Today went a lot better! I had a scene that now has an underscore, and I felt so powerful when the DUUUN occurred as I started becoming violent. We made it through Act 2, and will hopefully be doing a full run-through tomorrow.
Of course, acting to receive praise is not good, but when everyone said I was scary in Act 2 Scene 5, it felt wonderful. I was able to incorporate my yelling techniques to some extent, which also felt nice.
I’m proud of myself for deliberately blocking out moments when I am ruminating about the show. In previous productions, I would justify worrying immensely about my work by saying it was ‘productive’. Since then I’ve learned it isn’t, but until today I haven’t found the impulse to immediately negate those thoughts. Much of this has to do with my newfound knowledge from Donnellan’s book. Fundamentally, acting occurs in the moment and in my partner’s eyes. Until then, anything I imagine is a line reading and not useful. I can think about my lines as plot points or pure text, but once I begin imaging how I’d say them I know I’m not in the right headspace.