Rehearsal

Yesterday I was rehearsing a play with the Filipino group I belong to (long story... I'm not Filipino. In fact, I am white. Boring and white). I basically have one really intense scene where I play the mother of this rich Filipino girl meeting her extremely poor boyfriend. She yells at me, talks back and such, and I have to slap her. Throughout the whole rehearsal process up until now, I thought we were going to do a fake slap. Today, at our first full run through, the director tells me, "No. No. It doesn't look right. I want a real one." Exsqueeze me? Baking powder? I thought she just said she wanted a real slap. So I try, but I'm going really easy on her because, you know, I don't want to get carried away by the moment and really hurt her. But the directors can tell I'm wussing out, so they keep making me do it over and over and over and I'm getting exhausted and frustrated and so finally we're in the middle of the scene and we're yelling and finally I just let one wail and completely smack her. She almost falls over and kindof tears up and immediately I feel so terribly guilty that I almost stop the scene, but she whispers "No, it's ok, keep going," so I just plow away, yelling at her. Then finally the scene's over, and everybody claps and I just burst into tears.