Since coming back from Shakespeare and Company, I've been writing a lot of letters to my fellow participants. Which, actually, has been incredibly helpful! Helpful in the way that I thought blogging would be helpful, but when I go to write in this space I'm inevitably dogged by intense feelings of judgement that what I'm writing is not worthy of the public sphere, or inadequately expresses what I'm feeling in the moment or does so in a way that makes me sound arrogant or pretentious.
That's one of the problems I'm having, and you know what I'm doing with them? Having them! If you'd been in Michael Toomey's Play aka Clown class you would know what I'm talking about. Essentially, the mantra as it relates to clown work is that if something is causing an issue for your clown, allow it to be there. If a fly is buzzing in your ears, don't swat the fly, that would be solving the problem. Instead, have the problem of the fly, and comedy/humanity/the things we want to see on stage will ensue.
One problem I find myself having is wanting to acknowledge and celebrate my instrument, by which I mean my acting by which I further mean that I'm a very talented actor, without becoming hubristic or arrogant. This is something that came up for me in the intensive, that I diminish myself unnecessarily to the point that it turns back on itself and becomes it's own kind of arrogance, does that sense? I guess in that to spare the feelings of others or perhaps avoid their judgement (probably it's the judgement) I diminish my own capabilities, and in the process let myself off the hook when I do a bad job. I thought about writing a note to one of my teachers, a particular instructor who shall go unnamed but who I observed did not seem to suffer from this particular problem. Then again, what do I know, it's totally possible that he does (I don't claim to know his problems), and maybe he came to a similar epiphany that I came to in that moment. Rather than finding a solution to the issue... have the problem! If I allow myself to celebrate my instrument, by way of perhaps declaring in this space, "I am a talented fucking actor" while being aware of the issue of becoming arrogant or hubristic as long as I'm aware of it that self awareness will prevent it from spiraling out of control.
Do you see? It all comes back to self awareness. Rather than ignoring my problems, or trying unnecessarily hard to find solutions to them (there may in fact be no solution) but by being aware of them then that is the half the battle in preventing them from controlling me. And by being aware of them, I hope they'll inhabit a manageable space in my life.
Take note! The above paragraph was written in the third person, BUT NO I AM SPEAKING FROM I! And hopefully, from awareness and from my problems inhabiting a manageable space in my life, solutions to the problems to which solutions exist will present themselves. Isn't that a nice thought? Well it sounds good to me, god damn it, hopefully it helps you too.
It really is funny how much letter writing has helped in this past week. Can you believe that I had the above epiphany not even by writing a letter, but with the thought of writing a letter which by the end of the thought, I had no need to write? It's true! In a sense, each of the letters I've written have become little private blog posts, which I had the idea of making public, by which I mean my own letters, none of the private responses of anyone else, no need to worry. But I think I've done pretty good with this piece of writing, and I'll allow that to be on hold until I feel the need to put something else into the universe.
Until then!
