BOOM, acting

I don't have a whole lot to blog about tonight. Except, tonight was the penultimate rehearsal of Our Town,  and for my money I killed it. Part of what the director has been pushing us towards has been a super light, almost farcical tone for the first three quarters or so of the show, so that when it takes a serious turn at the end, the audience really feels the impact. This tonality is something the cast as a whole has struggled with, but that I found with my character early on, and spent the rest of the rehearsal process trying to harness throughout my scenes. At last night's rehearsal the play was especially down tempo, so our director really challenged us to make it "borderline Oscar Wilde" as we have in the past, and I especially embraced that challenge, I thought, and you know, really went for it.

Comedy is interesting. I think the best comedy comes when you are the most removed from your inhibitions, and completely in touch with your instincts. Admittedly, some of what I've struggled with in terms of really bringing my role to life has been my lines. I've known them for a while, but because we haven't had as much rehearsal as I'm used to, and it's in rehearsal that I really get familiar with a text, I've been a little iffy on them for much of the process. Leading into and then over the course of tech week, I would say I've gotten them to a really solid place, and having run everything in the space more then once, tonight I was able to take the director's challenge and really let loose. Comedy, like jazz, is all about space. You have to know how to let a moment breath. If your in a huge rush to fill it, then the audience won't appreciate the tension you are trying to create, and humor is a reaction to tension (or so goes my theory). It takes a lot of comfort and trust to make comedy really happen, you have to commit to your choices, commit to your spaces and commit to breathing. *In a yoda voice* Commitment! Specificity! These things will comedy make.

Anyway, tonight was I think the best work I've done in this role, and maybe some of my best work up to this point as an actor and I just wanted to capture that. It's going to be tough from here on out, not just trying to recapture the numerous discoveries I made tonight, but to try and build on them and make new ones. That challenge though is what I really appreciate about acting, and why I want to make this craft part of my life and my profession. I have tomorrow, and then nine performances to chase it, and I'm looking forward to the challenges and discoveries to come.

In short... BOOM, acting.