Frustration

I felt more unsure of myself in this last run that I have during any other we have done so far. I felt like I discovered so many new things in the clown run we did before thanksgiving but I had a hard time implementing some of those discoveries. I didn’t trust that some of the choices I made were reading so I ended up forcing some moments. I keep aspiring to trust that the work I have done will be there for me and that it wont look like I’m empty or inactive. Sometimes this causes me to “over-show” and the result is a very surface performance in which I am not fully present with the rest of the ensemble. At a couple of moments I found myself reverting to habits I had freshman year and thought I had got rid of (for the most part) such as excessive fighting or feeling the need to always do something with my hands. Since freshman year I have been working on channeling that fidgety energy into my center and letting it help keep me going on the inside while being still on the outside. I have found times, especially in certain scenes last year where this has worked for me (and I have been able to bring aspects of that goal to the work we have done in Chekhov class this year) but I felt like I did not accomplish this on Tuesday. This frustrated me, but I was able to take that frustration and get excited about it and “use it as motivation to work harder and increase efforts.” –Matt Gray, 10/26/08