This Is Where I'm Coming From

The end of my first week on the RSAMD MA course.

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy...

It has been even more full-on than I had even anticipated. And from what I can glean it will only get more intense over the following 12 months. I still feel an overwhelming mixture of feelings-confusion, fear, excitement and hope, but more than anything else I feel so enthused, inspirited and grateful for the opportunity to focus my heart, mind, body and spirit soley on what I care most about in all the world 24-7 unspeakably thrilling. I might as well have arrived at the gates of Heaven itself. I don't expect anyone who is not an artist to understand this, and I know it will come across as totally lovey (-Why am I so afraid of this?)... Yet it's utterly true, for me

This week one of our RSAMD tutors gave us all our very first homework exercise. This was to bring in a photographic self-portrait on Monday morning, taken in a location of our choice, of us holding a 10x8 card displaying the legend:

THIS IS WHERE

I’M COMING

FROM

I asked Jim, my 80-year-old Friend, now retired with Parkinson’s- but a former professional photographer- if he would be kind enough to take a picture for me yesterday in the Quaker Meeting House. Normally I loathe pictures of myself (although curiously enough I always really enjoy seeing photos of me wearing the masks of my characters) But this is beautifully done I think; so, if you're reading this, Jim, thank you.

I strongly uspect I will be forced to give a short and witty explanation about the image in tomorrow morning's 'Creative Beginnings' class. But I’ll do so with great trepidation. I'm very wary at such an early stage in the course of being labelled as some sort of religious nut, although those who of you who know me are well aware I am really no such creature! But there's no avoiding the fact that my being a Quaker artist does strike at the heart of who I am at a ‘soul’ level. It is indeed “where I’m coming” if I am to be completely honest. My faith informs my art. Yet to admit as much invites the risk of being pigeonholed by my peers and lecturers as downright weird from the word go. I would have preferred for this information to emerge later, but hey, I'm just gonna have to trust the process, hoping that it’ll just accelerate my learning if I get used to hiding nothing from my classmates from the off.

I don’t want to embarrass folk or make anyone in the class feel uncomfortable by talking about my passion for this peculiar brand of spiritual mysticism and it's relationship to my work as an artist. However I will do so if absolutely necessary, and speak as 'adventurously' (A & Q 27) and courageously as I possibly can.

Briefly then, I intend to describe to the class the meaning and purpose of silent worship, and meditation on the inner light- and how that relates to my artistic work. All I can hope for is that I am not mistaken for some sad, fundamentalist dogmatitist or narrow-minded fanatic. Religion has such a bad name after all. In self-mitigation I might tell them at the start that famous Quaker actors include Paul Eddington, Judi Dench, Sheila Hancock and Ben Kingsley. I will then go on to mention the so-called 'Quaker testimonies’ and how each relate to my work:

· Truth

· Equality

· Simplicity

and

· Peace

And I will finish by saying: “All of these have a bearing on every aspect of my life- but, as an artist, it is through my acting that I worship most expressively.”

At this morning's Quaker meeting it felt so 'gathered', and the time passed unusually quickly for me. Many of today's ministries really 'spoke to my condition' as they related to one of the Advices and queries which one of the elders read out at the beginning of the hour:

“7. Be aware of the spirit of God at work in the ordinary activities and experience of your daily life. Spiritual learning continues throughout life, and often in unexpected ways. There is inspiration to be found all around us, in the natural world, in the sciences and arts, in our work and friendships, in our sorrows as well as in our joys. Are you open to new light, from whatever source it may come? Do you approach new ideas with discernment?”

This goes to the heart of how I aim to approach this year of intensive study- reflectively, from a spiritual perspective, drawing together the inner and outer work, aiming towards a deeper sense of who I really am and what I do with that as an artist.

Our acting tutor, Ally de Souza, has urged us all to keep Reflective Practice Journals (or RPJs)- more of which in future blogs- but this is something I have already been doing for the past 27 years of course. But just knowing that our tutor will be taking an active and critical interest in what he called 'The Invisible Artist within us' through reading and reviewing these reflections is so inspiring to me- music to my ears in fact!

I have already had the most AMAZING week... and as far as I can tell it's only going to get better.

As always, I will keep you all posted. :-)

Dealing with Inner Daemons (Part III)

As promised, although a little later than usual as I was awaiting a reponse from a friend who had agreed to answer my CBT questions:

1. What do I do well in the rehearsal room?

2. What do i not do so well?

In the end I managed to convince 3 out of the 4 close friends to respond. I share what they said with you below simply because once it's out in the public domain I can't continue to avoid dealing with the challenge of addressing the issues thrown up by what they said. It would be only to easy to forget or ignore what they shared with me if I just kept it in my private journal. I have decided to omit their names to protect the innocent; but the folk concerned know who they are and just how grateful I was to get such honest and helpful feedback.

Respondent #1

What you do well:

I said to you the other day that you have a wonderful laugh. It’s one of the most human sounds I know and it’s a glad and living laughter. You also show yourself to be acutely sensitive to people who are in emotional pain; I remember this with ______________ a few years ago. He was greatly upset and you took time with him and invited him back to stay at yours. I like that you love language and especially poetry and that I can talk about art with you without feeling the need to apologise for it (as I would with others)

I have seen you motivate people in such a way that inspires them to do better work than they might otherwise have done. You speak very well. In the rehearsal room you work hard. You are committed. You prepare. You are conscientious.


What you don’t do well

It is in the rehearsal room where I have found most difficulty with what you do. You can sometimes make your mind up as to how something should go and then become infuriated because another actor, or the director is doing something different from this. Whether you voice this anger or not people can feel it. All the light and humour goes out of you at these moments,. You often tend to seek final form in beginning rehearsals and become frustrated that other people are not doing it “right”. Although I often (not always) like your ideas in rehearsal you often are a bit dismissive of any ideas of experimentation or people just trying things. (But being directed badly is always a frustrating experience)

The problem for me is not that you sometimes get angry, we all do, but that this anger seems to come from a very deep place and is often disturbing for other people. Personally it reminds me of my dad’s stony and thunderous silences which made me afraid to speak to him. The anger often seems to me disproportionate to the situation.

It’s not a question of whether you voice an opinion or not. It’s all too clear to most people what you’re feeling even if you don’t speak and I think people in a rehearsal can sometimes find it a bit difficult to be around. Especially when they’ve seen the light and warmth that can inhabit you.


Respondent #2

What things do I do well in the rehearsal room?
Sheer artistry,
commitment,
bravery,
passion,
cracking sense of humour when you are feeling comfortable and in a good mood,
talent,
inventiveness,
ideas,
big huge spirit,
immense capacity for greatness and bigness,
fabulous in both big parts and well-crafted little cameos (indeed sometimes I think you are happier creating eccentric little parts, and maybe you can take this into your bigger roles
Very generous towards other actors especially when you like and feel comfortable with them

2. What do I not do well in the rehearsal room?

Exuding moods when you feel bad and making it difficult for everyone
Lack of confidence in yourself as a lovable being, which causes you to expect bad relationships and therefore creates them
Lack of sense of lightness in your approach to your work maybe? (Argue me back if you disagree?) Need for a willingness to fail while attempting something at times (Drama school will be great for this!)
Need to give yourself and others a break
Passive aggressive behaviour
Not expressing yourself directly, but throwing out oblique statements on facebook and to others which comes across as trying to get an emotional effect, but one which people cannot reply to?
Worrying too much and refusing not to worry but insisting others do.

Respondent #3

Things you don’t do well:

Distancing yourself from others
Refusal to articulate grievances
Self-abasing and pandering to others’ egos
Sulking or snapping.
Malicious obedience and taking things absolutely literally
Failure to see humour
Tendency to too much analysis and introspection
Pretentiousness and verbosity
Paranoia
Complaints about lack of direction, then disagreement with direction given
Choice of people to work with
Dumbing down and self-sabotage
Letting others take credit for your ideas
Tendency to indiscretion
Taking the blame when things go wrong
Ability to drain energy and create atmospheres
Inability to accept compliments

Things you do well:

Act!!
Give performances which build reputation as a “different level” actor
Know how to make things work when others, including directors, don’t
Generosity to other actors on stage
Willingness to help others improve
Incredible work ethic, both in rehearsal and outside
Ability to move people, even in rehearsal
See the “bigger picture” of the production overall
As a director, you know how to make people understand your vision
Excellent instincts
Total commitment
Ability to lift energy of scenes (see also reverse!)
Bring best aspects of professional attitude- good role model
Desire to learn, grow and improve
Intelligence
Willingness to be emotionally vulnerable (in character)
Extensive technical knowledge


Much of what these friends wrote about me took me by surprise- especially the stuff they said I do well. And then some of the other stuff I knew already (only too well!) but had no idea other people could see it!
And I guess with my dodgy self-esteem issues it’s no surprise that the things I didn’t know before or believe are actually mostly the positive ones, including:

I have a wonderful laugh, a cracking sense of humour.
I am acutely sensitive to people who are in emotional pain.
I am a very generous motivator, inspirer and helper others.
I exude light, warmth, love-ability.
I speak well.
I have a reputation as a ‘different level’ actor. I’m a role model.
I create the bad relationships.
My work ethic is incredible.
I’d be happier in my work playing cameo roles.
I have great passion, a huge/big spirit which helps me play big roles too.
My anger is out often way out of proportion to the situation.
I underestimate my power to terrify and confuse others when I get passive-aggressive.
I am pretentious.
I worry too much, and should give myself and others a break.
I take on too much responsibility and blame for problems caused by others.
I am intelligent.
I am brave.
I have a talent for making other people understand my vision.
It’s OK to be angry; it’s the way you communicate it/don’t communicate it directly that causes the problem.

And interestingly enough there were a lot of things I already knew but hadn’t much idea that other people saw, (and, yes, they are mostly the negatives!) including:

Others are very aware of my deep anger, frustration and irritation even when I am silent. Especially when I am silent!
The changes in atmosphere this creates are very disturbing and frightening to others. I underestimate how very risky and scary I make it for them to speak to me.
I express myself indirectly, verbosely, pretentiously, obliquely in order to generate an emotional effect.
I am impatient with experimentation, because you think things not being ‘right’ immediately spells Failure.
I expect to have bad relationships and make it difficult for others to communicate with me.
I sabotage my own facility for clear communication when I use passive-aggressive tactics.
I am conscientious.

I know how to make things work.
I allow others to take credit for my ideas.

This was such a valuable exercise for me, and you can read some of my conclusions and thoughts in my next blog- which is likely to be a fairly lengthy one I should think! The reason I need to look into all of this now is because I don't want my daemons fucking things up when I go to college in September. I guess that apart from honing my acting skills and techniques and making use of the opportunity of getting casting directors and agents to sign me up what I am really looking for at the end of the day from this MA course is a deepening of my commitment to incorporating spiritual values into my acting process; in other words- increasing my trust, confidence, love and patience, empathy, connectivity and creativity as a human being. I know that sounds wanky, but that is really what this is about. I have underestimated the vital importance of these concepts in the rehearsal room context in the past and this is my chance to put things right. In fact I plan for my dissertation to deal with the way we tend to eschew the spiritual dimension in training and development of actors in the West. (Although I have still to devise a coherent framework for examining this within an academic treatise, except maybe in the form of collating responses to questionnaires issued to my fellow students at various points throughout the course. I'll need to give that some thought in the next few weeks too!) I am looking to see how I can develop not just as an actor but mature and blossom as a soul over the next 12 months. This requires self-knowledge and self-forgiveness before it can be manifest as wisdom and tolerance of others in any practical sense in my work. Going to the Academy is essentially about improving my ability to shine a clearer and more intense light on the invisible realm of the spirit, and hopefully offer more efficient healing to others through my work.

Pretentious I know but that's what it really comes down to for me.