A few weeks into the education at NYFA, I did a performance of 'At the ballet' (from A Chorus line), and my teacher wasn't pleased, because I didn't express anything human. I was just singing the words, he couldn't see how they related to me.
He said I had a lot of anger inside, for some reason, and it was like this huge bubble underneath my chest, that I didn't let out.
He said I had to go to a park and scream, or scream in my pillow or do boxing or throw things, tear things. anything that could let the anger out of my body.
I have not been able to do that wholeheartedly.
if anything happened in my pillow, it's been from sobbing in sadness.
I could never find a place where there was peace to scream or just shout anything i wanted. there are just people everywhere.. you can NEVER be alone. there is no place where no one wouldn't hear you.
that's how i felt.
and also, i think i have not been able to place my anger. i have not known what i needed to let out.
but it's true, I knew that I had a lot of tension in my body.
a nightmare for a masseuse, i bet.
Tonight, I finally let out my anger.
I was working with the song 'Warning' from the musical Bare. In the song a very strict religious mother has been told that her son is gay. this is as against her moral beliefs as anything could be, and she is quite frankly disgusted by her son's choice. she is struggling to accept and support him, and that's what the song is about.
Now, working with the song at home, I realized that there were so many things i didn't let out, because i had a mental block. I was SO uncomfortable singing this song, because I couldn't stand up for this character's beliefs.
But as I remembered from the recent Meisner classes, - don't think of your role as 'a character', the role is YOU. and you should do everything you can to bring the role closer to you, and not build up things and research for things that distance you from the role.
so i thought... well what is song really about?
I needed to understand what I was singing about. Text doesn't matter. this is about a woman who is struggling to accept another person's choice.
Everyone can relate to how difficult it can be to understand other people's ways of thinking. and being put in situations where you have to respect it and put on a smile, even though you don't understand it.
And just as if I'd picked up a pen and started free writing, I just started talking to myself in the mirror. saying what this song was really about, and what I knew about it.
I don't remember where I started. but it was somewhere along the lines of... :
"I find it very difficult to accept when people divorce. Unless there's talk about abuse or forced marriage, I hate how people nowadays trample on the marriage vows. It's like we live in this society, where it's 'hip' to get divorced. A chain reaction... couples see other couples do it, and they discover how it's no longer a taboo to break out of your family. the grass is always greener on the other side, and somehow people just seem to trust less and less on settling. And everybody leaves and runs further out into the world, expecting to find something better, something bigger. and then what. they leave.
It makes me SO angry that people say vows, and then change them later on in life, because they don't trust the words they promised anymore.
It makes me angry because I see people. giving. up.
I see how the beautiful and magical bond between two humans get trampled on.
IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY. I see people. giving.up.
My aunt and uncle recently divorced. what. why? i don't know. he left. they were not agreeing. they had changed?
they were like my other set of parents. and besides my own mum and dad, the couple i looked up to. because of their love. because they were BEST friends. Because they could wait more than 5 years for kids, in the end a long adoption process. Because they got two angel miracles from South Africa.
and they divorced.
and it makes me so angry.
i trusted them.
i thought they were unbreakable.
i was there carrying my aunt's veil, they day they exchanged vows.
in the end, we don't know who to trust till the end.
we can't control people's actions.
all we have the power to do, and all we must do, is trust that the one's in our lives, are there for us. we can't predict when they leave. we can't control their love for us.
i tell my mum at least 10 times a day that I love her with all my heart, and I ask her to say it back. I know she loves me, with an unfailing love, and yet I need to hear it. subconsciously i need it confirmed to remind me that it's an unfailing love.
in the end, we're all alone.
and i guess that's what i am scared of being.
scared that i have found someone that I trust. someone i will fight for till the end, no matter how rough the road goes, and how challenging it may seem at times. I believe in vows saying - we will love and fight for each other till the end.
But I feel so alone in that thought.
I find it so hard to trust, to put my heart in someone's hands and let them carry it with them.
I have never seen anything but people who leave.
And if I one day find someone I would dedicate my whole life to, how do I know he won't be like the rest of the world.. just following the fashion. Giving up when we have kids and we argue about which school to take the to, or when I get really sick and he has to take care of the house and the family, or when there is so much work on both sides, that we hardly see each other at home.
And my aunt and uncle, they were best friends. They exchanged vows. They adopted two kids.
And THEY divorced. they divorced. they divorced.
................................ etc...............they divorced.............they divorced"
- that's basically what I spent 20 minutes talking about in the mirror. and much more.
After all this, it was like my face turned red from the pressure of the anger that had started to leave my chest. i got hold of something.. like a hair band or something else from my desk, and I pulled in it, tried to tear it apart and then threw it on the ground.
I needed to hit something and break something. - i am not making this up, and i did not force myself to do something as extreme as that.. but my body was about to explode. that's how i felt, and I needed to hit something.
But I stopped the idea of tearing something apart in my room, and chose to put that feeling into the song, instead.
i sang it 3 times.
1st time i was shouting most of the lyrics, and I was attacking a lot of it.
2nd time I was angry, but frustrated and sad - tears rolled down my face as I rediscovered this feeling that I had kept inside for so long.
3rd time I sang through it, I could hardly speak, I was lost in the realization of it all, I couldn't see the mirror most of the time, because tears kept streaming out of me.
The last lyric is "it's happened, it's happened, and life is so strange. one simple word, and the whole world has changed."
I needed to accept it. and everything else that has happened and keeps happening. it's life.
Done with rehearsing, I was like a bomb about to explode. I ran to my roof top - and there I stood, screaming at the top of my lungs. "Aarrh!". just screaming. letting it out of me.
and saying "I am so angry!" all over again, pleading it to leave my body.
Coming back to my room from the roof top, I saw a brush had been thrown to the ground, paper torn, threads cut up, my covers on the bed messed up in a big bundle... I had let out my anger.
What a journey in one night.
what a journey in one day. so much has happened. but i would never be done writing my blog, if i shared every moment and every class. This will be it for today!
Now, I am incredibly exhausted.. as if i just ran a marathon. So I am making sure to be good to myself. I have made a nice warm cup of tea, and I have brownies from the markle (that's right I chose the cake over fruit in the dining room for the first time in a verrrrrrry long time).
Perhaps I can now write that assignment on the play 'It's a wonderful life' (same story as the original Christmas film). A story about 'How wonderful life is'. Realizing the precious things you have around you, and taking notice of the great value of them. Discovering how many lives you touch and how people touch yours.
And cherishing that blessing, which God has provided for each and everyone of us.
We are not alone!
Great post!! So true!!!
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