This post has no insight, no words of wisdom from Ms Smith, no glorious update of my acting 'career'; so if that is what you came for, I offer my most sincere apologies.
I just finished (for the umpteenth time) reading Catherine Butterfield's "Joined at the Head": a play that I always thought to be about a woman who has cancer and how her husband deals with it. The juicy bit of conflict rises right away where Jim's high school lady-friend arrives in time and continually comments and processes with the audience about Jim's marriage and his wife's failing condition. As I previously mentioned, I always thought the play was 'about' strength and courage and everything that couples 'deal' with when they're faced with cancer. But as you can probably guess by now: I was wrong. I don't know what the ultimate theme is- I'm still trying to figure it out. But there is a line in the play that struck me especially (I took the liberty of attributing it closer to the theater world):
"I think it's a writer [actor, director, and so on] thing. You spend all your time looking at other people's lives, you get out of the habit of looking at your own.
No, that's not it.
It's not?
I don't think so.
(Pause) No. I'm afraid if I look, I'll see someone I really don't like at all."
Ok so it is kinda far out there and I want to saw that I can't totally relate this to my own life, but it is an interesting thought. I believe that the artist's work is supposed to reflect. So this means observation in order to send back the images, words, actions, relations, etc. Do we choose to see? Or are situations, images, conversations just thrust at us and we make sense of them in our own way in our own little worlds? And how can we be objective about our own lives and experiences when we are completely consumed by them? I think my main question here is do we generate 'art' based on our own personal experiences or by our reactions to an outside imagery?
I think the caffeine is getting to me - I'm creating blog-barf.
Read the play: my thematic material in this post is just a portion of what the play really is.
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