Its 22: 00. End of practice. Need ten minutes to relax, let go and tune "back to myself".
My coworkers go for a drink usually ending up intellectualizing or gossiping, I have enough, I go home. In a week, we have a premiere. Last week is tense, egos are strong, everybody's tired, sensitive and trying hard to keep cynicism inside their mouth and smile on the face. I wish I could always be shinny and happy but sometimes you have to learn how to except your own shadow and inability to be calm under every circumstance. Everybody's doing their best trying to keep their moods in check and most of the time balancing relationships between each other becomes more dramatic than play itself, especially in theatre where all devils run around free.
The best way of doing “theatre” is going with the flow. The key is in letting go. Every time I finish with one project I notice I grew as a person but I also notice that is absolutely essential not to hang onto it but know that “tomorrow is a new day” with a new, fresh view of life, new me, new play and new director. Being present seeing, hearing is what makes being involved in theatre so exciting and magical.
Some directors are “actor lovers” and they are also the ones that usually care about the audience. Then you have the other sort, more inclined towards “experimenting” and art being “ its own purpose”. These kinds of directors are the ones that usually invent new views of the world but most of the time not so loved by actors and usually not all that understood by the audience. But there are always those in the audience that think they aren’t smart enough to get it or those that think not getting it but pretending you have is what makes you intellectual and smart. And that is what sometimes makes me sad. We spend so much time giving our hearts and souls out there and then later notice that people don’t read what we try to say. Sometimes it looks like some of these modern directors are competing to see who is going to be more complicated in inventing new codes of watching a play making it more complicated than math. I like doing plays for the audience and that is why theatre is here to begin with.
What do I love about it all? Its potential for magic. Full of real people there right in front of you just like they are, true emotions, light making magic touching you in the darkness of your seat, the sound of laughing, crying, the smell of the sweat, the music that comes in just where your soul wants to break down and cry or feels bigger than life. Actors sharing their deepest secrets with an audience in their revealing ways, showing their flesh, blood, unprotected inner organs shining in the beauty of the power of love with which they perform making you dream, cry, sense there is more to life and that all your deepest emotions have a place in this world. Theatre is about expansion, about creating magic moments just in front of you, about experiencing energy coming right into your embrace, never to be repeated.
Being an actor is a wonderful experience but it's just not for everyone. It absolutely takes a lot out of you and demands a certain lifestyle. Practice twice a day, taking care of your own self in mind, body and soul and really living life. You can only give on stage what comes out of you. So being vulnerable and being able to express it is something not everyone is prepared to do. Sometimes I feel lonely but I have friends that go through the same things on stage. On the other hand I would go crazy if I had to talk to them for the rest of my life. So distance is important or this world of creativity can easily suck you in making you feel you are special and not understood. Staying on Earth while walking on clouds is one of the hardest things to do but also one of the most rewarding ways to live. As Antonin Artaud stated, "Actors are athletes of the heart."
Its almost like climbing a personal mountain, sometimes very uncomfortable because you need to face yourself as that is all you have. Yourself. You are your own tool. You don’t have a brush like painters but your own body, voice, emotions, memories; you just have your life and your experiences. You are the one who paints a character, with your colors. So this amazing job requires a lot of work from within, a lot of confrontations with yourself and being able to think without an ego when necessary.
In everyday life what happens is, you start loving being yourself. You start recognizing masks and it gets easier to lose them. I think acting helps me become a better human being. I think it is important to know it is first being a human being and then an actor second. It can’t go other way around because you are the source of creation. And because at the end of the day, you can only as human. An actor must stand behind their work fully conscious of what you are giving to the world.
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