FEARLESS BLISS

"Ask your soul to illuminate your interior, to transform your suffering into insight and purpose. Pray for this profound act of transformation."

"Live in fearless bliss and allow the divine to awaken your soul's greatest potential."

"Your sole/soul requirement is to commit to being devoted to your inner authority- to the divine. That devotion will give you the will to follow through on all that you are guided to do, say, and become in this life."

"Take your soul out into the world and allow God to work through you as a channel for grace, a vessel of power and transformation... You are a container for God in this world."

Wow. These quotes are all from Caroline Myss' fabulously inspiring Entering the Castle, based on Teresa of Avila's devotional classic "The Interior Castle". Both books are profound and resonant stimuli for my lectio divina, and contain much for this actor's soul to meditate, explore and so live by.

Having finished rereading both these books last week I was somehow able to summon the courage yesterday to refuse a director's offer of the title role in Anthony Nielson's The Censor at this year's Edinburgh Festival. I am not used to turning roles down, but the play did not chime with my moral values (My God , I sound like old Mary Whitehouse, don't I!?), and so I followed the promptings of my Soul, rather than my head. This took some nerve as I have no other offers in the pipeline.

I still await confirmation of dates for my production of Brian Friel's Faith Healer at the Ramshorn this autumn. Friel's sublime and profound series of monologues are just perfect for me right now, distilling such themes as Faith, Love, Art and Spiritual Purpose. Rediscovering this play was a definitive answer to much prayer, in fact! I intend to cast myself in the title role and to direct it. Of course, in the past, I have always avoided acting and directing at the same time (Being simultaneously objective and subjective is not easy); but the trouble is I simply can't choose which I would rather do. Doing both, no doubt, will be perceived by some to be a vanity project once news gets out at Strathclyde Theatre Group, but hey, sod it... Other people can think what they like! I know I'll be doing it for the highest reasons, and I know God is cool with that :-)

Tango by Slawomir Mrozek

I'm preparing for tomorrow's first read-through at the Ramshorn Theatre of Tango, in which I have been cast as Stomil-an avant garde experimental theatre artist. It is very rare for me to be asked to play comedy, and although this play happens to be an esoteric, absurdist piece from Poland (dealing with weighty themes such as Formalism, chaos, ethical/social entropy within a dysfunctional family), it is- well, in a nominal sense at least- a farce, and will hopefully provide me with an unusual opportunity to be funny, anarchic and- for once- playful! Of course this gig is non-professional, but it will also provide me with a chance to demonstrate my wares to prospective agents, having been summarily dumped by West End Management at the weekend (Apparently my drama teaching commitments 'conflict with my availablity for professional acting work').

I've been wrestling with my Life Purpose of late, doubtless fuelled by Hollywood acting coach Bernard Hiller's 3-day "Success in Acting" workshop in Edinburgh last weekend. That experience was an epic wake-up tsunami for the 20 of us who signed up for it, and challenged each one of us to confront our fears and blocks and to ask ourselves deep questions about where we were on our artistic/career/soul paths, and why we appeared to be squandering our God-given talents by remaining in Scotland. Harsh, exacting questions- yet highly apposite ones!

Now I've never really harboured any genuine ambition to be famous, but I do still intend to be the very best actor I can be, to work with the very best. Despite Glasgow being a lovely place to live, it isn't by any stretch of the imagination the epicentre of acting excellence. And Bernie was quite uncompromising on this issue... He urged on us that if you are genuinely serious then you will be prepared to make all the requisite sacrifices, and go wherever in the world the opportunities happened to be in order to fulfil your vision. For him this happened to be the Hollywood hills, although I think for me it would have to be London, or New York i.e. where the best theatre is. The principle still holds though. Bernie did some private coaching with me on the last evening, and encouraged me to think big, and "stop coasting", suggesting that I was utilising just 60% of my true potential. I needed to be pushed to do much more, he said. Like Karen says I am really just "a big fish in a small pond", and I've got lazy.

And the bastard was right, goddamn it. I do need to be pushed harder in order to go further- both as an artist and as a professional. He offered me a job teaching alongside him when he comes to Glasgow next time, which would at least give me the chance to work with better students than the teenage kids I teach at present. (Back to school on Monday :-( )

Flattering as this offer was, I will have to think about whether this is really what I want to do. I live to act, for that is where my talent lies. Of course I can direct, I can teach, I can write, but acting is my truest and most abiding love. So just how much am I prepared to give up in order to remain faithful to my dream?

A bit about me

I am 47 years old Englishman, based in Glasgow and married to Karen who is, like me, an actor/drama teacher.

I have been passionate about acting for over 30 years now. At the risk of coming across like some sort of religious nutcase I have always seen my work as a form of prayer or worship, even when I've been dogged by intermittent bouts of agnosticism and spiritual disaffection. Last year I joined the Society of Friends (Quakers) and this has afforded me a far richer insight into what drives me as a human being and as an artist. The Michael Chekhov-inspired ensemble I'd put heart and soul into establishing with a pair of close friends (Razed Curtain Theatre Company) collapsed in betrayals, bitter recriminations and broken dreams in June last year. Since then a long dark night of the soul has ensued, and I have been forced to do much inner work in my attempt to re-establish the essence of what my art means to me. Neither of my former partners has felt the need to act at all since then- (they're too busy having lives, partying, having fun!)- but I suppose my own addiction has always been my work. As someone once said, "Work is more fun than fun". I've never pusued happiness like so many other people i know, only fulfilment, which is something quite different. And so I soldier on in this quixotic quest of mine, continually asking myself: "What do I know?... What can I trust?... What do I have to learn about becoming a better person through my art: how do I become a better artist by becoming a better person?

This little blog is my humble attempt to communicate some of my meditations on these themes, in the hope that it may speak to someone else's condition. I welcome comments and contributions from those who are interested in acting and spiritual matters.

I have been teaching drama to 13-18 year olds for the last 14 years, but I combine this with a career as an actor /director/ acting teacher in the west of Scotland.

Here are a few of the theatre roles I've played in recent years:

Prospero The Tempest Maggie Lovell Ramshorn Theatre
Lear King Lear Peter Lamb STG
Theseus A Midsummer Night's Dream Kieran Gillespie Collusion
Max The Homecoming Susan Triesman Ramshorn Theatre
Spooner No Man’s Land Peter Lamb STG
Pedagogus Electra Shona McKee Collectives
George Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? John Gilmour STG
Larry Closer Peter Mackie Burns Theatre Fusion
Shylock Merchant of Venice Colin Ellwood Opening Acts (tour)
Cassius Julius Caesar Colin Ellwood Opening Acts (tour)
Juror #3 12 Angry Men Tom Gemmell Theatre Fusion (tour)
Robert Betrayal Michael Emans Rapture Theatre (tour)
Suit Work-In Frank Miller Citizens/Cran Theatre Co
Player Rozencrantz&Guildenstern are Dead Aaron Paterson Ramshorn Theatre
Titus Titus Andronicus Leah Altman Flexible Deadlock
Moss Glengarry Glen Ross Douglas Brice Theatre Fusion/ (tour)
Sam Awake and Sing! Lou Stein Watford Palace Theatre

And in the past 5 years I have directed:

Anna Karenina Razed Curtain Theatre Company
A Hard Heart STG
Macbeth Shakespeare Schools Festival
Timon of Athens Ramshorn Theatre
Awake and Sing! Ramshorn Theatre
The Crucible STG

I will be directing House of Bernada Alba at Eastwood Theatre, Glasgow in April 2009.

I am currently a member of The Actor's Bothy (http://www.theactorsbothy.com/).