Be Loose…But Just to an Extent…

I had my afternoon planned on Tuesday. I had a list of things to accomplish, one of which was reviewing my scenes for class that night. Unfortunately, I got carried away with my first task, which was finishing up a story before Nanowrimo starts on Sunday. Let’s just say I got inspired and only had a few minutes once I got to class to reread the scenes.

Instead of panicking, since I knew my lines, I decided to be loose. Instead of cramming to make sure that I had the lines down as well as I thought I did, I decided to just let it go, listen to my scene partner and be in the moment. I want to specify that this in itself was an excellent idea. I was definitely listening a lot better and really living in the scene instead of waiting for my cue to say my line.

The issue lies with me forgetting my goals and motivation. For the Knocked Up scene, I did the first take remembering how I had done it once too emotional, and once too flat, so tried to find the middle ground. This is a horrible goal to go into a scene with. I had literally forgotten that I was supposed to be pregnant and rethinking the guy I was planning to raise my child with. That is some really heavy baggage to be forgetting. Luckily, Suzanna reminded me and the second take was a lot better. It isn’t enough to remind myself to be sad, I have to think about why I’m sad, and let that dictate the emotion.

For the Thirtysomething scene, I sort of repeated the same mistake. I knew that my subtext was ‘I can’t lose her’, but I completely forgot to establish who this ‘her’ was for me. Suzanna asked if I had someone or something in my life that I could use, and of course I did. It was a familiar story for me. I just had to use it.

Other than feeling really bad for making the same mistake twice and not being prepared, I learnt an important lesson about being free in a scene. It’s completely okay to not be a slave to the text. Once you know it, trust that you know it and let it go. But being loose with reviewing the words shouldn’t mean you’re also lax on what drives you in the scene, or what you’re fighting for.

I finished the class being the reader for scenes from Castle (I read both parts), Up In the Air and Suits. I really love being a reader during the audition class, because I get to try out all of the parts I would like to play someday 🙂

“Learn from the past and let it go. Live in today.”

-Louise L. Hay