I had a really good play rehearsal last night. It was just the director, the stage manager, the assistant stage manager, the actress playing "Lil' Bit" (my partner for much of the play) and me. We worked on only two scenes but it was so beneficial because we took our time, broke things down and had a good time doing it. We were dealing with some pretty heavy issues but overall, the mood of the evening was light and enjoyable. The mood certainly helped the dynamic between us all.

The bits of levity in the evening reminded me that having a light tone, when working on emotional and serious material, is so important. You have to have a release for all the heavy emotions you're dealing with.

I recalled working on a scene from Sophie's Choice in an acting class several years ago. My scene partner and I didn't know each other very well and it was a particularly gut-wrenching scene. She talked about being sent to a concentration camp, hiding a ham and the choice she'd been forced to make; which of her two young children would live and which would be killed by a Nazi.

We worked on the scene a lot and were doing okay. But at some point, we started to joke about the whole importance of the ham to the scene. We made it all about the ham and at times went into fits of uncontrollable laughter. Though our humor wasn't appreciated by many (my wife and acting teacher included), when it came time to perform the scene, I think we did quite well with it. Helped in large part by our humor release and irreverant rehearsals.

When I arrived home, I checked the PBS Charlie Rose interview of actress Charlize Theron that I'd just recorded. (She looked stunning and this photo doesn't do her justice.) In the interview, she touched on the same subject I'd been thinking about. Were Charlize and I on the same "wavelength" last night? Hard to say but it's a nice coincidence just the same. You've heard my story, here's what she had to say:

"It's weird to talk about it because it's one of those things that you have to kind of be there to understand. North Country and Monster were very dramatic; very, very, serious stories.

Yet, the set becomes incredibly fun because it's a way to protect yourself. If you stay in that place all the time, you will kill yourself. I really, truly believe that. And I know that humor is the way to let those things not affect you. You let them affect you when you're working and then you have to break out of them."

Thank goodness for humor. Seriously. I was stuck in a "bad" mood from a character I played about a month ago. I was laughing and having fun with it on the set, but it did affect me deeply. Had I not the humor to rely on, who knows what kind of a mess I'd be. ;o)

I'm glad to hear that rehearsals went well.