At least that's what it seemed like. In acting class, I did a scene with my new bud Amanda. And we poured over the simple script and invented lots of different emotions, and physicalizations, and a background story, and motivations and eveything for this scene. And we went up to do it, and I thought we did really, really well.
The first thing out of Doc's mouth: "Who saw a lot of indicating? I sure did. Eric did it six or seven times." Indicating, by the way, is displaying an emotion, but not feeling it. Thus, it looks fake. So, despite the fact that I thought I did well, despite the fact that I was practically feeling the emotions myself, I looked fake. It was . . . dissappointing, I guess. And then everybody had all these praises for Amanda. Yeah, she did good, but . . . what about me? I guess I was jealous and confused as hell as to how I came off as so . . . bad. It's been really, really bothering me all day. Here I am thinking I'm a talented actor, but apperantly I'm fake when I think I'm doing a good job.
Then play practice came. I couldn't get 5 words out before Doc made me stop and do it differently. He kept telling me to vary the pace, and although I varied the pace, he kept saying I wasn't. So I'd do it again, and I would be doing it the same way according to him. It was very frustrating. It was like I couldn't do anything right for him all day today. And I laughed a long and tried not to let it get to me. I tried to keep telling myself that he's just pushing me and that it's just to make me better . . . but not a single thing I did was any good. Or at least he didn't point that out.
So now I'm feeling really discouraged. If all this criticism is supposed to motivate me . . . well, so far all its done is discourage me. Does this mean I just can't take criticism well? So I'm a bad actor, who doesn't know how to take criticism. Great. Things are looking up for me now.
