Alborz's final thoughts

It is always surreal when a project is finished. After living and breathing something for so long, your brain feels like a vacuum when the thing that occupied it is over and sucked out, and your head is left reeling with small recollections of the previous weeks.
I do not think that the showing was a failure by any means, and I was pleased with the way I allowed myself to trust the work I had done even though I knew going into it that there was so much more to be done (there always is). I did not feel self-conscious about my choices during the showing, which is always a good sign that I am focused on playing with my scene partners and not on the reactions or vibes of my audience. While I caught myself at times slipping into old habits, such as over-cheating myself to the audience in my scene with Nina, I think I was able to adjust accordingly in these moments.
I think that the next step would be—well I think there are a lot of next steps—but an important one for me would be to really explore the intensity of Konstantin’s responses and tactics. I would have allowed myself more to test the limits of how far he will go, how much he is irked my his mother and by Masha. I think in the Nina scene, I went to great lengths to get Nina to profess her love to me, but maybe there are more of these big moments, especially in my scene with Sorin and when I stop the play. I think I could have found more moments of the same intensity as when I shoved Masha out of my face at the end of my scene with Dorn. It is not about melodrama, but rather about those straws on the camel’s back that push Konstantin to these extreme places.
What an experience!