Last night's rehearsal for "Love's Labour's Lost" was, perhaps by some peoples' standards, a bit hard to sit through. We did a line-through, and a fast-paced one at that. We open a week from today, so line proficiency is crucial at this point (this, of course, goes without saying.)
There were times during the rehearsal, however, where I found myself lacking focus. Thoughts and questions ran through my mind as to the point of doing a line-through instead of a regular rehearsal. I understand the reasons for it -- We were missing a few key cast members due to other commitments, etc. But thoughts creeping up into my head such as, Why don't we just get up and do this? This isn't helping me, sitting down and saying my lines and not getting into character, couldn't be helped. As a result of distracting thoughts, I missed a cue and spoke the wrong line and consequently flubbed up the actress who was to speak after me. Everyone got over it and moved on, but I couldn't help but feel responsible for passing the infection of my lack of focus onto someone else.
After rehearsal, a cast mate that I respect very much approached me. He said to me, "I just wanted to let you know something. You may have said that the Scottish Tragedy kicked your ass in the past, but let me just tell you, you've made Berowne your bitch." It was a very humbling thing for him to say. True, when I played Macbeth in college I did get my ass handed to me. But I used that as my motivation to attack this play and this character full on. I feel very humbled that someone gave me a compliment such as that, a compliment that I've been looking for, but perhaps I don't necessarily deserve at all times.
As long as I've been doing theatre, I've been attempting to hold myself to ridiculously high standards. Every success story of every famous actor that I know stems from them holding themselves to such standards. So far, I can only truly say that I know for a fact I threw everything I had into only 1 production: My first ever at Olathe South, "The Foreigner" by Larry Shue. Ever since then I've told myself I'm going to have the kind of focus and exuberance I had for that show for every show. But things happen. Life happens. Shit happens. Work happens. School happens. But this time, with this show, I've been closer to my goal of "complete emptying of self" into a show than ever before with any other show. And I can tell you why I think this show is special and allows such an outpouring to happen.
In the collaborative art of theater, every single person counts. The efforts and passions of every hand that that touches the show makes it better, or worse. Your hand in the show -- no matter how big or small the movement it makes -- either helps, or harms. This show has been such an amazing example of so many people doing their best in every aspect of the show that it's really quite inspiring. When one person starts doing their best, it's a domino effect, and suddenly I see myself and more people putting in a concerted effort to do their best as well.
What I'm trying to say is -- to all those who work in the collaborative arts -- put your freaking back into it. Do your best, put yourself forward, don't concern yourself with what you perceive as short-comings of the others involved, and you might just start a chain reaction in the other artists to move themselves to new and higher levels of art. The artists in this show have done such inspiring for me. Encourage your fellow collaborators, dawn them with deserving praise, hold yourself to higher standards each show you are in, and I promise you, because I'm seeing it first hand, the collaborative art you are in will flourish with more beauty than you thought was possible. And I can also say, speaking from experience, that if you hold yourself to average standards, if you say to yourself "I'll do my best next time...", if you don't push yourself in whatever part it is you have in the collaborative art -- NO MATTER HOW SMALL THE PART IS -- that art will suffer, whether or not you are aware of it.
I myself am guilty of many things that harm the arts I love so much, but I can do nothing but acknowledge those faults and try to move on and be better in the future, and, more importantly, be better in the present. So, too, I ask this of you, artists. Acknowledge your faults and promise to yourself in the future -- and right now -- that you're going to try to do better. Your best is all that can be asked, so put that in, sit back, and relax knowing you did your part to the fullest.
Corbin
