Last night was our first night actually using the text as our repetition. During some pre-class discussion with a couple of classmates we expressed confusion regarding calling the exercise “repetition” because we’re not actually “repeating” what our scene partner says. I think it is more that we use the tools of the repetition exercise but apply them to the text, such as leaving yourself alone, picking up and dealing, act before thinking, and trusting the exercise. Still, I think all of us were a little nervous going into this. As Lukas said, we’ve been waiting for months to apply the tools to scene work, but now that the time has arrived, we just want to continue with naming behavior.
Overall I think everyone did a good job for a first outing with the text. We all suffered a bit from struggling with the lines, which put us all in our heads. I know it did for me, and others expressed the same. In our first attempt (we were fortunate enough to go twice) I was hyper-focused on being letter-perfect on the text which put me in my head. (Note: being letter-perfect is still what I am striving for). I also had decided that the trigger I had crafted last week didn’t really work for me, so I decided to change the trigger. Of course, that meant changing the Hot Who, and I don’t know that what I crafted was strong enough. I’m going to continue working on that. I also noticed my new trigger (I just got the paperwork to sign the house over to Catherine) created a feeling of love rather than happiness. Nothing wrong with that, but it felt more passive/nostalgic rather than active. I feel like I’m close on the crafting, but not quite there.
On our second attempt I decided to not be so hung-up on the words, and to just go with whatever came up, even if it meant paraphrasing a bit. At this point in the exercise, I think it is more important to listen, observe, and respond than it is to have the words, especially if that is going to put me in my head. I can continue to work on the words on my own…I only have a limited number of times to do the repetition with Christine. Overall it went much better. Jolene did comment that the first couple of beats still felt like we were not leaving ourselves alone enough, but that once we got going the scene was much better. I think both Christine and I felt the same way.
Jolene suggested that before we rehearse the lines that we do a short repetition, even over Zoom. I’m hoping to try that.