October 16 – Day 29

A few years ago I saw Merryl Streep in a live radio play and it was pure brilliance. Never before or since have I been so moved by the effortlessness and magnetism of a perfect artistic creature. Last night we had to earn our right to see theatre with a twenty-minute full on sprint but the pay off was beyond worth it. Thirteen of us went to see Constantine Riken in the ‘Cosmetic of The Enemy at the Satiricon Theatre. The play was sort of like a Russian version of ‘Fight Club’ and while I had no idea what was going on because it was basically just two men in black standing on stage talking to one another for three hours, the intensity of Riken’s performance was undeniable. He had an ease on stage I could only dream of possessing. His impulses coursed throughout his entire being – you could feel that each moment was alive in him all the way to his toes. And his specificity!! The difference between good acting and great acting is in that innate specificity of every moment. When we feel things in life, the emotions have a place of residence. Anger may land in your head, passion in your heart. Whatever the emotion, there is a truthfulness that we don’t have to think about – it is just part of our mechanical make up. Actors spend lifetimes trying to understand and dissect those emotional manifestations but performers like Riken just get it. It is so rare and to watch it live is an experience impossible to describe in words. Watching him work left me with this high (It is the same high I get every time I see great art and it is better than anything else in this world. It is what makes all the stupid bullshit of a career in this industry worth it.) and I could not wait to get back to work on my Chekhov scene with Jenna. I have been out of school now for almost four years and in that time the deepest acting I have done was a few late night comedy shows and a chicken commercial, so the thought of delving back into Chekhov was at once intoxicating and petrifying. Luckily there are people in this program with fantastic insight and a generosity of ideas who were there to help. I spent the walk home analyzing my scene with Lexi and Jill, going through it line by line – by far the most fun ever. I feel so silly but every time I work on a scene or listen to a lecture in class I feel like a kid at Christmas. It doesn’t take much and I am inspired, feeling like all of that dead weight I have been carrying around in my soul has been completely sloughed off. When I got back to the dorm, Jenna and I sat at the kitchen table working on our scene and talking about all the things that make Chekhov so great. Chekhov is like life – what is said is almost always quite simple but the underlying conflict is as complex as humanity itself. He did not write characters that were either good or evil. He saw that in all human beings there are tendencies towards beauty and bile. To work on these pieces, to try to understand the point of view of his characters means to take a deeper look at one’s self. I haven’t stretched my mind and heart like this in such a long time and while there is a definite stiffness, it feels so good to feel that pain.