Letting Go

By freddielaraThoughts

Letting Go

After getting all the preparation in order-relaxing the body, getting present to
the moment, learning the lines, internalizing my substitutions, making the
connection with my partners etc.. What then?

I remember in class once a seasoned veteran actor who had been working and
studying as an actor for decades turned and said to me (after a particularly
grueling scene I had just finished) “you’re so good Freddie , but to be great
you have to let go”.

I had no idea for years what he meant. Only after I self destructed over a
failed relationship, only after I lost everything I held dear to me and lost my
attachment to anything including my career, home, relationship, health, finances
and well, everything did I realize what he meant. Letting go onstage and in
life to any attachment of how things in any given moment “should be” is really
the only way to allow the moment to be what it is. And by the way it’s going to
be what it’s going to be anyway right? So why fight it?

By the way Being self concious means your attention is on something other than
your scene partner (other concious) which means you are absolutely not showing
up for the moment. Focusing on the preparation work means you’re not living in
the scene. Self judgement over a botched line is not being in the moment! You
do the work in rehearsal and then you get onstage and you let it go.

That’s why I tell my actors constantly to practice meditation. Meditation
teaches you to let go of the addiction we have to thinking and allows you to
just let the moment be exactly as it is. And when you allow the moments to flow
moment to moment, well, now you’re living! Now your humanity is allowed to rise
to the surface. And now we as an audience member are not just enjoying the piece
we’re watching but hopefully we are cathartically moving and healing with you.

Releasing control not only in acting but in life can be a scary place to be, I
know. But take it from someone who had to lose it all, whatever the divine
consciousness can come up with not only for each and every moment but also for
an entire lifetime is much greater than anything you and I can ever imagine.