be mean

 I am by nature a fairly nice person, I think.  As I've been rehearsing for this play, I've been playing my character as kind and sympathetic.  After all, one of the students in her school has died mysteriously and the mother is grieving.  However, after last Thursday's rehearsal the director told me he wanted me to play the part mean and, interestingly, all of my lines can be read as firm and even a little mean.  After our rehearsal on Sunday, when I played it his way, the director said I had improved one hundred percent.  After I left (I'm only in act one) I was  told (by my son who is in both acts) that the director, in his summing up, said I had improved 10,000 percent.  I would like to think that's a compliment but it does make me wonder how bad I was before.  He also called my character a "bee-yatch" which I have never been called before.  I have my next rehearsal tomorrow night.  Excuse me while I go practice my bitchiness.