Soo-Jin's Response to "Feel the Bend"

Affirmation

I really enjoyed the first session. It was like being taken "Behind the Scenes of Feel the Bend" while it is still being created.

I loved the Boal technique you used where we had a chance to play as "Betti" or "Jon." I'm glad you gave us the choice of playing both. I loved watching people from class tackle the issues between them. Very juicy place.

In the draft we read at the beginning of the semester, I felt engaged almost always with scenes at the beach or about the beach when Anna or Betti mentions it. I am just drawn to those scenes like the beach is a living entity. Primal and unpredictable but home to the love life of Betti and Anna.

I loved touching and feeling and smelling my private beach. I felt close to Anna when I did this even though my memories of the beach were being mixed with my knowledge of Anna from the play.

I was very nervous having to improv as Carol and Anna. Just cause I'm scared of acting on my feet. But I think I owe the nervousness in a good way to being given a challenging scenario. Carol being in the thick of knowing what's going on with Anna and her love triangle. Carol having to either be indifferent, supportive, or having a negative opinion... It challenged me to pick something and see what happens. I felt that Carol played an important role in Anna's life when I had to play best friends with her (2nd round). I felt I was in a difficult position being her closest confidante and challenging her to make a choice. I think those places are moments of interesting heat.


Questions

Just things for you to chew on and not necessarily answer point blank in your play. You may if you feel like it.

(Anna and Betti)

1. Why can't Anna lose Betti? (or what will she lose if she does)

2. Why can't Betti lose Anna? What does losing Anna mean to Betti (vice versa)?

3. Have they broken up before? If so, when and why was it initiated, who initiated it? (I'm just curious about their history)

4. In the beginning of their relationship, who pursued who?


(Anna and Jon)

1. What is something that Anna gets from Jon which she doesn't or can't get from Betti?

2. Has Jon ever broken up somebody else's relationship? Does he feel any guilt?


(Anna)

1. Does Anna secretly enjoy at all the drama she is causing by being the vortex of this love triangle?

2. What pisses Anna off the most about Betti?


(Betti)

1. How far would Betti go to keep Anna?

2. Does she know about Anna's history with her (male) lovers dying? Did she know this before they became a couple?


Opinions

During the Boal exercise, I got caught up in Betti and John's back and forth so much--in the fight for Betti--that sometimes I forgot about Betti (and why they must individually have her--i.e., the personal stakes each had in that naturally, we don't like things that belong to us stolen from us but suddenly when somebody else wants it, we want it more.) I wondered if Anna was single, would both stay crazy about her and want to keep her? Or does that rival presence make wanting to end up with Betti more delicious--following forbidden fruit is tastier notion.

As a participant, it was more about winning the competition for me. Like Betti and Jon could've been fighting over the last margarhita but having to deal with this tension, too, because they are both involved with Anna which includes underlying resentment, fear of loss, hurt, etc.

What was freeing about doing that Boal exercise and what I learned from it was that Betti and Jon seem like victims more than Anna. Others have said the opposite. Before when I was introduced to the script in its previous incarnations, I sympathized with Anna--for being stuck in between two people. That perhaps she wanted to feel alive again and these relationships with these people were tools to get that. Also, in this exercise, I saw Anna for the first time as the one responsible for the love triangle mess and Betti and Jon having to sort out the aftermath. Overall, a great exercise!

The presence of the beach makes me like Anna. In other scenes, whether they are office scenes or bedroom scenes or just home scenes, I feel like she's more passive. I am not sure what Anna specifically wants strictly from the script but in your second session with the Anna and Carol scenes, I learned Anna possibly, I mean, really fell in love with Jon. I felt this when I was doing the improv with Daniel in the first round.

For me so far, the question of the play (also, the question I am most interested in) is what does Anna want. In a way, I am OK for awhile seeing her float from one person to another. Perhaps discovering that want. But I don't get to discover with her clearly yet. If I had to make a guess at what she wants from the script, I'd say it is to be with Jon, her new love interest...only 'cause he's new not so much because he is really her cuppa tea. He still feels like a fling to Anna. Not that he's ideal fling material. I think Jon has a good heart but has had bad relationship luck.

I felt the beach was a place that belonged to Anna and Betti, not Jon. Just cause I think he'd be out of place there. (as if he is too slick for the beach) I feel like he belongs in a fancy strip mall or a BMW. Not a naked beach.

I'm curious what Anna and Betti's sexiest moment was together. I'm wondering what they're like when they're hottest for each other. I wonder what kind of circumstance or condition or ritual would flare that hotness up for them--if even for a brief moment.

One last word about the office improv between Carol and Anna. Before we did that, I would not have missed Carol if she was not in the play. Mostly 'cause Carol seemed to help set up the story--how Anna and Jon met and their office courtship...but not much more after that. However, in the improv, she definitely brought interesting tension to the world...being so different from Anna and especially when they got to talk about Anna's affair with Jon.

You guys did an awesome job and I'm looking forward to more.

Soo-Jin