Nae Pressure Then...?

As Larry (with Susan Worsfold as Alice) in Patrick Marber's Closer (2002)

Those of you who are also followers of my Facebook page will already know that tomorrow is- not to put too fine a point on it- one of the most important days of my life. At the grand old age of 48 I'm auditioning for drama school. After 30 odd years of treading the boards I guess I am probably just about as prepared as I can possibly be, and all that remains is for me to get a good night's sleep, stay cool, calm and collected, taking everything in my stride and simply enjoy the experience. There's no point caring about the outcome as I won't know for another 4 months if I'm successful. I simply plan to be myself and to answer their questions as honestly and as calmly as I can. At least I'm likely to know one, perhaps even two of the people sitting on the audition panel- Maggie Kinloch whom I've auditioned for once before (I seem to remember she offered me the job even though I ended up being too busy to do it) when she was Artistic Director at the Byre in St Andrews; or Hugh Hodgart who enjoyed my production of A Hard Heart two or three years ago and with whom I spoke at Howard Barker's lecture last year; and perhaps one of my good pals Bill Wright or Jill Ridderford.

Taking my new acting coach friend Mark Westbrook's advice I intend to do my audition pieces with Michael Chekhov's feeling of ease. Last night I performed my speeches for some of the cast of The House of Bernarda Alba who mostly know me only as a director of course, but they were falling about when I did my Teddy, and were in raptures afterwards over my Prospero speech. :-) That really boosted my self-confidence. I've been receiving many good luck messages this past week from friends, family and colleagues. Many have said I shouldn't be a student at the Academy but teaching there, but it's a moot point.

I know I have the chops.

I know I have the talent.

I know I have the experience.

I even bought a lovely new pink shirt...

What more could the bastards possibly require of me?

We'll just have to wait and see...

12th March 2009, 13.55

The date and time of my audition for RSAMD.

I was never any good at keeping secrets about myself, even though in this case it might be more politic to keep shtum and so avoid the embarrassment afterwards of having to tell everyone I didn't get in. But that's me.

It'll be a very important day; not just because a part of me still craves endorsement and validation (I fervently pray I was more secure and confident about what I do), but because I have for all my adult life harboured ambitions of receiving formal practical training. My untutored talents, such as they are, deserve critical attention and proper training. Looking to the Academy for these things- especially at my age and CV- is a bit pathetic, a measure of my neediness perhaps, but that's what crave. I can't deny it. My confidence has always been low (It's been VERY low of late.) I feel neglected-stuck and left behind somehow. I want to prove to myself and the rest of the world that I and my gfts are worthy of attention.

I really need to get my head sorted, and stop beating myself up for all my failings- both real and imagined.

So why Drama School...?

Bernada continues to go well. We finished blocking Act I this afternoon, and we have already made some deep inroads into investigation of character, relationships, themes and motivation, etc. It’s fun and exciting. The cast feel galvanised and challenged, and so do I. :-)

I attended the Bothy yesterday which was being led by guest Mark Westbrook an Glasgow-based acting coach. I had an interesting and stimulating chat with him in the bar afterward about Practical Aesthetics, the acting technique developed by David Mamet and William H. Macy. I liked him and have signed up for an hour’s audition coaching with him on Tuesday afternoon. He seemed to have heard all about my work from a number of sources, although I was too afraid to ask who from and what they'd said! While speaking to him Mark brought up a question I've already been asked a number of times by friends, actors and directors. I sense it would please #Mark to know he provioked me to formulate a full respi#onse to the question.
What follows is an attempt to articulate an answer to that dreaded question, one that is more than likely to come up at the RSAMD interview itself:
i.e.
“Why drama school?” – the subtext probably being “Why bother, when you already have so much experience?”

Well here goes...


I have four headings.

• Spiritual
• Career
• Education

and

• Substantiation
  
  1. Spiritual. This is my main reason for doing the course. I am steeling myself to admit as much in the audition interview because it goes to the heart of who I am and who I want to be. Over the last few years I have grown increasingly drawn to the spiritual dynamic inherent in the actor’s process, and the remarkable parallels that appear to exist between mysticism and the actor’s process. For instance Michael Chekhov’s revolutionary inspiring concept of the Higher Ego, borrowed wholesale from Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophist ideas, but applied to the question of what best facilitates the actor’s transformation during the characterisation process has been a real ‘eye-opener’ for me*. By studying the MA at the Academy I gain the breathing space and freedom to experiment and explore further the ways and means in which I can communicate and embody the ineffable through practical and practicable techniques. And I can explore the processes involved in of making the invisible forces of love into manifest and tangible manifestations without the imperative of entertaining others, or earning a living through my acting. I am not interested in religious agit-prop, or message-driven theatre. At the risk of sounding self-involved this is about the process, and it is about me. And it is about serving my understanding of what God’s purpose is for me. Then turning that into empowering myself as an artist. My new-found Quakerism incites me to live my life ‘adventurously’. I am auditioning for this course because it is a risky thing to do, and I know that if I am accepted it is going to stretch me. I want to know and discover more and I no longer believe I can continue to do this as well as might in the context of rehearsing productions. I have been doing that for thirty years and now I have reached an impasse because I am not being taught what I need to know through doing. I need space to think, to research and experiment- putting that at the top of my agenda, rather than striving for results that I don’t believe in or have little understanding of. And I am going to have fun devoting myself entirely to growing as an actor. It may be counter-intuitive, even foolhardy (the financial implications alone tell me this). But where common sense says “No”, my heart and my soul say “Yes”. It’s been an ambition of mine since I was teenager to go to drama school, and I would regret it deeply if I didn’t manage to achieve that before I’m 50. I risk much talking about God and spirituality in the interview, but not to do so would be inauthentic and fall far short of my main reason for doing this course. This is a commitment to achieving a complete coherence with what I believe and say, and what I do in my life. This is about becoming accountable.
  
  Ultimately I have an obligation to honour the talent God blessed me with, This necessarily involves developing my gifts to their optimum potential. I deserve to study the craft at a centre of excellence.
  
  
  Career. The opportunity to gain a recognised and accredited qualification from the Academy and be seen by agents, directors, casting people and producers is an obvious draw for me. I hope to return to professional acting, but having devoted myself to teaching, directing and performing in amateur theatre and profit-share for most of the last decade I feel that the course would give me the platform to re-launch myself back onto the market, and be taken seriously. I am tired of the barely concealed sneers that greet my confession that I am untrained. There are plenty of trained actors out there who feel my lack of training gives them license to patronise me and sneer, when in fact I have more talent in my little finger than they ever will.
  
  Education. To become the best artist and practitioner I can be. Some may question whether the Academy is the best place to learn this, and if I am honest I would prefer to get Chekhov training in America. But the chance to experience first-hand some of the techniques of acting that I have little or no knowledge of, except in an academic context, i.e. from books is a huge attraction for me. The art of acting has fascinated me for well over 30 years. I have worked with many really shit directors, but very few shit-hot ones. Most of them are insipid and unimaginative. But even when they do claim to have a vision, not one of them has the least obligation to teach me anything, nor to facilitate my process or nourish my technique. They are focused on achieving results and show little interest in how those results are achieved. I am repeatedly cast on the basis that I already know what I am doing, and then I am usually left to find my own way. All my knowledge and skills have been drawn from my voracious reading of acting books and maybe the odd workshop. I now want hands on specific help identifying and then removing my habits and weaknesses as an actor.
  
  Substantiation that I am not deluding myself like some crazy X Factor contestant. I want to know I am a talented actor. Passing the audition would verify that. But more than this I long to prove to myself, the industry and the world that I am not just another dilettante- a part-timer, another ego-driven ‘am-dram’ dabbler, but a committed artist who is more than willing to sacrifice a year of his life to hone his craft. I am already a very good actor. I want to be a substantially better one.
  
  It might well be said I could obtain these things without forking out £9000 on course fees, or by delaying my career re-launch by a year. I could just spend the money on new 10 by 8s, a decent DVD show reel and some good clothes. But I need to be ready inside before I start adding the finishing, outer touches to what I hope to become. As Meister Eckhart said, “The outer work will never be puny if the inward work is great.” It will be puny if I shirk that work. Yes it’s expensive, but I can’t see me getting what this course is offering me anywhere else at a cheaper price. What I will get out of it is the priceless gift of time usefully dedicated to the refinement of my body, mind, soul and spirit in preparation for service to my art. (Wanky as that sounds)
  I need to find a way of saying all this succinctly in less than 90secs, and hopefully avoid leaving the panel with the impression I am just a sad, confused, old nutter.

Clearly I still have some more thinking to do. But there is time. I still haven't been given an audition date.

* Pun intended!

14 favourites from Spoon River

Over the last ten years I have admired and grown to love the exquisite Edgar Lee Master's Spoon River Anthology (1915). Every time I go back to it I say to myself, "Wouldn't these make wonderful audition monologues?"

Well, here are some of the front-runners I am considering using for my RSAMD audition...


Edmund Pollard

I WOULD I had thrust my hands of flesh

Into the disk-flowers bee-infested,

Into the mirror-like core of fire

Of the light of life, the sun of delight.

For what are anthers worth or petals

Or halo-rays? Mockeries, shadows

Of the heart of the flower, the central flame!

All is yours, young passer-by;

Enter the banquet room with the thought;

Don’t sidle in as if you were doubtful

Whether you’re welcome—the feast is yours!

Nor take but a little, refusing more

With a bashful “Thank you,” when you’re hungry.

Is your soul alive? Then let it feed!

Leave no balconies where you can climb;

Nor milk-white bosoms where you can rest;

Nor golden heads with pillows to share;

Nor wine cups while the wine is sweet;

Nor ecstasies of body or soul,

You will die, no doubt, but die while living

In depths of azure, rapt and mated,

Kissing the queen-bee, Life!


Dippold the Optician

WHAT do you see now?

Globes of red, yellow, purple.

Just a moment! And now?

My father and mother and sisters.

Yes! And now?

Knights at arms, beautiful women, kind faces.

Try this.

A field of grain—a city.

Very good! And now?

A young woman with angels bending over her.

A heavier lens! And now?

Many women with bright eyes and open lips.

Try this.

Just a goblet on a table.

Oh I see! Try this lens!

Just an open space—I see nothing in particular.

Well, now!

Pine trees, a lake, a summer sky.

That’s better. And now?

A book.

Read a page for me.

I can’t. My eyes are carried beyond the page.

Try this lens.

Depths of air.

Excellent! And now?

Light, just light, making everything below it a toy world.

Very well, we’ll make the glasses accordingly

Faith Matheny

AT first you will know not what they mean,

And you may never know,

And we may never tell you:—

These sudden flashes in your soul,

Like lambent lightning on snowy clouds

At midnight when the moon is full.

They come in solitude, or perhaps

You sit with your friend, and all at once

A silence falls on speech, and his eyes

Without a flicker glow at you:—

You two have seen the secret together,

He sees it in you, and you in him.

And there you sit thrilling lest the Mystery

Stand before you and strike you dead

With a splendor like the sun’s.

Be brave, all souls who have such visions!

As your body’s alive as mine is dead,

You’re catching a little whiff of the ether

Reserved for God Himself


John Ballard

IN the lust of my strength

I cursed God, but he paid no attention to me:

I might as well have cursed the stars.

In my last sickness I was in agony, but I was resolute

And I cursed God for my suffering;

Still He paid no attention to me;

He left me alone, as He had always done.

I might as well have cursed the Presbyterian steeple.

Then, as I grew weaker, a terror came over me:

Perhaps I had alienated God by cursing him.

One day Lydia Humphrey brought me a bouquet

And it occurred to me to try to make friends with God,

So I tried to make friends with Him;

But I might as well have tried to make friends with the bouquet.

Now I was very close to the secret,

For I really could make friends with the bouquet

By holding close to me the love in me for the bouquet

And so I was creeping upon the secret, but—



Jonathan Swift Somers


AFTER you have enriched your soul

To the highest point,

With books, thought, suffering, the understanding of many personalities,

The power to interpret glances, silences,

The pauses in momentous transformations,

The genius of divination and prophecy;

So that you feel able at times to hold the world

In the hollow of your hand;

Then, if, by the crowding of so many powers

Into the compass of your soul,

Your soul takes fire,

And in the conflagration of your soul

The evil of the world is lighted up and made clear—

Be thankful if in that hour of supreme vision

Life does not fiddle.



Ernest Hyde

MY mind was a mirror:

It saw what it saw, it knew what it knew.

In youth my mind was just a mirror

In a rapidly flying car,

Which catches and loses bits of the landscape.

Then in time

Great scratches were made on the mirror,

Letting the outside world come in,

And letting my inner self look out.

For this is the birth of the soul in sorrow,

A birth with gains and losses.

The mind sees the world as a thing apart,

And the soul makes the world at one with itself.

A mirror scratched reflects no image—

And this is the silence of wisdom.




Francis Turner

I COULD not run or play

In boyhood.

In manhood I could only sip the cup,

Not drink—

For scarlet-fever left my heart diseased.

Yet I lie here

Soothed by a secret none but Mary knows:

There is a garden of acacia,

Catalpa trees, and arbors sweet with vines—

There on that afternoon in June

By Mary’s side—

Kissing her with my soul upon my lips

It suddenly took flight.




Lyman King

YOU may think, passer-by, that Fate

Is a pit-fall outside of yourself,

Around which you may walk by the use of foresight

And wisdom.

Thus you believe, viewing the lives of other men,

As one who in God-like fashion bends over an anthill,

Seeing how their difficulties could be avoided.

But pass on into life:

In time you shall see Fate approach you

In the shape of your own image in the mirror;

Or you shall sit alone by your own hearth,

And suddenly the chair by you shall hold a guest,

And you shall know that guest,

And read the authentic message of his eyes.




State’s Attorney Fallas

I, THE scourge-wielder, balance-wrecker,

Smiter with whips and swords;

I, hater of the breakers of the law;

I, legalist, inexorable and bitter,

Driving the jury to hang the madman, Barry Holden,

Was made as one dead by light too bright for eyes,

And woke to face a Truth with bloody brow:

Steel forceps fumbled by a doctor’s hand

Against my boy’s head as he entered life

Made him an idiot.

I turned to books of science

To care for him.

That’s how the world of those whose minds are sick

Became my work in life, and all my world.

Poor ruined boy! You were, at last, the potter

And I and all my deeds of charity

The vessels of your hand.




Griffy the Cooper

THE COOPER should know about tubs.

But I learned about life as well,

And you who loiter around these graves

Think you know life.

You think your eye sweeps about a wide horizon, perhaps,

In truth you are only looking around the interior of your tub.

You cannot lift yourself to its rim

And see the outer world of things,

And at the same time see yourself.

You are submerged in the tub of yourself—

Taboos and rules and appearances,

Are the staves of your tub.

Break them and dispel the witchcraft

Of thinking your tub is life!

And that you know life!



Flossie Cabanis

FROM Bindle’s opera house in the village

To Broadway is a great step.

But I tried to take it, my ambition fired

When sixteen years of age,

Seeing “East Lynne” played here in the village

By Ralph Barrett, the coming

Romantic actor, who enthralled my soul.

True, I trailed back home, a broken failure,

When Ralph disappeared in New York,

Leaving me alone in the city—

But life broke him also.

In all this place of silence

There are no kindred spirits.

How I wish Duse could stand amid the pathos

Of these quiet fields

And read these words




Sarah Brown

MAURICE, weep not, I am not here under this pine tree.

The balmy air of spring whispers through the sweet grass,

The stars sparkle, the whippoorwill calls,

But thou grievest, while my soul lies rapturous

In the blest Nirvana of eternal light!

Go to the good heart that is my husband,

Who broods upon what he calls our guilty love:—

Tell him that my love for you, no less than my love for him

Wrought out my destiny—that through the flesh

I won spirit, and through spirit, peace.

There is no marriage in heaven,

But there is love.



Frank Drummer

OUT of a cell into this darkened space—

The end at twenty-five!

My tongue could not speak what stirred within me,

And the village thought me a fool.

Yet at the start there was a clear vision,

A high and urgent purpose in my soul

Which drove me on trying to memorize

The Encyclopedia Britannica!



Emily Sparks

WHERE is my boy, my boy—

In what far part of the world?

The boy I loved best of all in the school?—

I, the teacher, the old maid, the virgin heart,

Who made them all my children.

Did I know my boy aright,

Thinking of him as spirit aflame,

Active, ever aspiring?

Oh, boy, boy, for whom I prayed and prayed

In many a watchful hour at night,

Do you remember the letter I wrote you

Of the beautiful love of Christ?

And whether you ever took it or not,

My boy, wherever you are,

Work for your soul’s sake,

That all the clay of you, all of the dross of you,

May yield to the fire of you,

Till the fire is nothing but light!...

Nothing but light!