Well, That Was a Soul-Crusher

Bad rehearsal last night. Bad. We got through it, which was a good thing, but a lot of stuff just fell apart for me.

I was caught in my own head. It's that simple.

I was off-center from the start of the night. The CTA Red Line just...stopped on me, and I had to jump off and grab a bus, which wasn't a centering experience, at all.

But, that's an excuse, ain't it?

What's become kind of unsettling and odd for me is the parts of the show that are becoming more difficult for me. The first half of the show features far fewer immediate obstacles for me to wrestle with, but I'm finding myself lost for more often. The second half, where I have a number of difficult problems to negotiate, both as an actor and character, I'm feeling pretty solidly along for the ride.

Perhaps it's just an issue of where I expect to have to really work, and where I expect things to be easier. I mean, the whole damn show is difficult, that's why I wanted to do it, but you do give yourself the scenes and sections where you can relax a bit. Where you can let the script do the work.

That's, most likely, my problem. Hell, "most likely" doesn't really even apply. It is my problem.

In all ways it's my problem. It's my problem to solve. Ain't nobody else gonna do it.

If I'm honest, I'm also letting the world outside of rehearsal weigh on me. Emotional baggage that, I have to admit, I'm fairly resentful about having to deal with right now. I mean, all actors are emotionally fragile creatures, we wear our hearts on our sleeves, it's part of the job. You learn to deal with it as best you can, or as worst you can, in some cases. We're only human. Yet, I can't help but have a, "now? You want to do this NOW!?!" response, sometimes.

It's not a good time for me. Seriously.

But we soldier on, right? We fight 'til we can't fight no more. We steel ourselves and put on the bravest face we can muster, and proceed to beat our heads viciously against the wall of indifference.

That's the job, in a nutshell.