Addendum - added on August 27, 2009 -
Somehow this feels as if I need
to share "The Rest of the Story"
with you - a sequel/prequel.
When VDay 2009 ended, I received
more kudos and praise for performing
one single monologue than I
ever have in the past.
I did more creative work with this
monologue - a painting inspired
by one of the lines in the
piece may be found here.
If you are given an assignment
you don't want? Listen to the
assignment carefully and determine
whether you are being asked to
risk taking that assignment for
a reason - and then risk it.
Like I did, that day in
January, with One Particular
Monologue...
I should never be surprised at the outcome
of auditions.
When considering what monologue to audition
with at VDay and what monologues to request, I
was somewhat ambivalent except for knowing what
monologue I didn't want to do.
"I don't want to do this one." I did not want
to have anything to do with One Particular Monologue.
So ofcourse I did my reading and Caroline asked me,
"Julie, will you read this One Particular Monologue?"
My heart felt heavy as my mouth said, "OK." I felt
myself leap into the present with full devotion. I
was requested to audition with this One Particular
Monologue so that was what I would do in that moment -
with every part of me committed to the best
expression I could offer.
There is back story, ofcourse, that no one knows.
Some of it I wasn't even aware of until I worked
through the deluge of emotions since I was cast
to do this One Particular Monologue.
"What is my own process, what is my resistance?"
I wondered as I felt a strange combination of
responses to the assignment.
What I said when people asked me what was bothering
me I would say something like "I didn't want to do
an 'old lady' monologue. I am not an 'old lady'" but
is that what is really upsetting me?
That night as I headed towards sleep, tears came.
Four years ago I auditioned for VDay using this One
Particular Monologue. I didn't do a very good audition,
but I was so excited to be involved. "I am willing to do
anything" I told them. "I just wanted to be involved."
Four years ago I was even more unsure of myself than I am
now, constantly questioning who I thought I was as an actor.
I was a new actor at the time, only a few shows under my
belt but I had a lot of passion and a lot of willingness
to learn and grow.
I auditioned for that One Particular Monologue because it
spoke to me. I didn't care, then, about it being an "Old Lady"
monologue, I just related to the story, the heart, the
"what happened" of the monologue.
When I didn't get cast and everyone else I knew who auditioned
did get cast, a cloudy sadness fell over me that lasted a long
time. I remember feeling left out, sad. I remember pretending
it didn't bother me.
The show came and went and I had nothing to do with it. I didn't
participate at the fair that was held even though I had volunteered
the year before - I just couldn't get a grasp on the rejection
which I have learned, now - with more experience under my belt,
is a natural part of the process.
I didn't audition the next year because the sting was still there.
I thought, "Why bother? I won't be cast anyway. I obviously didn't
fit in there, with that show with those people." When the show came
close to opening, one of my friends called and I asked me to be a
board operator. I gladly agreed so I could experience VDay and make
a valued contribution.
I wonder if this idea, this "Why bother?" energy I had between my
auditioning and not being cast and my eventual connection through
being a technician is connected to my lack of desire to do this
"One Particular Monologue."
I have loved watching other women perform it. When I directed the
show last year I spent a lot of time talking over content and
intention with the actor who performed this One Particular Monologue.
I think a big part of my not wanting to do it comes from a couple places
that are more truthful than the "old lady" argument.
I think I didn't really want to go to the places in my own soul
that this monologue will require I go.
I have actually come to see that the reason I wasn't cast four
years ago - wasn't cast at all - was a part of the lesson
for this year.
Sometimes disappointments of "once upon a time" turn into
"Prelude to This Present Moment." I think this is one of
those circumstances.
In this 'old lady' monologue, there are connections to the sweet,
young part of me, before I got cynical. The sweet part of me that
got hurt, much like the woman in the monologue.
This Sweet, Young Version of Me felt wrong in her being-ness.
To re-phrase that statement - to take it on, personally - I felt
wrong in MY beingness as a woman. I am not a HER. I am a MY
beingness - see how subtle it is? Without thought I referred
to myself in third person.
What is that?
It is, perhaps, resistance in pro-noun clothing.
I felt wrong specific to MY being-ness as a woman.
It feels so vulnerable and scary to write this publicly
and yet as a V-Day warrior, I know I was given this assignment
so it would become a compelling call to be here, present, with
what is.
Raw, truthful, painful, highly personal.
I need to be present to the bitter pain to the sweet,
uncynical me. It was a sadness which lasted a long, long
time and there are still ripples occasionally today, as
evidenced by my words here now.
In the same way I make jokes about my parents purposefully
using birth control to prevent my conception (yet God wanting me
to be born so ta-da, I was born despite my being unwanted.... )
I lightened the blow of this inner-ache, this assault on
my being-ness as a woman, with humor, too.
I think I wasn't cast in VDay back, those four years ago,
because I was meant to continue this process underground. Or
the process, rather, was meant to continue working me. I didn't
know it was rumbling within me. I was unaware of its presence
within until I said this line during my audition:
"There was this boy. Andy Leftkov" and as soon as I spoke
his name, tear-darts stabbed inside my eyes.
In retrospect, forty or so hours after the audition later, I
am becoming aware of my level of devotion to the audition
because I could feel the darts, the pain in those icy slivers
from way deep inside my soul, yet I was able to move into the
next line with all my uncynical me intact.
It was that uncynical me that was visible, not the icy-darts,
perplexing me - the thinking me - from the inside.
I remember when I was done with the audition, looking up
at Caroline and Deva, and Caroline saying she was near
tears herself. After only a couple paragraphs of a lengthy
monologue. That says something to me.
My realist daughter, Katherine, said "She was probably relieved
to find someone who could do that monologue." I am hoping it
was more than that.
I fear I won't be able to be so sincere with it again, but my
intent is to allow the process to continue working me.
To stay truthful in my portrayal, to let go of all the meaning
I have put into the "reasons why I don't want to do this piece"
and into the trusting that everything I do creatively is by
divine appointment, not MY appointment.
That is my intention now. Staying truthful, trusting, and
letting go of all the off-kilter meaning I have given for why
I don't want to do this One Particular Monologue.
I need to remember, always, that assignments like this have
long-lasting impact which I can have no way of knowing
right now.
Why? Because everything I do creatively is by divine
appointment, not MY appointment.
When I remember divine appointments are love-filled,
light-drenched moments in time, all of a sudden that
One Particular Monologue feels like the
Just Right for Now Monologue.
It feels so much better.
I know I will more than likely continue to cry, continue
to head-butt resistance along the way, but I won't
hide from what I have come to know.
The uncynical me has much to teach the Now-Me.
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