I get asked this question, or a variation of it often. "How ya doing?" "How's it going?"
Basically it's the same question. I recognize this as a greeting...a way of opening up a dialogue as I load my groceries onto the conveyer belt at the QFC. I do not look at this as an opportunity to engage this person with an in depth discussion about how I am actually feeling at that moment. My feelings are irrelevant to the transaction that is about to take place so I usually answer cursorily. "Good," I say.
If I am feeling particularly verbose or I'm trying to show off I may say, "I am doing well, thank you."
One of the things I love about doing theater is that it asks of us...requires us to answer that question and to explore our emotions be it on stage or in the audience. Theater makes us think and delve into what makes us "feel."
Being a kid that grew up in the 70's I had a particular advantage to delving into my feelings. My mom bought me this album. For those of you who don't know what an album is (there might be some who don't.) Voila.
Here's the wikipedia page explaining what it was all about.
Free To Be You And Me
And this was a record player. There were many different styles of record players. Some were spectacular. Being a child, mine was modest. This one is similar.
Still though, it was magic to me. This is how we entertained ourselves in the 1970's...that and playing cards, Monopoly, The Game of Life and Clue.
So, the point is, I was given 'Free To Be You And Me' and listened to it frequently.
Here is a video of my favorite song called "It's Alright To Cry." I never saw this video as a child but it's pretty much exactly how I envisioned it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y52bs0aX6v8
The 70's were awesomely weird. If you didn't live through them you can hardly imagine it.
Anyway, as I spend more and more time in this body of mine, I figure it out little bit better. To some degree, that goes the same way with my emotions. I am getting to the place in my career where acting is about understanding my own feelings, my own emotions better, and having a better understanding of myself allows me to layer those emotions into a performance and have it be real, or at least have it feel real to me. The more I understand the circumstances of the character I am playing the better. So I dig into the text and I think about the backstory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backstory
Incidentally, I learned about characters and backstory not from theater but from role-playing games.
BUT, through experiences only living life can teach you I'm more...informed with myself and how emotions impact me and that is invaluable.
Recently, I had the privileged yet daunting task of delving into Henry Higgins from My Fair Lady.
Here I am performing "Accustomed to Her Face."
https://soundcloud.com/gregstone/accustomed-to-her-face-from-my
It was...well...emotional.
Sometimes having the courage to share is the hardest part.
Luckily, for me, my Mom bought me an album where my favorite song was "It's Alright to Cry."
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