The Actor's Need for Praise

I haven't been able to write here for a little while because I was feeling so deeply uninspired rehearsing Tango. And then just when I had begun to resign myself to the idea that my passion for acting was inexplicably spiralling down the plughole I realised at last night's rehearsal what had been the problem. It was that I hadn't getting any praise or positive reinforcement, and my ego was slowly wasting away from lack of strokes. It was only after Marta , for the first time in 4 weeks praised my timing in a couple big scenes in Tango that I felt a surge of enthusiasm for the work returning, at least substantial enough to inspire me to want to learn my lines properly! I'd been feeling so creatively enervated these last few weeks I'd thought it was because I was 47 and tired after 30 or more years of treading the boards, that the play was crap, that I was miscast, etc... Instead it was merely my bruised and neglected ego suffering from attention deficit. Well, how shallow am I! Of course, if I think about it, I always see a massive improvement in attitude with the pupils I teach, and actors I direct, whenever I single them out for commendation, but even I, at my advanced age, with all my expereince I likewise need to feel I am worthy of some affirmation. Marta it seems is another one of those directors, like so many with whom I have worked, -especially at the Ramshorn for some reason, who simply concentrate on the folk who are falling short of the directorial vision, and who fail to reward those who are doing a good job with the praise they need to properly excel. Thank God for positive notes! I am resolved to give more positive encouragement to my students and to the cast of future productions that I am directing.