20min rehearsal a couple of times of week, that should keep them "alive" and fairly available . . .

. . . The trick will be to not stress out and overwhelm myself with trying to do everything (a bad habit sometimes). Rather, just RELAX, do what I reasonably can, commit to that, and things will move forward.