I struggle all the time with every role in every play. Never feeling like I am really in it. Like I’m endlessly faking my way through the scene. Which is really no big deal. I mean, it’s only acting. It’s not surgery. But I end of feeling like such a liar. And then I hate myself. And that’s just a really bad day at work.
So then I begin to dread the next day of performance or rehearsal. I don’t even want to look at the script because it only serves to remind me how lost I am in the role, in the play. Then starts the worry. About how awful things will go tomorrow, and the next day, and the next month and year, etc. I unconsciously project myself into the future without even wishing to do so. It’s like my brain, my imagination, is on fire. Completely engrossed in this unstoppable juggernaut of who-knows-what. I actually see myself in awful circumstances in just a few short months. Alone. Nobody knows me. Can’t pay my bills. Tossed out onto the street. Embarrassed. Ashamed. A bleak future ahead.
And that’s the imagination at work!
The challenge is not getting the imagination to work. The challenge is getting it to work at precisely the correct time. At the scheduled time necessary for rehearsal and performance. And in the precise way that will serve the story, the play, the scene.