SHOULDA COULDA WOULDA

Sébastien Cimpaye

Nostalghia coats memories with deceptive softness, especially when one is writing in the winter.
Nonetheless, I believe that the experience I had of participating in a scene at Chloe’s side was a
genuinely positive one. I hold this thought as nearing objective truth since the positivity I derive
from it is not inherent to perceived success but to knowing I have learned something.

A great part of what I learned this semester, I learned from Chloe who has forever been
cemented in my brain as a prime example of how a great, supportive scene partner and actor
can carry themselves. By way of her behavior, she confirmed to me that being helpful to a fellow
actor lies mostly in one’s self discipline during rehearsal and in having prepared oneself
(knowing the text, remembering intentions, etc) for the day of work to come. She also
exemplified what it could mean to persistently challenge oneself throughout a work process and
the great humility and abnegation which that entails.

It is in thinking of Chloe’s endless ability to challenge herself that I discovered the ideas which
will be described throughout the rest of this reflection. In order to learn something in a practical
sense, it is necessary to have made a mistake, partly failed or failed completely at something
beforehand and thus understand how one should approach a similar exercise in the future. As I
reflect on the scene Chloe and I partook in, I am struck with the bittersweet feeling that I only
managed to understand what I could have done to help better my characterisation of Jacob (and
therefore give Chloe more to play with) in the moments which followed our final presentation. I
realised in a flash as I was walking away from class that had I challenged my usual way of work,
I might have been able to embody Jacob Mercer to a greater extent than I did.

The ways in which I approached working on this scene were quartered between practicing alone
with Chloe outside of class, performing the scene with Chloe in front of fellow acting students
also outside of class, working on the scene with Chloe during workshops and reviewing all of
which we had acquired through the three previous methods of work while practicing alone.

During the rehearsals which we held privately, Chloe and I focused mostly on running the scene
from beginning to end, usually with full staging but occasionally focusing only on dialogue. This
methodology succeeded in embedding the scene’s text and our loose staging of it within our
subconscious. Each time we finished going through the scene, we spoke very succinctly about
what we had felt while acting it. Once we had both voiced our thoughts, we went through the
scene again and again and again….till one of us had to leave. From August to December, I am
almost certain that I spoke more memorised text to Chloe than I did sentences of my own
invention. In retrospect, considering the amount of time we were able to share practicing
together, I realise we could have afforded to allot a more significant portion of it to discussion.
As previously mentioned, I was only able to take stock of this once we had completed our final
presentation. Guilty feelings aside, it strikes me as funny that two french speakers stayed quasi-
dogmatically faithful to the literal meaning of répétition during the entirety of their rehearsal
process.

During the rehearsals which we held in front of fellow ensemble members outside of regular
classes, Chloe and I would watch our colleagues present their scenes to us and then perform
ours to them from beginning to end much as we would have done during our private rehearsals.
These rarer events allowed us to understand how our behavior changed when we knew an
audience was watching us and to appreciate how different actors would own the space and
engage us while presenting their scene. Through watching these mock presentations, I came to
an understanding that the best thing I could do to take our scene forward was to shift the
entirety of my focus towards Chloe for the entirety of Jacob and Mary’s exchanges. Although
this notion came from a genuine place of care for the scene, I have come to the realization that
my overreliance on it led me to overlook other techniques which could have aided me to make
my characterisation of Jacob more precise.

During both of our workshops, I applied the principle of focusing solely on receiving Chloe’s
intentions and reacting genuinely to them. I committed the mistake of using every exercise we
lended ourselves to throughout these workshops as vessels by way of which to apply the
aforementioned principle I had learned instead of using them to discover new principles I could
apply to our subsequent rehearsals or performances. It was only after our final presentation that
I understood I had not profited from the workshops as I should have. I became aware that the
information I had amassed in my very own acting journals pertaining to the nature and meaning
of each exercise we partook in during said workshops should not have been considered as
ways in which to support the principle I had first discovered but as ways in which to create a
convincing characterization of Jacob to which Chloe could react to!

During the time which I allotted to practicing alone I fell into a mix of all the traps I had fallen into
previously. My goal when engaging in these solitary practice sessions was to maintain what I
had practiced with Chloe earlier. I would review our dialogue and blocking repeatedly while
exploring different intentions and tactics Jacob could utilize when addressing Mary. Once our
first presentation had passed, I added the reading aloud of works of anglophone literature to my
practice roster in order to loosen my speech. After our final presentation, I was struck by the fact
that this way of rehearsing was extremely similar to that which I utilized while practicing with
Chloe. I could have made better use of the time I spent alone by exploring ways to physicalize
Jacob’s coarseness through animal work or greater research on how to manipulate ship riggings
and the like.

I have finally become cognizant of the fact that my fiercest acting enemies are Habit and Ritual.
I began working on a project in a certain way…and did not seriously put my methodology into
question until said project was over. Had I engaged in as meaningful a reflection as I have now
after our first presentation, I might have altered my habits and had a greater chance of gracing
Chloe with a better layered and believable portrayal of Jacob by the time of our final
presentation!
Having dismembered my rehearsal process and recognized its goods and its evils, I sincerely
feel better equipped and look forward to attempting a two-hander scene in the future. I will know
to treat acting as a science (culture of doubt) rather than a religion (culture of faith).

Thank you for everything!