Latest / The Imperfect Impulse w/Bree O'Connor / S 3 Ep 4: Race and the Rehearsal Room

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S 3 Ep 4: Race and the Rehearsal Room · The Imperfect Impulse w/Bree O'Connor

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Imperfect Impulse with Bree O'Connor.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hey!
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Bree O'Connor.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Surprise!
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a little punchy because I am recording this late at night because I felt moved to.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are hearing a hum in the background, just know that that is a fan.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm a middle-aged lady and it is too cool to have the AC on,
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: but a little too warm for me to not have air moving.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: I am persnickety now and I'm just going with it.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I apologize for the extra noise in the background.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: But speaking of extra noise in the background,
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I realize that last week's conversation about good rooms was pretty broad.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And building a good room is something I feel like we can have loads of conversations about.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: But today I want to bring up something, and that is race.
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  SPEAKER_00: Or difference.
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  SPEAKER_00: Any difference, frankly.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: But for the purposes of today's conversation,
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  SPEAKER_00: I do want to talk about our artists of color and the challenges that they face
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: in certain rooms and why rooms that can leave people who are raised not
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  SPEAKER_00: to see race elated can leave people of color feeling isolated.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uncomfortable.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Any space that does not accept the whole person is not a great space.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I really want us to embrace the difficulty of accepting someone else's experience
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  SPEAKER_00: that may be different from your own.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Many years ago, I caught an episode or two of a show that was on MTV.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was MTV or VH1 or something like that.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was one of those people are living in a house and trying to navigate living in
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  SPEAKER_00: a house together.
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  SPEAKER_00: The premise was that you had white people
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  SPEAKER_00: and black people sharing this home space together and navigating day-to-day life
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: but also having the experience of seeing the world through someone else's eyes.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: My eldest was really small at the time, so this had to have been over 20 years ago.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember the name of the show.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: I just remember the episode where the white woman was trying to give a compliment to
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  SPEAKER_00: the black woman,
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  SPEAKER_00: and she said something to the effect of, you're just this beautiful creature.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the black woman took that word as dehumanizing and caused this central conflict
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  SPEAKER_00: for the entire episode.
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  SPEAKER_00: I remember this episode because I often with my girlfriends in high school would use
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  SPEAKER_00: the word creature to mean like otherworldly,
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  SPEAKER_00: ethereal, amazing, beautiful, like something Above human.
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  SPEAKER_00: And yet this black woman had this other experience in which she associated
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: the word creature with being less than human,
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  SPEAKER_00: with being animal, being counted as three-fifths a person.
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  SPEAKER_00: That has an impact.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: On you that can't quite be grasped by someone who is raised without that consciousness.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: I bring that up as an example of how race is part of the space that we inhabit.
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  SPEAKER_00: That even one word has vastly different meanings for different people.
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  SPEAKER_00: And if race is not part of our consciousness then those kinds of mistakes are going to happen.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: So how do we navigate that in creating a space that feels open and free for everyone
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  SPEAKER_00: and makes room for experience, makes room for our
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: entire selves?
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  SPEAKER_00: It's complicated.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: However, don't want to get too far into the weeds that this is about creating more rules.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: We discussed last week that sometimes creating really complex structures
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: for how we talk to each other,
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  SPEAKER_00: how we relate to each other, can just signify how burdensome being in this room is.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it can create a sense of dread before anything happens and create a sense
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: of dread and paranoia.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that is not a comfortable room for anyone to be in.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So how do we navigate these complex and very different experiences and still be able
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: to have open, curious, and kind dialogue?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Aha!
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is the central However,
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to make the argument that the solution is inherent in the art itself.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let's dig down deep into that.
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  SPEAKER_00: What do I mean by that?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Acting is the art of listening and responding from a place of truth.
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  SPEAKER_00: When we enter the rehearsal space, Yes,
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  SPEAKER_00: we've read the play,
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  SPEAKER_00: we have some thoughts,
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  SPEAKER_00: we kind of know the emotional ground that we're going to be walking on,
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  SPEAKER_00: and we volunteer for that.
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  SPEAKER_00: We volunteer for some very difficult emotional experiences.
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  SPEAKER_00: We volunteer to experience the worst and the greatest things that human beings can experience.
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  SPEAKER_00: We seem to have developed within our systems if we are rooted in our craft.
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  SPEAKER_00: We have this ability to have the emotional response but maintain part
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  SPEAKER_00: of our curiosity so that we can do the crafting part of the work.
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  SPEAKER_00: Where we can observe the language and observe all of these other things that are happening.
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  SPEAKER_00: So that we can make choices and not be so flooded and overwhelmed with emotion
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  SPEAKER_00: that we can't navigate the craft.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to suggest that we can do the same thing with difference in the space.
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  SPEAKER_00: What gets in the way of approaching those differences
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  SPEAKER_00: What gets in the way of being able to listen and respond with authenticity,
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  SPEAKER_00: both as character and as the human being who is portraying that character?
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  SPEAKER_00: What gets in the way?
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's start with expectation.
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  SPEAKER_00: Enter the rehearsal process.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know,
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  SPEAKER_00: sometimes we put this external pressure on ourselves to like be
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  SPEAKER_00: the best mother courage.
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  SPEAKER_00: We need to be the greatest Medea.
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  SPEAKER_00: We need to be,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: all of these things that we want to reach the highest heights of this expression.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we may put pressure on ourselves to be perfect in a lot of ways that search
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  SPEAKER_00: for Quote unquote perfection or toward a goal you've set before you've accepted
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  SPEAKER_00: the other bodies in the space will get in your way.
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  SPEAKER_00: A lot of the actors work,
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  SPEAKER_00: a lot of the artists work is to understand that things will change in process
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  SPEAKER_00: from what you imagined in the beginning.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is part of the excitement of the work, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: We're always excited to jump in and what does it feel like to have these experiences?
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  SPEAKER_00: What does it feel like to commit a murder?
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  SPEAKER_00: What does it feel like to lose a child?
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  SPEAKER_00: What are all these things feel like?
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  SPEAKER_00: And we can be really accepting of that as a premise and Trust ourselves to have
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: an idea of where we want to go but to accept the input of others and to learn
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  SPEAKER_00: as we go.
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  SPEAKER_00: In order to do that we have to let go of some of that expectation of perfection.
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  SPEAKER_00: Well I have observed that when we get into these spaces
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: where People are navigating race consciousness for the first time or maybe not
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: the first time but the first time with these particular people that there's
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: an expectation of goodness.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to get this right.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to do things correctly and just as having an expectation
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: of your behavior being spot on all the time can make anything that contradicts
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: that expectation a point of distress.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to do the same kind of work in accepting our colleagues that we have
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: to do in terms of accepting the surprises that come from living within
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  SPEAKER_00: the given circumstances of a play.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: We need to let go of some of that expectation of goodness or perfection
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  SPEAKER_00: or what have you so that when we are confronted with a problem or with a misstep
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: that causes friction within the group,
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: we have to be able to approach that moment With the same kind of curiosity
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: and openness that we would explore the emotional life of our characters.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's not always easy to do but we have the skill set.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's inherent in the work that we do with our characters.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's just that We don't judge the characters the way that we judge ourselves
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: when we personally make a misstep, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: A lot of the process of getting yourself to understand a character is to let go of
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  SPEAKER_00: that sense of judgment so that you can live inside their circumstances and and see
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: the world through their eyes and justify their behavior whether
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: or not we personally agree with that behavior.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Our job is to portray that behavior as truthfully as possible to respond from
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  SPEAKER_00: a place of truth and to understand
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  SPEAKER_00: without judgment why this character is doing what they're doing saying what they're
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: saying feeling what they're feeling we need
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  SPEAKER_00: to approach These interpersonal exchanges amongst our colleagues with the same kind
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  SPEAKER_00: of curiosity and self-examination.
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  SPEAKER_00: The same kind of openness.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now that means you have to let go of the idea that you're a good person.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because that's of no use to you.
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  SPEAKER_00: Just as judgment is a block between you and your character,
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  SPEAKER_00: that judgment of self is a block between you and your colleagues.
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  SPEAKER_00: So we need to work hard at not ignoring the circumstances that our colleagues come
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: to the table with.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's something that we actually do naturally.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's just for some reason,
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  SPEAKER_00: as Americans, we have so much shame built up about race and about who we are.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, especially as white people who walked through this world with
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  SPEAKER_00: a privilege they didn't quite understand,
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  SPEAKER_00: that there becomes this need for overcompensation and a discomfort
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  SPEAKER_00: in having conversation.
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  SPEAKER_00: And an assumption that you should know all the right things to do and say at all times.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that actually detracts from your ability to show up as a whole person in the space.
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  SPEAKER_00: You are not doing yourself a favor and you're not doing your colleagues any favors
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  SPEAKER_00: by pretending that you've got it covered.
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  SPEAKER_00: The second you turn off your curiosity is the second that space becomes
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  SPEAKER_00: a bit more closed and a bit more paranoid and a bit more difficult.
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  SPEAKER_00: As individuals, that is something that we need to be looking out for.
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  SPEAKER_00: We need to first take care of ourselves.
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  SPEAKER_00: We need to first show up in this space the way we want to show up.
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  SPEAKER_00: Right?
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  SPEAKER_00: We want to show up In the space so that we can be able to listen and respond with authenticity.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And
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  SPEAKER_00: that means when we do make a misstep that is an opportunity not to shut down
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  SPEAKER_00: and fall into the shame and self-judgment and defensiveness that can cause a lot
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  SPEAKER_00: of conflict.
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  SPEAKER_00: But that's a moment where you stop and you listen and respond, huh, with what?
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  SPEAKER_00: With authenticity.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because once you take in the other person's experience
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  SPEAKER_00: and you realize how they received whatever it was that you were putting out,
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  SPEAKER_00: you're going to have an honest response to that.
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  SPEAKER_00: And if you are listening empathetically,
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  SPEAKER_00: Then there is openness for you to address the situation right then and there
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  SPEAKER_00: before it escalates and before it turns into a festering wound on the production and
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: in your relationship with your colleagues.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's how we handle it on a personal level.
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  SPEAKER_00: When it comes to creating a good room, I find,
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  SPEAKER_00: as we had talked about before last week,
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  SPEAKER_00: that it is not conducive to a good working environment to make difference like
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  SPEAKER_00: the centerpiece of your room.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because the second you're highlighting difference,
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  SPEAKER_00: then once again we are now creating a space in which it is complicated and then all
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  SPEAKER_00: of a sudden you're afraid of where to step and how to speak and it starts to shut
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  SPEAKER_00: the room down.
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  SPEAKER_00: But what we can do is we can acknowledge different circumstances that are part
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  SPEAKER_00: of our existence throughout the process and we need to be able to make
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: the rooms open enough so That those different circumstances that act upon us
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: that may not be the same for anyone else we're with,
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  SPEAKER_00: if we can make this space open enough so that all of
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: that delicious experience can be present in the room,
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  SPEAKER_00: then we get to this place of acceptance and not competitive.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes it does become a,
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  SPEAKER_00: oh well,
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  SPEAKER_00: there's this trauma in the space so we're going to jump into the trauma Olympics.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's not particularly helpful either.
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  SPEAKER_00: The truth is,
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  SPEAKER_00: every room is going to be constructed differently and we don't need to reach
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: for sameness in order to find safety.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: What we need to do is to reach for self-trust
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  SPEAKER_00: and create trust amongst our colleagues because then we are in a position
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: to solve any situation that arises together.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because ultimately that's what we do when we come into
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: a rehearsal room is we're there to solve a puzzle.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're there to solve A billion little problems.
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  SPEAKER_00: Answer a billion little questions.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: One question at a time.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's important for us to accept and welcome the idea that race is a circumstance.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's part of the puzzle.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's just another piece of the puzzle.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's another wonderful thing to discover.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's a gift.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: No matter who you are.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's an absolute gift to share these experiences with one another and to share
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: the circumstances of our lives and talk about how that lens impacts
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: the story we're all trying to tell together.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really it.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: I truly believe that the answer to most of the issues that plague us inside
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: the rehearsal room is inherent in the very fact that we are there to listen
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  SPEAKER_00: and respond with authenticity.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: I hope some of that struck a chord and made sense and felt somewhat actionable.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: If not, I'll just keep talking about this.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: These are all the building blocks of the things that we need to do as artists
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: to be able to work together and make better rooms.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's it for me this week on The Imperfect Impulse.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you found this useful.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: If you did, please share, comment.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: I hope it's been helpful.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Bree O'Connor and this has been The Imperfect Impulse.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'll talk to you again next week.