the theatre, the theatre...

[worldandtime]

OK, yesterday was two dress rehearsals, interrupted by US Awards. Today was two shows, with senior dinner in between. I had to jog from St. Luke's to the VST to get there in time for my scene, but I was very happy that I got to go to the dinner--I had a good group of people at my table, and I think I left only a couple of minutes before the

Comments

[gleeful_t]

You had to know I was going to comment on this. I think most people in performance (and probably in life, too) don't take the time to ask the opinions of others they are working with because they are too self-conscious to ask for anyone's help. Our society sees it as a kind of weakness, and I think that's how a lot of people approach situations rather than an open forum to creatively solving a problem, which is essentially what rehearsal is. And I think it comes from a great deal of insecurity. Specifically in a rehearsal process (but again, also in any situation in which one is attempting to solve a problem) I think there's a lot of acknowledging and seizing or bending to perceived power. I find myself still doing this, occasionally, when I'm working with someone who I perceive to be better than me; I'll often not put myself out there as much and come up with my own ideas, because I'll subconsciously assume that their ideas must be better than mine. It turns into either uber-respect, to the point where it is not helpful, or uber-

[worldandtime]

Yeah, there's definitely a balance between being self-confident enough to give of yourself and being aware-enough-of-others to listen to/value what they have to say. One of the things that's difficult is that the balance is different with different kinds of people (and different circumstances, but the latter is easier to deal with--for me--than the former). It really annoys me, which I suppose it shouldn't, that you periodically have to be an asshole in order to keep from getting walked over. I tend to enjoy much more people who are somewhat in balance themselves as they are less prone, I feel, to taking advantage of me on purpose

Re: respecting your elders

[worldandtime]

Yeah, everyone has to "earn the respect of others," but the situation is somewhat analogous to the treat-others-as-you-are-treated algorithm: at some point, you need to be willing to respect the potentiality of others in addition to just what they've done--or they may not get the chance to develop what they otherwise could.

It's the whole "balance" issue I refered to in my answer to Katie. After all, almost no "individual ideas" are worth much until they can be adopted and used by others ;-).