once more, with feeling

one of the most useful experiences that i had in college occurred in my "acting 101" class, some time around my sophomore or junior year.

i had been working on a monologue (i forget exactly what it was; probably a favorite of mine where a guy is telling an old girlfriend of his how everyone he's dated since her has involved settling for something insufficient and how he doesn't want to settle anymore and would rather be with her), and had gone through one or two practice presentations, but the instructor was unsatisfied with the level of emotion that i was presenting. emoting has always been one of my biggest difficulties with acting, and i wasn't doing much better with this monologue than i'd done in the past.

the solution that the instructor used was to have about 8 of my classmates hold me down on the ground. he then told me to deliver my lines while trying as hard as possible to get up off of the ground. my first couple of tries weren't all that impressive, probably due to my usual inability to take physical threats seriously. but after about the third time through the monologue, with the instructor repeating "get up! get off the ground! try harder! get up!" and my adrenaline finally getting going, i delivered a good, solid, pissed-off, railing at the world monologue.

the instructor said "great," then had my classmates release me so i could stand up, and said "now, do it again, only with just a little bit less." i did just that, and delivered the monologue with just the right intensity and emotion. having gone through that exercise, experiencing that high level of intensity, enabled me to see the entire range of expression available to me and choose the right level for the presentation at hand.

what an excellent lesson.