(Please refer to blogs #37 & #38) It took Daenya a year to return to class
after the revelation that her whole adult life she had used distancing to cover
the anger she felt at the age of seven, when her mother left Jamaica to work in
the States. When we connect the ‘feeling
of anger’ to its true source – not just the things that make us angry every
day, while we leave the underlying reasons unexplored – our whole equilibrium
is affected. How we see the world changes, and we often need time to adjust.
I was surprised to see Daenya again; you never know which
students will have either the stamina or the real desire to act after they have
a big break-through like this. Daenya’s stamina and desire are joined at the
hip. Along with an ‘artist’s intelligence’ (a particular combination of IQ and
EQ, a subject which I will soon tackle in this blog) are the biggest part of
what people call ‘talent’ – plus hard work, of course!
At first, Daenya tackled another monologue, from Poof by Lynn Nottage, before finally
returning to Berniece. In fact, she wasn’t sure she would ever go back to it. I
did not offer an opinion, because I don’t push in a situation where there is so
much pain. It was soon obvious to Daenya, however, that the lighter tone of Poof – a play about a woman who causes
her husband to crumble into dust by standing up to him - did not exempt her
from getting in touch with her own feelings about the darker subtext, which in
one way or another underlies most ‘serious comedy.’ Daenya eventually came back to Berniece all
on her own, and it was then that she made the connection which finally opened
up the deeper part of her early experience vis-à-vis her mother; the area that
needed to be explored to provide a permanent matrix for her acting.
Intuition is an important tool for an acting teacher, so one
day at the very end of a lesson when Daenya was about to take her daughter on a
two-week vacation to Jamaica, I instinctively found myself asking – “Why do you think your mother decided to go
to America when she did?” Daenya looked
as puzzled as if I had asked her a question about higher mathematics. Before
she could shut down completely, I added, “I know it was to make money for the
family, but why then, specifically? Do you think it was after the murder of
your young cousin?”
When she and her daughter returned from their vacation,
where Daenya was able to re-establish relationships with relatives and see for
herself the beauty of the island - as well as the aspects of the culture that
made it impossible for her to even consider living there again. She had found
the kind of ‘meaningful connection’ that carries over to all characters from
all societies and walks of life.
She had understood that her mother had not ‘abandoned’ her;
instead, she had spent four lonely years – how difficult it must have been for
her to leave her two daughters, especially little Daenya, and husband behind –
while she established a beachhead in America. In fact, her mother was a hero,
who had done all this so that the same terrible fate that had befallen her poor
little cousin would never happen to Daenya, who was the same age. And somehow, Daenya found the strength to
accept the fact that her mother had died without a reconciliation having taken
place between them. This was the hardest part, but it connected her forever to
the ‘abyss of losses’ that Berniece carried around within her. Although Daenya
did not have a direct parallel to the slavery background of the African
American experience, now she could personally relate to the situation of
ever-present danger from crime, the shame felt by citizens who are not
protected by laws. She had finally felt her own close relationship to
Berniece’s ‘abyss’ from the one that lay beneath her own childhood back in her
home country.
We were all set to process that information into acting when
life suddenly threw Daenya another curveball. The dentist she was working for
could no longer maintain his office and had to join a clinic. He managed to
salvage her job by bringing her along with him, but now she was always on-call –
even on Sundays. I also began teaching seminars, and was unavailable one Sunday
each month. We were both under pressure; Daenya started sending texts to cancel
the day of class. It was too frustrating, and I gave her an ultimatum. No more canceled appointments on Sundays
without prior notice. But somehow the ultimatum didn’t stick. Art trumps convenience in my life, and we
found a compromise solution so Daenya could continue.
Have a wonderful Memorial Day! Outing the Actor will return the following
week.
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