231014 - Mama Looking for her Cat

I cried onstage today.

It wasn't something that I'd planned to do - it was the last scene of the performance, and was supposed to be heartbreaking and sad and in a best case scenario would leave the audience in tears.

The thing was, I'd planned to just fake it - a few sniffles, a waver of the voice, maybe a crack or a sob even. That's what I'm good at, and I've never tried to actually force a few tears out because I've never been able to and the few times that I've tried it have all looked unbearably fake to me.

The way I cried onstage today... It was amazing to me. I've been so stressed lately, what with school and the performance and personal problems, and only half an hour before call time saw me having a minor breakdown in the toilets with a junior comforting me.

The reason why I cried... At that moment, it was mostly because I felt that I didn't deserve to be onstage with the others. I'd been out of acting for close to a year and a half, and now that I was called to stand onstage again I was finding it difficult to do things that I used to do with ease. I didn't think myself worthy of being called a senior.

The stress of the role, the incredibly short time I had to get into it and the frustration I felt at being unable to connect with Mama, the realisation that I couldn't even project my voice properly... It was too much for me at that moment.

The thing was that after I took a moment to cry a little and just talk it out, I felt better, more focused. For some reason, the performance went by smoothly (though still not our best - we'll need to do better tomorrow) and when in the scenes leading up the the big ending I could feel some kind of a tension building up within me, like a string being pulled taut.

And when it came to that scene... Wow, oh wow. The string just snapped and I could feel everything. Every bit of mama's frustration, her anger, her despair... I felt those welling within me and for some reason I just cried while delivering those lines.

It could have been better, but for now I'm proud of myself (and also a little bit scared because I'm not over the fact that I actually cried onstage), for doing something I never actually thought I'd be able to do.

Now let's just hope I'll be able to reach the same result tomorrow.

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