A very good friend of mine said this to me recently:
"You can project whatever you want onto a mysterious person."
I was messaging with her through the Google when I was kind of having a crisis about openness, largely in relation to this blog, if not changes I'm trying to make in my life to be more open as a person. I had said to her just before:
"I think people generally prefer "mystery" to openness. Mystery is sexy, openness is desperation."
I've said it about myself many times. "Honest to a fault." Somewhere along in our history, or maybe since the beginning of time, honesty became a weakness. Something to be looked down upon. Many of my friends have applauded my forwardness, sometimes brashness, as the woman who "doesn't pull any punches." But where does that get you in life? Honestly, where does being open help anyone?
In acting, right? In acting we need to be open. Get to the truth.
But what if you've built up this big ole wall around yourself? To protect yourself. What if this "honest to a fault" is only a fault because the honesty, while sincere, isn't totally honest? What if the honesty itself is the wall? Just because you have the courage to say things other people won't doesn't make you any more vulnerable. It just means your able to say the things you're okay with saying. Good or bad. Often times, in my case, foot in mouth. But that in itself can be the defense mechanism to blind people from seeing what's really on the inside. It's the shiny, "Hey look at this thing over here." Hell, even the president of the United States does that.
I think I've confused honesty with vulnerability a lot in my life.
And it's hurt my acting. One Hundred Percent. And my relationships. All part of the same pie really, aren't they? But now I see some of the reason for this blog is to not only share my wealth of knowledge with the world (READ: SARCASM), but also to expose and share my journey working through some shit and be a better artist. Who the hell doesn't want to be a better artist? This person sure the hell does. And better late than never. Late bloomer, right?
Keeping up the wall, that tough exterior persona, can be exhausting. Actually, it is exhausting. It's hard coming from a background of abuse, then hitting adulthood and protecting a special needs kid, not to feel like you have to have your guard up all the time. Sometimes I feel like Chris Pratt in "Jurassic World" (never seen the movie, by the way). Let me give you a visual:
This is me against the world every day I step out the door. Ready for battle. Every single day. I think all you actors can imagine what it would be like to carry that into an audition. Yeah.
So I'm trying to move on from that. Break down the wall. Be more vulnerable. Commit to actual honesty instead of "Middle Finger" honesty. Working with Luda Lopatina Solomon and Bluebird Arts has certainly helped. I think the biggest breakthrough came when we did "Hello and Goodbye" by Athol Fugard. It became apparent fairly early in the process there was no way I was going to make it through without making some major changes in myself.
The snap came the Saturday before previews were to start and we'd hit, what now I can see was, the final roadblock.
The biggest obstacle in the H&G process for me was the family theme. The play itself is a two-hander (a two-person show for the laymen), a brother and sister, Hester and Johnny, who have been estranged for 15 years, and it takes place in South Africa in the 1960s (PS. That accent was a bear, so thanks, Diane Robinson and Chicago Voice Center!). Also, it's one of Fugard's early works, so lots of monologues, as all actors know of young playwrights. *wink*
So there we are, my castmate Aaron and I, in a huge talky piece with lots of monologues, intense accent work, and family, family, family. And devastatingly, early in the rehearsal process, my youngest Aunt (with an amazing husband and two beautiful young teenagers) passed after a long illness. At that time, I hadn't spoken to my mother (her older sister) in five years. I had finally come to a point where I had decided that as long as she continued to be with my stepfather, our relationship was over. But with my Aunt and her Husband and kids going through this terrible illness, as well as my Aunt's siblings, including my mother, the time came that I had to communicate with her about what was going on. And to make sure everyone was relatively okay. No matter how upset I am, I will always continue to do that and face all the emotions that come with it. I'm not an asshole, after all.
But I didn't do it well. Not one single bit.
I remember one conversation with my mother where I was honest in a real way and a middle finger way. But I was coming from a place of hurt, not necessarily of love. I said some hurtful things, for better or worse, and we ended our conversation in limbo. Old wounds had been reopened. I was raw and my wall was high and made of brick. Protecting myself.
So poor Aaron had to navigate the effects. I was "strong" and defensive -- great for Hester if I could channel that, but my vulnerability was sorely lacking. And in the following weeks of rehearsal, things just felt wrong. In me. I could feel the steel box around my heart with the lock that only I had the key to. Within the play, I had to be angry with my loser father, and sad and heart-broken about the loss of my mother. The absolute hardest things for me to be open and vulnerable about.
By the time we got to the Saturday before Previews my head was a mess and my heart was blocked. And, not surprisingly, Aaron felt much of the same. At a certain point, and I'm not sure how it started, but I just broke down. Hard. I just spilled my guts all over the floor. About what I was going through, about events in my life, largely about my mother and daughter, and how all of this lead me to the place we were at right then and I just felt blocked. Shut off. And the only way we were going to get through it is if I could bust down that wall. There were only two of us on stage. NO. WHERE. TO. HIDE. I was scared and angry. With my guts on the floor, Luda and my stage manager Anna hugged me. (Aaron's a dude. He didn't. I get it. I still love him though. *wink*)
And from that day forward, things got better.
Previews were bumpy. Even opening was bumpy. But after that, we FLEW. We honestly fucking flew. We hit our rhythm and never let up. Once I busted through that wall and let myself be vulnerable and feel all the feelings and opened myself up to my partner, we just flew. That was a great show. That sadly very few people saw, but that's a topic for another day.
This lesson though is one for my life, not just the theatre, although it's opened up my process immensely, even if there's still miles and miles to go.
And I'm consciously and actively trying to implement this in every aspect of my life. Vulnerability and openness. Which does not mean I won't, and haven't already, been burned on it. The next part of the equation is how to cope with that -- something else I haven't really been terribly good with in my adult life. But the first part is realizing you have a problem, right? And self-analysis and this blog have been an incredibly positive influence in recognizing these weaknesses and accepting the challenge of change.
So maybe I'm not sexy. And maybe in certain ways I am a little desperate. And maybe I'll always be that way in some ways.
But maybe I just don't care. Maybe my desire to be comfortable with being open and vulnerable supersedes my need or want or desire to be "cool" and "mysterious." I've always been on the outside anyway, my whole stinking life, so what the hell is going to change that now? Why should I change that now?
I shouldn't change that now.
I should just accept that as my place in this world.
Maybe.
“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. ... We need not wait to see what others do.”