Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.
-Theodore Roosevelt
This journey has been anything but easy. I recall the pureness I came into this on my first read through in my very first class. I felt electrified, alive; full of something I had never been filled with in my life, a passion. This continued on into my first assigned monologue. The work was all there and things were simple in a sense but truth was evident.
Fast forward to last night and I feel things have extended away from me. That every monologue for the past year after that first monologue has been me chasing that truth and finding nothing but failure. I’ve learned a lot about this craft and read many plays and books in this past year to only have me progress backwards it seems. My intellect has taken over and I dream about great rehearsals. I imagine the perfect delivery of the lines, and the perfect behavior and action comes to life in my mind, but when I actually try to live it and express it through the body I fail utterly.
While my frustrations mount every Monday and I feel like I’m progressing backwards more than I’m progressing forward, I feel called to this the more so. I cannot articulate it or reason it out. I hope one day to find my truth in these pieces again. To unlock this artist inside me and let it shine. For now I struggle, and with much struggle comes much pain. Which is something I’m well acquainted with. For on the other side of this is something beautiful and even in the muck it is a worthy struggle. If I were to spend my life in this struggle never finding that truth again I would account it a life lived well and not wasted.