Devil vs. Angel

We all know that famous image of an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, whispering things to you and contradicting each other until you're left relatively insane. While I am not yet insane, and I don't have visible angels/devils lurking around my body, I finally understand how this saying came about.

Doing my new musical theatre course, we are expected to do a certain amount of failing in order to learn and develop. We also need to get out of our comfort zone constantly and push ourselves to the limit. As much as I've wanted to do this, I have had trouble with my voice and have had to rest as much as possible, so I haven't been able to really put myself out there. I am now on the mend and have my first fortnightly 'Mock Audition' - this week is for Drowsy Chaperone. I'm singing a song I am fairly comfortable with, it is a genre I am fairly comfortable with. What I am not entirely comfortable with is the idea of varying my normal audition performance (stand, sing, emote and that's it). I am not used to putting on more of a show for an audition and this is what I am going to do. The past few day though, I have caught myself thinking, "Oh, forget about that. Just sing how you usually sing."

Normally, I think I would listen to myself. But I've been so constantly reminded to put myself out there and make risks and fail that I heard this thought kind of objectively and said, "No! Emily, take the risk. if you fall on your ass, so be it."

There you go. Devil and Angel. One telling me to be safe and stay in my comfort zone, the other telling me to go for it.

In a way it is natural to want to stay safe. It's part of human nature isn't it? Life preservation. Defense. But the strange thing about performing is that you have to break down those walls of basic animalism. Why do people get nervous or afraid if they have to perform? Because basic instinct is telling them not to. It's saying 'This is different and scary and maybe you should sit in the corner and wait until everyone forgets about you."

On our first day at Showfit we had to do an exercise that involved doing something totally against human instinctual nature - run across a room with our eyes closed. Our bodies were saying "STOP FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!!!" and a lot of people did stop. But the point was we meet that same brick wall when performing. The exercise told us that we have to take out our trusty sledgehammer and knock down that wall.

So while my fear, insecurities and basic human nature is telling me to stay safe, and not put myself in a situation where I could look stupid or fail, I am learning to ignore that... to an extent. I'm not actually going to go running down the street with my eyes closed exclaiming 'Look at my utter commitment and focus everybody!'

That's not artistically relevant, it's just sheer stupidity.

But I AM going to go for it, and take risks and let myself fall over because you can't learn to get back up unless you get on the ground first.

Just Me and My Cage

"But you're here in the dark in a little box with a fellow who might know less than you,
Then you'll hurry home and lock the locks, another box to climb in to. "

I was listening to some of my music the other day and heard this line in a song from one of my musicals (challenge to musical lovers: can you tell which one it's from?) and started to think. It's a sad image, don't you think? Our home being this box, probably that we create to protect us but just ends up blocking us out from the rest of the world. It starts off as a box and ends up as a cage.

Metaphorically speaking, we cage ourselves in all the time. Mostly from fear. Why else do we create locks? Why else do we build walls that we hide within? From fear, essentially. From fear of what might be past the locks and outside the walls that could hurt us. And the cages we place around us are much the same thing. We are afraid of what might happen if we let ourselves out of those cages. And so we all manage, somehow, to survive in this big wide world by keeping ourselves close within protective walls.

It sounds stupid, doesn't it? When you talk about it like this, it sounds like some existential poetry. These big metaphorical cages seem ridiculous. But as much as you might say "I wouldn't cage myself in like that. What's the point?" I could bet good money that you still do it, out of doubt or worry, in some way or another. Maybe you just decide that you don't want to try something new, or maybe you don't let yourself get too close to someone, or show people your true self.

There's a big bright beautiful world out there (another musical reference for you guys and gals) that hardly any of us actually see. So get rid of those bars and look at it.

That's my word of wisdom for the day anyway.

In other news, draft #4 of The Twelve is finished and is now being read by the assistant editor of Murdoch books for another review and perhaps some advice on how to go about getting it published. Fingers crossed! I was thinking about posting another chapter of my book here, so leave a comment if you want to read more and I'll post chapter 2 next time.

Until next time...

(added note: I just realised that I never actually posted all of chapter one, only a snippet, so if you want to read the whole thing I can post that as well !)