1975

‘These creepy-crawlies will companion you,
As you dig, excavating the dank gloom.’
(Your pale guide challenges you to proceed,
In your thankless, esoteric research.)
‘Say farewell to gold pavements, those great towers.
Soon to dig this well won’t be for mere gain.’
Ere long another being knits a face
From desultory photons. Behind its smile…?
A ploy! Take care! Dismiss not your birthright,
Of which the flaxen-haired boy once carolled.
(You may recall how you might be taken up
At any moment?) Yea-! Whoosh…! Into daylight,
Crashing through the refectory window
Spiralling skyward, flailing, careering,

Kaleidoscopic, exultant, redeemed…!
Sure, you could continue mining the hole;
But look how the wee flame gutters and spits.
You’ll be caught in its familiarity
With all your fusty pals chewing your scalp
Scouring the seams for now and evermore-
Grateful for scraping blindly for fossils,
Staking special immunity from rain …
But, like your comrades, set in igneous rock,
Just craving for more obdurate contact…
Meantime, on the remote surface, whirls
The carousel of evaporation…
Chit-chat, drugs, bullies' taunts, and the usual
Rejoinders to subterranean fact.

24.01.09

"What have you done? What have you done? You tit."

Max in The Homecoming (with Ronnie McCann) 2005

"What have you done? What have you done, you tit."

Having to do battle with computer gremlins yesterday, which had me crawling around the back of my computer, cursing the dust and the faulty connections and spaghetti of wires- I was getting more and more fractious and enraged. So much so I was not really considering the obvious solution of a System Restore, and instead getting more and more stubbornly committed to the idea of trying to repair stupid mistakes compounded by my own emotional response to the unrelenting logic of an inorganic, insentient machine.

Jerome in Henceforward (with Mairi Gillespie as an android housekeeper!) 1994

I suppose this irritation wasn't helped by the mounting frustration that I am having to wait in so many areas of my life. I have always hated waiting. In the past 6months I have become increasingly aware what a deeply impatient man I am. If anything this irascibility and intolerance appears to be getting even worse, not better, since I became more conscious of it! The Bible says love is kind, love is patient. I feel so unkind and impatient. I get sarcastic, truculent, even vicious whenever my patience is tested. I am even like this when it comes to looking for ways in which I might express love in action as an extension of my spiritual life! I want to arrive now! This absurd, paradoxical dilemma when seen from the perspective of my Overself, my Higher Ego is more than faintly risible. It is vital; for me to learn how to forgive myself and be more ready to laugh at the ridiculousness of this. But I am so bloody impatient in virtually every aspect of my life I frequently lose my sense of humour. A pupil in my S3 class was behaving like a eejit last week and I was incensed because he was acting up because he was bored, or didn’t understand how he was letting himself and his group down. He was laughing in my face and I ended up having to turn around and walk away in order to stop myself completely losing it. I heard him say, “You need to develop a sense of humour, man”. I thought I was going to explode!

Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings!

Austin in True West (with Robert Patterson and Sheena Penson) 1993

I am exasperated by so many things in life- by wilful ignorance, sluggishness, queues, coughing, irresponsible behaviour, being ignored, being noticed, violence, sloth, repetition, rudeness, not being listened to, being taken for granted, arrogance, immaturity, pretentiousness, competitiveness, the banal, the clichéd and the trite, the sentimental and the unnecessarily complicated, youthful vanity, stubborn age, selfishness, noise, quiet, selfishness, blind spots, the slow pace of growth, the Sisyphean nature of self-discovery… Oh so many, many things. But with the past couple of years’ meditation and self-analysis I have been afforded some long overdue insights into aspects of my nature of which I might be mortally ashamed, if it were not for God’s endless patience. In the past I could easily have blown this impatience thing out of all proportion and fully identify with these failings if I wasn’t equally aware of His forgiveness. What I'm saying is, I know now that my impatience is not the whole Me. It may pollute the shallows of my soul ocean, but the depths are mercifully uncontaminated. The Source and my Higher Self offer me with a wise perspective on my ego, its fears and failures, and also give me hope that in shining a light on these reptiles they will begin to shrivel and die. I still have to take that assurance that they will though, that they are shrivelling and dying, I mean, because at the moment, if anything, I appear more impatient, even more tetchy-with myself and others. It is due to my impatience and frustration (bred from fear of Death ultimately, the idea that time is limited, and that I am not doing enough- as if immortality might be earned by doing more stuff, better- the fear that I haven’t tried hard enough) that I will often miss out on what is really happening in life. I constantly give myself a hard time for not doing things quicker, more efficiently- possessed by the idea that everything could always be better. Spoken of like this, this is clearly a ridiculous way to approach existence, I do see that; but at the same time it has been such an unconscious habit of mine for so long that I scarcely know how to behave or think differently. And when you think about it, is it really such a bad thing? Things get done, and quickly, don’t they? Well yes, things do get done- but wouldn't they anyway? Yes, there have been some benefits- if there had not then I would have seen the foolishness of being like this long before. I have worked my ass off passing exams, perfecting my characterisations (Lear, Max, Titus, Benska, Kevin, Sammy, Sam and so many, many others have been founded on impatience and rage), working tirelessly as a director, and a teacher with unrelenting self- discipline and determination. But at what cost to my inner tranquillity and peace of mind?

Mr Crocker-Harris in The Browning Version 1997

I now find myself this rainy Sunday afternoon in January- all grey clouds and howling winds- zealous to start work on my next projects as an actor and director. But I am forced to wait. I have to wait for news of when my audition for drama school will be. I am champing at the bit to get started on work I care about, but instead I am being completely snowed under with schoolwork- reports, NABS, homework and prelims to mark, lesson plans, after-school meetings blah, blah, blah…. The school have asked me to direct a summer show (Godspell) too, but there is also my production of The House of Bernarda Alba for Giffnock Theatre Players starting in 3 weeks time- and, I hope, a role in Dario Fo’s Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! at the Ramshorn if director Maggie Lovell feels I can cram it all in with all my other commitments. I am so caught up in the frustration waiting engenders in me that I am in danger of missing out on the opportunity to properly prepare myself for the likely avalanche of work and stress all this is likely to entail. Instead I am rattling round this house this weekend, tearing my hair out, desperate to ‘be creative’ again. But today in the Quaker meeting it dawned on me that this apparently fallow period is really a heaven-sent opportunity for reconnection with my spirit, a time of inner reconstitution, for taking stock. These weeks of waiting are a spiritual test, containing a profound lesson in biding my time, rationing my energies, and calming down. But it occurred to me also that I have always tried to avoid being in the present, forever impatient to get started, to get somewhere else. Impatience is always about looking toward the future. Like a restless child on a long car journey it is constantly asking, “Are we nearly there yet? I’m bored… How much longer?” rather than simply enjoying the scenery. The boredom that child feels with what is passing him by is the best image I can think of what I have always done as a (so-called) adult; I am not really assimilating and being grateful for the fact that the journey is actually the fascinating thing, and infinitely more important and more precious than arriving at the destination. If I build up arriving in my mind so much, I will almost inevitably be let down when I do reach the final destination. And then of course there will always be something else to get impatient about. “What are we doing tomorrow, daddy? When are we going home?” I can see that if you, the reader, have a predisposition to indolence there is ostensibly much to envy in a fella like me who keeps himself so busy. But the truth is it is an addiction. You can never do enough to slake it. It’s an unappeasable, rapacious demon. And like all addictions it removes one from the richness of the present moment, reducing everything to one objective, namely getting the next fix. There is nothing romantic about this, nothing admirable. Sorry, nothing to envy here, folks. Yes, lots of stuff gets done, usually at a prodigious rate- but at the same time I am never really appreciating things as they happen. I am not stopping to smell the flowers or admire the clouds. Ever active, yes; but not fully alive. Always moving on and not allowing myself the time to reward myself by appreciating the here and now, or indeed how far I have come, or more importantly just breathing and saying “I am happy, right here and right now because I am alive.” I am rarely in the present moment. Except, that is, when I meditate. I am usually looking towards achieving something in the future. This focus means I am not fully alive. Meditation has taught me the value of being here now. I have started to appreciate how most of my life I have managed to avoid being truly connected. I live stressed out of my mind (literally); distracted, never appreciating what is really going on if I don’t take the opportunity to bring myself out of the trauma of the moment (which is really anxiety and worry about the future!) and see myself from the higher perspective of where my life really is, and what my present activity really is about within the context of my soul, the lives of others, my larger destiny, the significance of what I am doing now, its relevance to the divine will. Tearing your nerves apart is not creative.

Titus in Titus Andronicus (2000)

When God doesn’t give us stuff instantly, part of us wants to yell just hurry up and just give me it now. What we fail to appreciate is that while we wait God is actually teaching us important lessons in how to love. Because Love is patient. Sitting in the Friends’ meeting this morning, waiting for clarity, waiting for resolution, waiting for a word- it became at some point crystal clear to me- as if someone had suddenly switched a light on- that God was keeping me waiting because the waiting was itself the lesson. To wait. To be patient. To not want to hurry things through. I am dying to act again, and part of me was angry at Him for making me wait so bloody long- but from a Higher perspective it is now vital for me to acknowledge how necessary it is for me to learn patience, to appreciate the gift of acting, to enjoy just being alive, instead of simply working, working, working to avoid connecting with being alive. “Why are we waiting, why are we waiting?” …Because we are learning about the wisdom and necessity of the Discipline of Waiting, and not trying to proscribe and force the pace at which God works. In His wisdom he needs me to go deeper right now before I will be ready to take on challenges of the year ahead.

Spooner in No Man's Land (2005)

I have written a lot about love in recent posts- (Sorry to keep banging on about it!) but what the lesson is for me in this fallow period of my creative life is that the amplitude of the Love vibration needs to expand. It is not just love of character, love of the profession, love of the acting process, but love of ones’ fellow actors, ones fellow human beings, love of life, love of God in every moment- not just when you are on stage. If I can learn and appreciate this then I am going to be permitted to start work on this next phase much sooner. I have been given scraps of comfort from a number of sources in recent weeks- encouragement that I am not forgotten even though I have not done anything for a few weeks. Three people recently told me that my Lear from over 2 years ago was the best performance they’d ever seen in the theatre; Ann Marie diMambro’s kind message endorsing how moved she was by our production of her play; the review I recently stumbled across of my last performance as Stomil in Tango 7 months after the run finished. These are reminders to me that I have a place in people’s memories because of my work, and that I can afford to take some pride in the effect it has had on others- and however small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things it may be, it had at least have some value to them. I see these positive and encouraging comments as tiny karmic telegrams, saying, “Yes, you have done well; do remember that. But just hold on a bit longer; there will be more to come when you are ready to be more complete, more present, more loving, more connected, more at peace. Take this time to get some perspective on what you are doing right now, and why. What does it all mean? And what should you focus on if you are to grow in the way God wants you to grow?

Herbert in The Talented Mr Ripley (2005)

And His answer right now seems to be… Wait. That’s all: just wait...

Actor Agape

1979

...At the tender age of 18, lounging in our back garden and learning lines for a college production of Turgenev's A Month in the Country. It occurs to me just how much (-not just my physical appearance but) my methods for creating characters have changed since those embryonic days. I find the work so much easier, and it's so much more enjoyable now than it was then.

And even more so since I stumbled across Michael Chekhov. And I like to think I am better at acting too! Oh, how I used to torture myself- to the point of making myself thoroughly ill with overwork and ridiculous levels perfectionism! The afternoon my mum took this photograph I was covering my comprehensively 'Unitted & Actioned' script with a plethora of 'Given Circumstances' marginalia in different coloured felt tips! God!


Yes, the work was all about the Stanislavski system then. Now 30 years on, having come through so many different phases as an artist, my preferred method is a mishmash of so many different influences and I suppose it has eventually evolved into a combination of my own creative imagination, the psychophysical ideas of Michael Chekhov with a healthy dose of the purely instinctive. Still a lot of studying and armchair work of course but nowhere near as intellectual.

And hopefully nowhere near as ego-driven either!

Acting has always been an incredibly potent, and intimate tool for my personal and spiritual growth from the very moment I first discovered I actually had some talent for it at 16. In fact I have often said that for me acting is a form of prayer. It is certainly about faith- a very practical faith, to do with the manifestating and embodiment of the ineffable. There have been long periods where acting has been more important to me than literally anything else; but as I got older, slightly wiser and hopefully better as an artist, my work slowly took on a healthier objectivity. Still impassioned, yes- but much less obsessive. I definitely feel my life now has a larger purpose than acting. Acting is a means, a very imporatnt means but no longer the be all and end all. Directing and writing have both helped me to achieve this perspective of course, but more importantly Life itself, and the lessons of relationships.

But perhaps more than any other single thing it was rediscovering the spiritual ideas from theosophy that were woven into the creative philosophy and exercises in Michael Chekhov's To the Actor 8 years ago that was the major turning point for me. I remember first reading Rudolf Steiner's Knowledge of Higher Worlds in Sutton library in 1976 or 77 and somehow sensing even then that if I had the brains to fully assimilate and comprehend the ideas contained in the book then they might well be adapted for use by the actor. What put me off at the time was all the Eurythmy, Hindu and Buddhist 'guff'. Everything I read was about acting then, including Nietzsche, Fromm, Dickens etc, and all the Romantic poetry I devoured. But I simply wasn't ready to fully grasp Steiner's occultist notions of the Higher I at the age of 17. They scared me a bit at the time, if I'm honest. So you might imagine just what an amazing synchronicity it was to realise many, many years later that the same book had been such a huge influence on Misha's life and work- especially the concept of the Higher I as the actor's inner creative treasure. I get what Steiner was going on about now, and am overwhelmed with gratitude for Chekhov making it relevant to my own artistic process and spiritual work.

I hope I am a better person than I was when this photo was taken. My obsession with acting for many years caused so many problems and much unnecessary confusion in my relationships with directors and fellow profesionals. I suppose I became what's known politely as "a difficult actor". A bloody good one, but difficult. I am sure my manner put people off working with me. Somehow I had programmed myself to believe that if I really cared about the work I wouldn't let anything stand in its way. I had to focus soley on that. I couldn't allow myself to get close others, especially to my fellow artists. It was more important to me to keep my distance from others and keep my head down. To stay lonely. I couldn't allow myself to be put into situations where I was somehow inauthentic, sentimental or weak. It took me until I was nearly 40 to finally grasp that perhaps the main reason I had never really had the recognition I felt I deserved as an actor- while many who were often far less talented but ultimately much nicer, kinder and more approachable colleagues had ended up doing so much better than I-was because (not to put too fine a point on it) I was a withdrawn, impatient, egoistic passive-aggressive, taciturn arsehole. Chekhov's book revealed to me that the reasons for my deep inner restlessness about my work, my sense of creative isolation which I had hitherto thought was an unfortunate byproduct of my 'genius' (ha!), were because I had forgotten the most important thing- namely Love. I had always stupidly dismissed it as an irrelevance,- impractical. I had taught myself to be cynical and closed off.

with Ann McTaggart, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (2004)

I have since become a bit of an evangelist for this "Love thing", and quite unabashed in my conviction that it must be Love that lies at the very heart of the artist's process, at least if he is going to work at the very highest level.


It is vital for the artist to be honest and authentic in life, but that does not mean being selfish or cruel. It is also vital to be committed and focused, but not competitive or offhand- working with such a focus that it is at the expense of one's relationships with one's fellow artists.


Kindness and compassion must come first.


You have given all of your adult life to the theatre. Pathetic, but it was always becuase of love. The love of the process of acting. But the larger reason for this devotion to acting is finally nothing to do with gaining recognition or power. It is about exploring and communicating the practicality of a belief in the power of inner and outer transformation of the actor and the spectator in the Eternal Present where Love lives.


As I embark on this new year of 2009 these are some of the thoughts that are buzzing round my head. Many others are unborn right now, and difficult to articulate. But I do sense very strongly that my soul is undergoing realignment to experience amazing encounters and deeper, more spiritually challenging work in this new era of my life.

And all I want to say is... BRING IT ON!

:-))

A loving , peaceful new year to all.

with Eric Robertson in Tango (2008)