Thick
Yesterday we got our assignments for Pinter's The Dumb Waiter, and I'll be playing Gus for the first five pages. It opens with me slowly tying my shoes and starting to leave stage left. Then stopping shaking my foot, and untying the shoe looking inside, finding a flattened empty match box which I shake then put in my pocket. Then with difficulty I put the shoe back on and continue to the door. Then I stop and shake the other foot, going through the same routine with the other foot for an empty flattened cigarette pack. I remember seeing this at the Studio Series several years ago and thinking, what fun it would be to do that scene.
I mentioned in my other blog the different dynamic in the ETI program. It is more of a collaboration, than a teacher tell the student what to do sort of thing. Yes it's training, lots of information, and such, so it is still definitely school. It is only the third year this program has been offered, and the feeling of an established program is there, along with the exploration of students and instructors for a program that is still growing. Our desire to learn and grow as well as the respect in which we hold the instructors keeps the student/instructor relationship in place, with the teachers more honored than in beginning and intermediate training. We are here because we know what we want, and are willing to sacrifice to be there. It enhances the dynamic. Yet it somehow feels like a partnership.
Does this make sense? Even though the ETI is advanced training, I feel like I'm just beginning as I have in every class or production I've been in. I admire the instructors more than ever, and feel more in partnership with them than in any other course of study in my life. Is it because I feel I am learning as much from my fellow students, because I'm learning more than ever before, or because we're respected and trusted more by each other and the instructors than has been the case in the past? Whatever it is, it makes me feel privileged and more driven not to let down my peers and instructors than ever in my life.
Sometimes I have to stop thinking about it all. I get scared, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm conditioned to believe that there cannot be too much beauty in your life, that ugliness needs to show it's, well, ugly little head. It's not an uncommon fear. Is it pure stupidity and conditioning, or a way of making you appreciate a gift without needing a more troublesome counterpoint? If occasional feelings of apprehension give me perspective so I don't need disaster as a counterpoint I'm satisfied. What if, as I think, the anxiety is totally unnecessary? I'm big enough to differentiate between good and bad times, and need to accept that less good times will come all of their own, so I don't need ridiculous doubts or guilts to fuck with myself. There's enough people willing to fuck with me, without a helping hand from myself.
I mentioned in my other blog the different dynamic in the ETI program. It is more of a collaboration, than a teacher tell the student what to do sort of thing. Yes it's training, lots of information, and such, so it is still definitely school. It is only the third year this program has been offered, and the feeling of an established program is there, along with the exploration of students and instructors for a program that is still growing. Our desire to learn and grow as well as the respect in which we hold the instructors keeps the student/instructor relationship in place, with the teachers more honored than in beginning and intermediate training. We are here because we know what we want, and are willing to sacrifice to be there. It enhances the dynamic. Yet it somehow feels like a partnership.
Does this make sense? Even though the ETI is advanced training, I feel like I'm just beginning as I have in every class or production I've been in. I admire the instructors more than ever, and feel more in partnership with them than in any other course of study in my life. Is it because I feel I am learning as much from my fellow students, because I'm learning more than ever before, or because we're respected and trusted more by each other and the instructors than has been the case in the past? Whatever it is, it makes me feel privileged and more driven not to let down my peers and instructors than ever in my life.
Sometimes I have to stop thinking about it all. I get scared, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm conditioned to believe that there cannot be too much beauty in your life, that ugliness needs to show it's, well, ugly little head. It's not an uncommon fear. Is it pure stupidity and conditioning, or a way of making you appreciate a gift without needing a more troublesome counterpoint? If occasional feelings of apprehension give me perspective so I don't need disaster as a counterpoint I'm satisfied. What if, as I think, the anxiety is totally unnecessary? I'm big enough to differentiate between good and bad times, and need to accept that less good times will come all of their own, so I don't need ridiculous doubts or guilts to fuck with myself. There's enough people willing to fuck with me, without a helping hand from myself.
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