Emotions, sometimes they take over and sometimes we try to hide them. Some say they never get angry, others never cry. Jacqueline (my late Meisner teacher) used to say that an actor who denies an emotion is comparable with a musician who refuses to play the whole scale on their instrument. The musician refuses to play C and the actor doesn't want to cry. Something vital is missing.
I think it goes for non actors as well. If you don't have access to all your emotions something is not right.
Sometimes we get stuck in our emotional preparation because something is missing. I am working on a one act play called the Stronger from 1888 by the Swedish author and playwright August Strindberg. In short it is a woman confronting her friend and colleague whom she suspects of having an affair with her husband. I had done my script analysis and I could pick out a range of emotions from the text. Hate, the feeling of betrayal, revenge, the will to humiliate. All of these emotions are very strong and yet there was something missing.
In class (at Mulholland Academy) Tuesday night I presented my script analysis to the class. That's when Debby, my teacher and friend said "she loved her". Everything fell into place. All the emotions that I had been able to abstract from the text were of course rooted in the love she used to feel for her friend. The betrayal became so much bigger and it was so obvious and I wondered why I hadn't thought of it.
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