It took a few days before I was able to journal about Monday’s class, so my thoughts may not be as clear. Bill Simmons showed up as our Guest Repeater. Overall I think it went better than the first time we had a guest repeater. It was interesting working with Bill. He clearly is very comfortable with repetition, and called us out on some of the behaviors that each of us has been struggling with. There was a good discussion after where several of the guys mentioned that they felt like Bill was much more aggressive towards them than towards the women. I definitely felt that, but it could just be a difference in male behavior vs. female behavior. I’m not sure…and definitely not going to worry about it. Bill called me out on my tendency to not let my partner’s behavior affect me, as well as my tendency to want to lead the exercise. The latter has definitely gotten better as I am less concerned with the times when it feels like nothing is happening.
The class went out for a drink afterward, and I think we all needed that time to do a little bonding. I couldn’t stay long, but it was a lot of fun, and I look forward to making this a semi-regular thing.
One thing not class-related that I wanted to remember: I am working on a Fringe show for Southbank. Marcia is directing a play that she wrote (I question the sanity of that…). I have not worked with Marcia as a director before. As I suspected, she is relatively inexperienced and hasn’t quite developed an approach to working with actors. She seems to concern herself with line readings (fortunately she doesn’t GIVE line readings…often). I have the opening beat of the show, and it is written to be mid-conversation during a therapy appointment (I’m the therapist). I start the show by asking “What did Aaron say?” I wanted to make sure that the moment before (or the Trigger Event) was strong and specific. The actor who I’m working with and I were talking through our ideas, and we landed on one that we thought might be interesting, to which Marcia asked, “So, Eric, how would you say that line?” I had to chuckle a bit…I told her that I didn’t know HOW I was going to say the line, only that I wanted to make sure that the line was coming FROM the circumstances and the relationship. The other actor and I then read the scene a couple of times, playing around with the circumstances we had agreed on. I had not worked with a director in a long time who took this approach, and I just wanted to remember that some directors work this way.