Undergraduate / A story about my experience with the Meisner Technique/NYU Film Essay [4]

Personal Story:

Describe an actual event in your life and how it changed you or someone close to you. This event can be dramatic and/or comedic, major or minor. Please do not write about why or what lead you to pursue a degree in film and television production. Ultimately we are looking for evidence of your potential as a storyteller. The personal story should not exceed 4 double-spaced pages.

I stand at the F stop platform in the Lower East Side, awaiting my subways arrival. A homeless man asks for change and I pretend not to notice him, as a Mac Demarco song plays softly through my headphones. I try and block out the dirty subway floors and crowds of people. The train flies by, it's crammed with the usual commuters. I step onto the small space remaining and look around to observe the strangers that surround me. A young woman sits below me absorbed in a game of candy crush. A tall, middle aged man with a solemn expression across his face stands next to me, a briefcase in hand. I divert my attention back to the steady beat of the song, humming along.

I arrive at my stop and begin to walk my familiar route, hardly noticing anyone else. It's almost as if I'm sleepwalking through the city, lost in my own thoughts and fantasies. I arrive at my class room at 8:59 A.M., panting heavily from the four floors of stairs I had to climb. The classroom has large windows that face an office building across the street, and the morning light stream from them, hitting a couple chairs in the back row. Eyeing them, I walk through some of the other, more focused students, who stand scattered across the room doing breathing exercises and awkward stretches. I sit down in one of the metal fold out chairs., and begin to take off the layers I had piled on that morning, but am interrupted by a familiar voice. It's Mecca, one of my close friends, and I shift my legs to the side so that she can sit in the chair next to me. We talk to one another for a bit until our teacher, Amy, walks confidently into the classroom. Amy is short and spunky, and has the energy of a teenager. She sits down in a luxurious swiveling office chair a couple seats away from us. "Hey girls!" She said with a look of excitement across her face. "Hi!" Mecca and I said simultaneously, both trying to meet her level of enthusiasm. "You guys ready for today?" Before we had time to answer, a loud voice comes from behind us. "Yeah!" It's Austin, a boy in our class, who has a tendency to be loud. Me and Mecca exchange a look of annoyance. Amy, looking pleased by this offers Austin the opportunity to go first. I can feel myself inwardly sink, as Austin is my partner, and I have always been reluctant to be one of the first to go. Austin was the type of person who loved to go first, and this was no exception, as he jolts himself up out of his seat and walks to the front of the class. He's wearing his signature pair of grey baggy sweatpants with sneakers that seem to be twice his size. Mecca, pats me on the shoulder, wishing me good luck. I get up and walk to the front, positioning myself about ten feet away from him. He immediately shifts his dangly body straight towards me. Hands remaining by his side, his fingers slightly fidgeting. I try to stay relatively still, although the familiar silence that fell over the room made it difficult. I closed my eyes, a tactic Amy swears by before any repetition exercise. My thoughts dart back and forth, my heart, all of a sudden begins to beat out of my chest. Ideas flood in of what to say, and I try to let them pass.

I open my eyes, Austin is staring back at me, with a look of unease that makes me feel tense. "You're making me feel tense." The words come out of my mouth without any thought, and I can feel a surge of confidence, for having started the repetition with so much ease. He retorted quickly, with a look of confusion. "I'm making you feel tense?" Feeling defensive, I reply a little aggresively. "Yeah! You're making me feel tense." My annoyance must come across, as his reaction seems to pick up an edge of anger. We go back and forth a few times with this, the emotion seeming to steadily increase each time. Suddenly, he blurts out: "God, you're so fucking infuriating!" I'm taken aback, and tell him he is equally as infuriating. He laughed, and insulted me again. I curse at him, but he seems unaffected. I want to strangle him. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" A few snickers from some of the students broke the silence, and Amy shushed them emphatically. His face begin to burn a bright red, which I at first interpret as embarrassment, but then became quickly aware that it's anger. His fists clench up and he seems to be boiling over with rage. I, for the first time, feel a legitimate fear for my own safety. Suddenly, he comes charging towards me, his arms thrusting behind him. I instinctively shield my hands above my head. I feel Amy's small body, as she plunges between the two of us before Austin could do anything. She pushes him back, and, to my surprise, sits back down in silence, signaling for us to continue on. Austin appears shaken up by his own violent instincts, and stares at me with a look of fear. I can feel the tears begin to well up, as I must work effortfully to hold them back. The harder I try, the stronger they become. Then, as I felt I couldn't hold them back any longer, I let out a loud cry, and I feel the small, warm droplets begin to pour out over my cheeks. The room has fallen silent, except for my heavy breathing, and the occasional squeaking of chairs reminding me of the sixteen other students that sat watching. As suddenly as my tears had erupted, they stop.

Austin looks up from the ground and directly at me, "I'm- I'm sorry." His squeaky voice appears weak, and drained of the confidence he had seemed to wear so well just minutes ago. His eyes seem sad, and I suddenly felt the desire to comfort him, and explain I hadn't meant what I said, but I had no words. "I'm sorry" I repeated after him. I could see the tears wielding up in his eyes, as he wiped them with the back of his hand. I had never seen him this vulnerable, and I felt that finally I had seen the real Austin, a sensitive, fragile, boy who was much like myself. It was as if all this time we had been pretending to be these other people, but that really, we were one in the same. How funny it was that I had ever thought I was so much better! I let out an unexpected laugh and Austin immediately recoils in fear. "I'm not laughing at you!" I exclaim. He relaxes, and looks timidly back at me. He repeats: "I'm not laughing at you", chuckling a little, after saying this. "Ok!" Amy's sharp voice brings the repetition to a finish.

The two hours of class went by in a daze, as I still felt deeply impacted by the events of that morning. After leaving class, I felt a sense of bareness walking through the city streets. Instead of putting in my headphones, I listened to the noise of the world around me. As I descended into the subway station, I felt a strange sense of communion with the strangers that awaited the trains arrival. A gruff older man sat opposite from me, reading a book. His lips curled up in a smile as he flipped page through page. A mother tried to soothe her child as he sat on her lap, is mouth a gap, wailing loudly. The usual disinterest, even sometimes disdain for them had completely vanished. It's it place I felt a tenderness, as I saw my preconceptions of who they were, and my judgements and labels had fallen away and underneath sat this inexplicable sense that we were one in the same.