...and we're back.
So, back at NU after a sojourn in Virginia. I love that word. Sojourn.
Break was very enjoyable. As I said to everyone, it was half no-competition-or-insecurity-peacefulness, and half boring. Someone put it really well when they remarked that each time you go back, most of your ties with your old friends get weaker and weaker, and it's just a sad fact about the whole situation. Not too much of that yet, but I can see the seeds planted. The major exception of course being Emmy.
But it's good to be back. See the old friends, and get back into the charged environment. As much as I complain about it, I like for the most part the pressure-cooker environment and the fast pace of things. Keeps me on my toes. And there is quite a bit to do. Classes begin tomorrow, and rehearsals for Richard III no doubt will start within a few days, so I'll be working again. Ha, listen to me. I'm a pretentious actor already. Working.
That word fits, though. Not that it feels like work, but it feels sometimes like the only genuine, hard, dedicated work I've done has been in a play, and that everything else was just slogging through. I doubt that's true for the most part, but I certainly feel fulfilled and occupied when I'm in a play; I have something with which to occupy myself that's tangible and yet not so cut and dried that I know when it's finished. But there's a real attraction in just completely immersing oneself in any work, and particularly acting and character. I like to approach it as a series of experimental exercises, 5 out of 10 of which will yield anything at all, and only a few of which will be really useful; the idea of finding different and sometimes unorthodox ways into a character holds a real appeal for me. There's a Billy Collins poem that says the same sort of thing about understanding poetry. Let me see if I can find it.
Here it is:
Introduction to Poetry
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
I love that. He's got a real way of articulating that idea of using different means, whatever means to approach understanding of whatever sort.
Anyway. We'll see how that goes. I have a 10 o'clock European Civilization class, so I should get to bed.
Break was very enjoyable. As I said to everyone, it was half no-competition-or-insecurity-peacefulness, and half boring. Someone put it really well when they remarked that each time you go back, most of your ties with your old friends get weaker and weaker, and it's just a sad fact about the whole situation. Not too much of that yet, but I can see the seeds planted. The major exception of course being Emmy.
But it's good to be back. See the old friends, and get back into the charged environment. As much as I complain about it, I like for the most part the pressure-cooker environment and the fast pace of things. Keeps me on my toes. And there is quite a bit to do. Classes begin tomorrow, and rehearsals for Richard III no doubt will start within a few days, so I'll be working again. Ha, listen to me. I'm a pretentious actor already. Working.
That word fits, though. Not that it feels like work, but it feels sometimes like the only genuine, hard, dedicated work I've done has been in a play, and that everything else was just slogging through. I doubt that's true for the most part, but I certainly feel fulfilled and occupied when I'm in a play; I have something with which to occupy myself that's tangible and yet not so cut and dried that I know when it's finished. But there's a real attraction in just completely immersing oneself in any work, and particularly acting and character. I like to approach it as a series of experimental exercises, 5 out of 10 of which will yield anything at all, and only a few of which will be really useful; the idea of finding different and sometimes unorthodox ways into a character holds a real appeal for me. There's a Billy Collins poem that says the same sort of thing about understanding poetry. Let me see if I can find it.
Here it is:
Introduction to Poetry
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
I love that. He's got a real way of articulating that idea of using different means, whatever means to approach understanding of whatever sort.
Anyway. We'll see how that goes. I have a 10 o'clock European Civilization class, so I should get to bed.