If Acting is All About Reacting, How Do You Do a One-Woman Show?

At first, I struggled with the idea of a one-woman show because of fear. I knew I would be the one performing the piece at the end of the day, and did I want the whole thing to land on my shoulders? As an actor, you can always blame a bad production on the writing or the directing. As a writer, you can blame the actors or the director. Being the writer, the only actor, AND the producer, who chooses the director, it all comes down to me if the show is a bust. Did I trust myself to pull it off all on my own? Also, I am someone who likes working with other people. Would I enjoy doing it all on my own? The voice in my head kept telling me not to do it and gave me every reason why it would go wrong, but isn’t that what being an artistic person is all about? Trying, failing, and working to make it better? So, in the end, I pushed through and did the thing that scared me.

As the rehearsals started, I found that what I was originally afraid of wasn’t even close to what I should have been afraid of. All of my years of acting training taught me that acting is all about listening and reacting to what the other person is giving you. How do you do that when the person you are reacting to is yourself?

During the first rehearsals, I felt very robotic. I felt as though I had planned out the exact way I was going to say things and react to them, and it felt disingenuous. I couldn’t figure out how to listen to myself to react realistically. Then I realised I needed to focus on each character specifically. I couldn’t just change their voices to differentiate them. I needed to fully develop each one with their own body language, intentions, and personalities to be able to act opposite them as someone else. For a while, I had to overact each character in a clownlike manner to feel out their skin. I was beginning to feel like I had a personality disorder, but that’s when it started to work. I could fully feel how they would react to each other and how much they would actually listen to what the other was saying. Virginia would be in her own head most of the time. Bailey would only hear what she wanted to hear. The Mother would only hear the negative. Mildred would be fully present but have to hold her tongue. Everyone fell into place and then I was able to listen and speak at the same time. It was something I never experienced before, but it was a huge learning opportunity and I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to expand my acting skills.