Today's class consisted of us taking the text from an aria in our rep and speaking it, in character. I decided to choose a piece in English, so the class would understand it (and so I could avoid translating.) I chose "Willow" from The Ballad of Baby Doe.
Reluctantly, I stood up and walked to the front of the class...thinking, "this text is really not that great...and I have no idea how I'll relate to it without the music." So, I read through it. And, as expected, it was lame and very generic.
In the aria, Baby Doe has left her husband due to alleged adultery; which I later found out on a Colorado historical website. But, regardless, she left her husband because he hurt her. She is now in a new town, Leadville and is singing a song while playing piano. She thinks no one hears her, but Horace Tabor does. He has been attracted to her since the moment they met; although he has a wife. It is unknown, or, at least up for debate who she is referring to in the aria--but it seems to me that she is singing about her recent ex-husband. Here is the text of the aria:
Willow, where we met together.
Willow, when our love was new.
Willow, if he once should be returning; pray, tell him I am weeping, too.
So far from each other while the days pass in their emptiness away.
Oh my love, must if be forever, never once again to meet as on that day?
And never rediscover the way of telling, the way of knowing all our hearts would say?
Gone are the ways of pleasure.
Gone are the friends I had of your.
Only the recollection fatal of the word that was spoken Nevermore.
Willow, where we met together.
Willow, when our love was new.
Willow, if he once should be returning; pray, tell him I am weeping, too.
So, after I read through it twice in a very generic manner, my teacher instructed me to think of a personal situation, any personal situation that I could relate to this. And...it was quite easy.
I have loved some one in the past and left him because I felt that it was not going to work out in the long term, and that it would be best for me to move on...yet, breaking that person's heart completely left me broken inside. So, I started to speak the text for a third time, with my personal experience in mind. It started out a little generic...and then, all of a sudden, things clicked. It was no longer Amanda pretending to be Baby Doe. It was me--completely exposed, vulnerable, and pouring my feelings out to anyone and everyone that would listen.
What was so shocking was that I became so drawn in and connected to what I was saying that I started to cry. Not because I was scared, but because I had reached so far down into my heart and accessed feelings and thoughts that I never realized existed--and I brought those feelings out into my character.
Of course, my initial reaction was embarrassment because...I was crying! I have always been a firm believer in a classical acting technique by bringing personal experiences into your work in order to make your character more life-like and the situation more real. However, I realized today that I have never actually achieved it. And today, I finally did--and it was the most amazing experience in the world. Although I was completely embarrassed, my five classmates had been right there with me, the whole way through, completely drawn in.
It felt so wonderful to know that I made the text of that song mean something to me and also to some one else. It was such an inspiring moment for not just me but for everyone else in the room--and for the first time, I felt connected to something much bigger than I could imagine. I felt vulnerable and exposed; yet supported and loved by my peers--and it was wonderful.
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