Still Home?

Thursday was one of those somewhat horrible days that left me wondering if the theater world is still where I belong.

My final for Musical Theater was Thursday. Our final was to perform a scene to song, instead of just a song. My partner was Elisa Black and it took us forever to find something. 

We eventually decided to do "Some Things Are Meant to Be" from Little Women. I played Jo and Elisa played Beth. We worked really hard to get our blocking just right and to memorize our wording and the music and everything. I tried to react the way I felt Jo would react in this situation and we tried to paint the picture of one last perfect day. 

After we finished our performance it was sort of quiet for a moment and I thought that we had done a great job. And then everyone gave their comments and they all said that we didn't do enough. That we didn't have high enough stakes. That I wasn't playing Jo the way I should and that Elisa wasn't being Beth right and all this crap. and it was so disappointing. Because I realized that we had got so caught up in the blocking of it all that we hadn't taken the time to sit down together and talk about this situation and our characters. I thought we had done our homework. I thought that I had portrayed Jo as a character that was refusing to believe her sister was going to die so she continued to push the thought away and paint this perfect picture on this last perfect day. But it didn't come across that way because I was too subtle about it. 

Elisa and I should've talked more about our characters and what we wanted from the scene. We should have done the paperwork even though it wasn't assigned. It would've helped. 

But aside from that, it just hit me really hard that while I thought we were being true to the scene and the characters it didn't come across. And I was really bummed out about that. Especially because that was the only shot we were gonna get. That was it. The end. That was our final. 

This whole semester I've tried to give performances that I would be proud of. I've tried to "find my own measure of success". I've put everything into my performances and just tried my hardest to do my best to walk away from them with my head held high being proud of the work I had done and the product that had resulted from the work. 

But I walked away from that performance wondering what I was doing and wondering what had gone wrong and wondering why I hadn't thought of and fixed those things that had been brought up. They were so obvious--such beginner advice and critiques--that I face palmed and just thought "duh Courtney. How did you not think of that. You should have seen that and thought of that. You are not a beginner anymore..." etc etc. 

I was not very happy. 

I appreciated what they had to say, and everything that was said about raising the stakes and giving in to the "presentations" side of theater (Melinda had made a comment about how there is nothing truly "real" about theater because all we are doing is telling stories. Which I found extremely profound actually) was all spot on. They were exactly right. 

I just wondered why I hadn't asked myself those questions already. I mean, I thought I did. But they didn't come across. And I didn't really know why. 

And at the end of the day, I just had to wonder if I was still doing the right thing and going the right direction and if theater was still my home. 

I know it is. There's no doubt about that. 

But I can't help but doubt and wonder sometimes ya know?

<3: CourtneyRae<3