From Kevin Spacey - "Let O'Neill Carry You."

"By yielding you may obtain victory" Ovid

You need free flowing emotion to play O'Neill. That said, emotion, like a cat, seems to come when you don't call rather when you do. So what do you to summon it?

You try to establish flow and then, as Kevin Spacey said to me, "let O'Neill carry you."

Here are some thoughts from our Independent Artists and my response to them all related to the battle for flow.

MICHEAL
"...I constantly feel great energy on stage that I somehow can't release or don't know what to do with.

However, when I worked I was not thinking about the upcoming moments and just trying to deal with what I had and also to not tense up.

It created a natural flow of energy that was terrifying and very real to be in. This made it alive for me, and surprising for me…because I was actually there”

Micheal, this is exactly the problem I had when I was working with Mr. Meisner. I wanted to explode. Hell, for me that was the whole point of acting. It wasn’t until I learned to leave myself alone that I began to understand how to use myself in my work.

LYNN
It was a great session last week. With Michael it was like a wall was broken down.

I feel myself being able to go bigger in my work, and feel the space that is there for me on stage."
Since you are getting ready to begin work on O’Neill’s Anna Christie, I think you’ll see that the freedom that is creeping in your work a new is essential to beginning work on his plays. With it comes freer flow of emotion.

DANIELLE
I am very much someone who likes to have control of the situation- not sure of why I chose a career in acting ha-ha- but when you do take your moment, take a deep breath, and start to speak- you would think you could have a little taste of it...

..but for me that is usually when the doubt creeps in the "resistance" - for me it takes form in tightness in my jaw- and the "runaway monologue syndrome".

Try to not tighten when you feel the grip start to close. Slow down the runaway train, take a searching breath and you'll begin to restore the flow. You'll find that the negotiation with tension becomes more and more managable and the flow enjoyable, even in O'Neill's darkest material.

Once the flow is restored, O'Neill will carry you.