Emotions in Acting - Part 3

I promised that I would tell how the emotions for that piece came. My teacher worked with me on this. I didn't focus on a person for this monologue. He had me pick a certain object and he had me imagine it was somebody to whom I might say these types of things. I don't drink (that wasn't real alcohol in my cup). I don't know that sensation. However, I do know what it is like to get angry at somebody for accusing me of something I did or didn't do. I do know what it is like to get angry at somebody for accusing me of a personality characteristic of mine that the person wants to change.

I ended up picking my sister.

Of course, before this, it was memorization work on the monologue. That is pretty much something that is done on your own. I may have not had the monologue perfectly down, but it was close. My teacher then had me not recite the monologue at all. Instead, I was talking to the person I imagined when picking the object on which to focus (it was a ladder that happened to be in the house of the theatre at that point - but it could have been any spot or object).

I could imagine being angry at my sister for a number of reasons. There have been many like I've not cleaned something when I've cleaned an area many times, but she thinks I've not because it is a mess because of either herself or her dogs constantly messing it up. Perhaps she thinks I don't try to find work to be able to provide when I try to find jobs and my schooling is also to help so I can find work with that.

He had me talk or yell, just off the top of my head, to these scenarios. After that, I he told me to remember those emotions, but then to go back to the monologue and use them in it. Where did the same emotions fit? Was I able to calm down after being angry? How did I sound when I did that? Where would I apply that in the monologue?

After working on that monologue, it is still one of my favorites, if not my favorite, that I know to this day.