Humbled. (Pasyensiya at medyo mahaba.) This happened last month. It was my fourth straight workshop session for the day and I was damned tired. Wrong time for him to choose to act stupid in class. I already noticed his disruptive energy at an earlier exercise. He was focusing on being silly with his partner, not the work. Until he and his partner would be giggling like hysterical little pranksters. I yelled, calling his/their attention back to the task. Forcing them to be serious. For a while. For the second half of the session, they had to develop and rehearse a mini-scene that had conflict. They had to be able to do the scene over and over. And were expressly instructed that the conflict must have substance. When, it was his and his partners turn to perform, they enacted a scene involving brothers needing to badly unload in the same toilet stall. The main conflict of the scene was to be who gets to take a crap first. Brilliant, I thought to myself. Both desperately trying to be hilarious and failing, I stopped the scene. Even if annoyed at their choice, I said, Choice niyo yan, panindigan niyo. Paniwalain niyo kaming taeng-tae kayo. They started again, but nothing. Twice more, I gave them the chance to redeem themselves. But the improvisation turned to be an unending, unconvincing series of pulling at each other, yelling at each other, begging each other to be allowed to go first. With no real conviction. Obviously, they were just jerking everybody off. Thats when I really, REALLY exploded. No need to go into the details of my loud, expletives-filled sermon here. Suffice it to say that it was a tongue-lashing they will not soon forget. After the session, I threw everybody out because the next class was already waiting. I only had one session with their class. So that was supposed to be it. But flash-forward to their recital weeks later. Some groups were assigned by the main facilitator (not me) to enact a scene from the film Sa Yo Lamang, with -- dyaran! -- yours truly as guest actor, playing their father. He was in one of those groups. He will have to play my son in a heavily dramatic scene. In the scene, he will get into an argument with his siblings, get into a fist fight with a brother (none other but his partner in the toilet scene improv), end up on the floor with him, at which time I will arrive to pull him off his brother. He will not be stopped and will insist on charging at his brother, causing me to hurt him accidentally, leading to an ugly emotional confrontation. During rehearsals, he could not focus. He was singled out by the facilitators at evaluation time. He mumbled something about being nervous and blacking out. Words of encouragement came from the facilitators. But I remained silent. I was debating with myself whether I should talk to him. But the chance to do so that night was not to be. Rehearsing with another group, another young man, threw a backpack at his brother, which my face dutifully blocked, sparing the brother, but breaking the frame of my eyeglasses, drawing blood from the bridge of my nose, and bruising my eyelid. After being treated by the company nurse, I was promptly sent home. So we just had to meet each other again on stage on recital day. He really was into the role that time. After I pulled him off his brother and he was charging towards him again, he could not control his momentum, causing me to lose control of mine, and we both ended up on the floor, causing some of the audience to titter. But he persevered, he did not lose focus. Our confrontation went well. After the scene, I decided to finally talk to him. I sought him out in the dim backstage. But he saw me first. He went directly to me and gave me a big hug. And I hugged him back. Sorry po, he said. Ayos lang, I replied. At that moment, I was not sure anymore what he was exactly apologizing for. Then it was awkward between us again. Before parting, we stood there, shaking hands. Two humbled humans.
Posted on: Sat, 13 Sep 2014 12:35:55 +0000
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