It was three long days of acting exercises and challenges. My heart raced triple-time and I was sweating because there was only one level of participation -- all in.
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| Imagine her whispering in your ear, show more love. |
On the second day we read a script. We'd already practiced rapid memorization but this was read-then-act freestyle. GULP. We paired off and secretly thought about how we'd do it better each time a brave couple took the floor. It was a sexy scene between two long-term lovers. I knew my partner less than twelve hours. When we started, I giggled constantly. Mary, said agent, rasped for focus, her smoker voice as craggy as the Marlboro Man's face.
We did. I remember zero lines and no plot. I remember nothing but being on the floor surrounded by the others on their hands and knees feeding us lines. As my partner and I embraced we lived the scene, damn the words. It was glorious. I never flew so high. Mary gave us one of the only compliments of the weekend and I knew what it meant to act.
But I left a little piece of my soul on the carpet where we'd laid entangled.
Acting is hard when you slip beneath self-consciousness and lose yourself to a moment. That one scene was as exhausting as a day digging for arrowheads during July in SW Missouri.
I stumbled around giddy but unnerved by the absence of a piece of me. In that emptiness I discovered I prefer existing behind the scenes, writing the moment that makes others giddy or unnerved. I finished the workshop triumphant -- my fearlessness as an actor best used for writing.
