“Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.” -Henry Rollins

So, life has pretty much bent me over the figurative table and fucked me in the ass this week. Twice. But, this blog is not about my personal life, and while I would love to get all my feelings out in the open, this isn't the place for it. Instead, I'm going to relate my shitty situation to acting and the show.

I haven't had a lot of tragedy in my life. I've been blessed with having a pretty normal childhood and adult-like life. As a normal person, that's all you can ask for, but as an actor it sucks balls. Acting is all about experiencing the emotions that these characters go through, which could range from anything. It helps when you've gone through some turmoil because then you can remember "Hey, I felt like this during this time of my life" and you know what to pull from and where you need to end up. I've always felt behind the curve in this sense because I don't have a lot to pull from. What I've done (and I'm not sure which acting method this belongs to, I think it's Stanislavsky with the whole emotional recall thing) is just find instances where I've felt a similar emotion, just not with the same situation. For instance, in two recent shows I've been in, "Cabin Fever" and now "Phallus Pan", I've played a character who has lost a parent. I've never lost a parent, thank goodness, but I still have to go through the process of dealing with that loss, and I really have to identify what part of the grieving they are at.

So, basically what all this rambling is coming down to is that now I've had (and am having) a very traumatic portion of my life. It's awful and horrible and it sucks. BUT, I guess the little, itty bitty silver lining in this situation is that it's helped me a lot during "Phallus Pan". Wendy is the most emotional character I've played ever. Again, I don't get to do dramatic stuff very much, so this is a change for me. And Wendy is kind of the litmus test for the show, because she's the one that goes through these situations in Neverland and we see how she reacts to each one. And towards the end of the show she becomes extremely emotional, because the whole reason she comes to Neverland is she wants to forget the death of her father. So, when she reaches the end of the play, she's dealing with all the emotions with her father and her frustration with everyone else, and her love for Pan. I think I've been doing ok with it up to this point, but it wasn't until recently that it all clicked. Having all this shit happen to me recently gives me stuff to pull from for the show. I always try to keep the drama at the door, but this show and this part give me the chance to kind of deal with it. The first time we ran the show after everything happened I was shaking so badly after it was over, but it felt good to just feel it and not having to worry about being strong or happy.

It kills me because there's one monologue at the end that just got me. Wendy pins Pan down and monologues about what she learned in Neverland, stuff like how to be angry and lonely and how avoiding pain just makes it worse. I don't think I've ever said any words as truthfully as I did at that rehearsal at that time. It was great, but also awful.

So, I guess I'm sort of glad for this life experience. People can't have perfect lives, especially people within a play. There's always conflict, always heightened emotions. So at least I'm thriving somewhere in my life.