Had acting class last night and my fellow students and I performed our assigned scenes for each other. My co-actor, Sandi, is away, so I had to do it with a stand-in. I play an irritable, bitchy old lady (hey, type-casting!) and it went well. I thought there were varying degrees of competence by the other students, some of whom have never acted anywhere before. Director Tara asked us to go deeper and to probe into the "beats"--meaning something recognizing hidden levels when they occur--of the script. She wants her students to grasp the underlying emotion behind the words of actions of the characters.
What an eye-opener! I thought I had the whole thing pretty tied up, but under Tara's tutelage, realized I hadn't delved into the underlying emotional content so much as skimmed the obvious surface. I find the class absorbing and am serious about getting as good as I can as an actor.
I took with me a neighbor of mine who had expressed great interest in the theatre company and asked me to take her to the class. Before we went, I had reservations about her participation, as she's so insecure and is somewhat of the loose cannon persuasion, but I took her. After the class, she still seemed to have no idea of what the whole thing was about. Maybe the title of "Acting Workshop" would give most people a clue, but it seems to have eluded her. Dollars to doughnuts, she won't continue--just as well, I guess.
Wider: William Pfaff, in a strong piece on Truthdig.Com, observes that all presidents need a war to call their own, Obama's being Afghanistan. Pfaff ends with this:
"I think the American government now has become institutionally a war government, which finds its purpose in waging war against small and troublesome countries and peoples, in the generalized pursuit of running the world for the world’s own good. In this effort, one war is pretty much like another, and every president, to be re-elected, needs one."
Boy, just what we need, "a war government." And that could be revised to to "a perpetual war government." Yipee.