Look At Me!

It's an odd thing watching video of myself in a performance. That happens more and more, it seems. When I'm doing something live, be it scripted or otherwise, I don't have the awareness to see what I'm doing and whatever else is happening objectively. It's sort of like I'm flailing around blind or acting on deeply ingrained instinct. That isn't to say that I'm exactly doing things indiscriminately. When performing a script, I've worked very hard in advance on learning it by heart, and in improv I'm taking everything in and thinking a lot about what to do at every turn. It may even be painfully evident that this is the case. Even so, it may as well be that it's happening in a sandstorm.

Somehow I observe what I need to in order to carry out the performance. I don't miss cues in a scripted piece or terribly many opportunities in improv. I do however experience the thing in a distorted or subdued enough way that it's a very fresh experience of the piece that I have when watching it on video later. Only then do I really seem to realize what I did and what effect it had. It will be quite a step I will take when I know when I do the thing or before whether it was the right thing exactly and to the necessary degree. I work at that sometimes, making faces in the mirror and practicing gestures and what is called 'space work'.

It's very ease for me to detect faults in other peoples' work, and I do so both often and vociferously, but watching myself chastens me for a time and reminds me of how difficult it is when one is, as Teddy Roosevelt called it, 'in the arena'. It's sort of like I'm driving a car with bald tires over loose gravel on stage. I just hope and pray that I'll be able to get from point a to point b and bring the whole thing to a stop in one piece at the end of it. If that happens and the objective is accomplished, it's just as much as I hope for. I never know if that's what has happened until I watch the tape, because I never can quite let myself trust in the word of onlookers. I don't chalk that up to their unreliability as much as my own insecurity, but it's true either way.

What's awful are the occasions when no video exists to examine after the fact. If I am down on what I did or not sure, the concerns I have eat at me for some time and I have no recourse. When I feel really good about what I've done, which is not as seldom as might seem to be the case given my expressed pessimism, I cannot re-live it very vividly in order to bolster my morale during low times. Video also can be helpful in crafting a reel, which actors such as I am becoming are known to do. Perhaps all this may seem very vain, and maybe it is, but I know that I am presently quite contented with myself, and a viewing of my own work is partly responsible. What apology or humbleness could be necessary for that?