Podcast 4 You - The Rehearsal

The hosts of Podcaster U discuss the HBO show "The Rehearsal," where ordinary people rehearse important moments in their lives. They talk about how emotions can't be fully prepared for, as seen in one participant freezing up during a confession. They also discuss the inability to predict others' behavior, as shown in Angela's rehearsal with a child actor. They mention the importance of commitment and love in the rehearsal process. They highlight the unintended consequences, such as a child actor seeing the host as a father figure. The hosts reflect on the limitations of trying to emulate someone else's life and emotions. They invite the audience to share their experiences of inadequate preparation for important moments. They also mention the upcoming second season of "The Rehearsal." Welcome to Podcaster U. My name is Michael, 2nd year Biomedical Engineering major, and I'm the host for today's show. Hi, I'm Andrew Grant, I'm a 2nd year Mechanical Engineering major. Hi, I'm Sasan, I'm a 2nd year Electrical Engineering major. And I'm Sophia, I'm a 2nd year Materials Science and Engineering major. Today we're going to be discussing the HBO original show, The Rehearsal, produced by Nathan Fielder. In The Rehearsal, Nathan Fielder allows ordinary people to prepare for life's biggest moments by rehearsing them in carefully crafted simulations. But the show is much more than that. Throughout the course of the show, Nathan prepares more than an average simulation. He nearly replicates the situation that the person rehearsing will face with a full cast of method, actors, and full-scale assets. However, despite Nathan's delicate attention to detail, he can't prepare the participants for real-life situations properly, as it's impossible to perfectly simulate real life. Since Nathan was not able to fully and completely predict the situations at hand, there were several instances where this gap caused unexpected consequences. One of the first things I noticed in the show was you can't prepare for emotions. So, the first episode started with Cor, and they extensively prepared. But when they actually got to the bar, Cor froze up. And the real reason that happened is because he had emotions. He didn't think about how he would feel in the moment, but more what he would say in the moment. And we can't really actively prepare for emotion. Right, guys? Yeah, no, I definitely think, you know, despite the flowcharts and the numerous rehearsing and having the actress pretend to be his friend who he was confessing to, I think, you know, despite having all of those things there, in the moment, he knew that he wasn't actually confessing to his friends about his secret that he was holding onto for so many years. And I really think that once he was finally in that situation, because nothing up until that point was truly real, he froze up, and he was like, oh, this is the time where I have to actually do it. There's no going back. There's every starting. You know, predicting emotions for the actor is definitely able to be replicated, but not 100%. She also did try to meet up with Tricia to see how Tricia acts to be the best actor possible for Cor. But she was only able to replicate it to a certain degree because she only saw Tricia for only a short period of time. And it wasn't the same circumstance that Cor would be representing himself to Tricia. So that would be hard to replicate as well. Another instance in the show where, like, something else was not perfected during the rehearsal was in Angela's rehearsal, where she was set up with an entire house and a kid that changes around every four hours so that she could experience the entire process of raising a child, from being an infant to getting out of the house as an adult at 18 years old. But we found out through this show that you cannot actually predict others' behavior. So Angela lacked commitment with this rehearsal and did not have this connection with the child that a mother would have, which made it even harder for her to stick and commit parts she's taken while Nathan was not around. You know, it was really interesting to see her rehearsal versus Cor's, because Cor was in it 100%. This is something he wanted to do. It was something that he's been dying to get off of his chest. But for Angela's sake, in her situation, she was having more of a, you know, all the parts of motherhood and being a parent without all the, you know, ups and downs. And, you know, she only had the highlights. She was living in her dream house. You know, she was teaching her pretend son her dream, like, curriculum and her values. And I think that, you know, that was over-glamifying what her experience was and probably why, in a way, she wasn't totally committed to it. Because for her, it was even said in the show, it was more like a vacation than it was actual parenthood. Yeah, and I really think that also kind of hits on the emotion theme. Imagine, like, babysitting someone else's kid versus watching your own kid. So the behavior you take when you babysit someone else's kid is just, you know, making sure they're okay, making sure they're taken care of, but not really going deeper, like, teaching them life lessons or wanting them to be like you. But when you have your own kid, you even see this with Nathan when he tries to teach his pretend son about Judaism. People want their kids to be like them. They want to be loved. They want to be liked. Whereas if it was someone else's kid, you might not want to go that far in connection. And I think that's really what the misconnect for Angela was. She wasn't truly emotionally connected to this kid because it really wasn't her. Adding to what Sophia and you had drew, I feel like it's definitely harder for Angela to be in this simulation because what's given, like, Dreamhouse or whatnot, like, how much does she work for to get that house? And even the surrounding or whether the vegetation or not, how much does she actually put in the effort? Because I feel like Nathan was doing more effort to keep the house sustainable and to make it look like the time has passed. And so how much was she putting in? And depending on how much she's willing to put in, like, her emotions will be different for sure. Yeah, and that's going to bring me to our next point. One of the big parts of Angela's rehearsal was can love be replicated and going into, like, you know, how much commitment you put into it, how much effort you're putting into this rehearsal. There was definitely a clear difference, like Andrew said, between Nathan and Angela. And that had unintended consequences for real life outside of the rehearsal with one of the child actors, Remy, who didn't have a father figure. And being in this rehearsal as a really, really young impressionable kid, you know, he saw this dream life with a mom and a dad. And he had those feelings towards Nathan, like, oh, well, this is my dad because he was living this rehearsal. And so, you know, one of the things you can't predict is how other people are going to react to these kind of things. With Angela's case, she wasn't as committed as Nathan thought she would be. But then he didn't think about the children who he had involved in this rehearsal and how committed they would be and how over committed to this big situation that they thought was real. Yeah, so like the emotions, or rather, you can't be in someone else's shoes no matter how much you try to be like them. It's a layered, unlaid, unlaid experience. So the things I experienced as a child affect how I respond as an adult. Just as the fact that Remy didn't have a father made him really see Nathan as a father. But Nathan, someone who grew up with a father, would never see that. So it's kind of like the part where he went to train method actors. So the farther and farther he went into one student. What was the student's name? Oh, I can't remember. Can't remember. But he constantly went deeper and deeper into one of his students' lives. And the farther he went, the farther he had to go. And he kept going deeper. But he really couldn't emulate that guy's life. Because the truth of the matter is, you can't emulate someone's emotions. You can't predict how they'll respond. Simply because you can't live someone's entire life. And your entire past affects your present. All right, well it looks like we're nearing the end today. Before we go, we invite the audience to tell us about a time where they experienced this feeling of inadequate preparation for an important moment in their lives. Whether that has to be with an audition or not. Comment below or tweet us at Podcast For You, because we want to hear your thoughts on this. Also, be on the lookout for the rehearsal season 2, which is to be releasing later this year. This has been Podcast For You, and we'll see you guys in the break rooms. . . . .