Q

Chaliapin from The Adventures of Don Quixote (1933)

I often think of the work to which I devote my life as quintessentially Quixotic.



Mine is an absurd tragicomic quest. Tilting at windmills, challenging imaginary giants to duels.



I am exploring the interstitial richness contained in the silences between what is false, what is true and what is real...

Acting, like life, consists of a series of questions with no real answers. Of course, put like that I set myself up as a posturing and pretentiousness prat. People will queue up to prick and pop bombastic balloons.

We actors must ask ourselves the question, “Is that why we will always have an audience?!”


Probably.



After all, such pompous–sounding philosophising is so easily lampooned and ridiculed by persiflage. And the masses have always adored sacrifices and public executions. Actors are variously labelled as luvvies, fakes, wankers, etc.

“Show us the results!” they cry?

“What exactly are you FOR??”

-when all secretly KNOW exactly what we are for.

We take on their sins and are crucified for them.

As mountebanks we often end up retreating behind the invisible shield of arcane mysticism (and sometimes its opposite- a feigned Christ-like “meekness” and humble “servitude”)- both postures reserved for the initiated- as if I, (-the Act-orrr!) were draped in the invisible garb that conferred membership of an ancient and elite cabal. Ah, the emperor’s clothes!! :-)



It is difficult, if not downright impossible, to produce irrefutable evidence of salvation when pursuing the ineffable and the unknown.

People go away feeling better sometimes.
That’s it.
It can’t be proved.

But I fail.

So often the audience do not get what they needed from me.

My response is to keep up the pretence of self-assurance, adopting a secret smile of knowingness- a defensive strategy.

A clique of one!

It is impossible to speak of the work except in terms of metaphor anyway- and so it becomes shrouded in romanticised poeticism that obscures a botched life with impressive pretension. (I think of Spooner’s bombast in No Man’s Land.) Part of me wants to resist allying myself with the cult of Artist as it’s so often associated with the affected, the preposterously pompous- But what else do I have to shield myself from their slings and arrows? The only alternative is ripping away the mask and declaring it’s all just storytelling, ladies and gentlemen! Mere chicanery and imitation! Silly masks and funny voices…! Only a story. All bollocks.

So how do I preserve my dignity…?

The simple answer:-

I don’t.

The arcane investigation of the soul, and the pursuit of the puissant creative potential of the Higher I, is actually made even more heroic because on the stage the Hero treads the same path as the Fool. Both are pelted with rotten fruit as they stride off to transcendent self-martyrdom. Pilloried and denounced for daring to live and think authentically without the protection of their own ego.

We will always be seen to be tilting at windmills, because the work is about making the imagined life real.

And hey, how stupid is that!

(Actually that isn't a rhetorical question.

How stupid IS that???)

And I find myself asking another question: Who is the child here? Is the child the one who thinks it’s cool to knock others off their pedestals ‘cos he’s jealous he can’t play the game properly. Or the child who tries to play the game? It’s a game whichever way you play it.

A cruel and complicated game.



Somebody has to suffer.

What kind of world is it that will only applaud success, and never heroic failure?



It remains my contention that this ‘foolishness’, the world of the “Imagined”, is not the same thing as “untrue”. ‘Fictional’ does NOT equal ‘fallacious’. Fairy tales are NOT false. In the post-modern world such an idea is seen to be- at best- child-like; at worst, utterly crazy. Art is dismissed as “a lie”; a bauble, a distraction from what is actual. Inessential. The world of science and logical empiricism vilifies such vain shadow-chasing. “Give us the facts,” it demands.

The 21st century paradigm dismisses the delusions of the dramatic artist for not being more grounded, practical, and down-to-earth. “Get real!” - by which they mean of course, “Buy OUR lie instead!”)

But the artist chooses to believe that myths are NEVER mere falsehoods.



Far from it! Myths are infinitely truer and more substantial than everyday life according to the rules of the actor’s universe. The actor understands that the notion of character and the actor’s process of role-play and characterisation are a very powerful means for gaining purchase in our understanding of ourselves, our lives- of clarifying who and where we are, why we’re here, how we fulfil our destinies. He reminds us that we are not who we think we are.



Art is NOT founded on self-deception or artifice; the “fiction” is only a camouflage for the real alchemy-, which has the power to distil the clarity of Beauty and Truth (capital B, capital T) from the muddled morass of existence. Drama is a very potent remedial corrective to uncomplicated Gradgrindism and empiricism. Drama reminds us that the world of spirit is infinitely more real and substantial than the so-called ‘facts’ of everyday life.

It gives us a route out of despair.

It gets us out of our heads.



As Rex Ambler says: "I think therefore I'm a long way from where I am"!!!!

And, as dear Oscar says, "The truth is rarely pure and never simple."

The actor is a practical philosopher.







Never let anybody else decide for you.



Go to drama school.

"What do you believe that you can act like this?"

Message on plaque at the main gate of Dartington Hall

"Artists are specialists in the spiritual sense, otherwise they are puppets and nothing else.” Michael Chekhov

George Shdanoff: Misha, what are we doing here in Hollywood? We did not become involved to make better actors for Louis B. Meyer.

Michael Chekhov: We are not making better actors for Louis B. Meyer. We are helping people to grow spiritually, George, to become better human beings.

“Spiritual values are more concrete than concrete things”. Michael Chekhov

I love that apocryphal story about Michael Chekhov who, having just finished the first night performance of Hamlet, was pursued by crowds of Russian people as he rode in his carriage through the streets of Moscow, yelling after him:

“What do you believe that you can act like this?”

I long for my audiences to ask the very same question. That said, I am not in the least interested, nor have I ever been, in religious propaganda, a la Riding Lights etc. The artist is not a catechist, as Thomas Merton would have it. But I want the practicality of Love to make such an impact on my process the spectator is awe-struck. I long, through my work, to inspire in him a deep hunger for more knowledge about how to expand and express his own divine potential. I aim to heal, to in-spire and en-courage with my acting; and then to entertain and enlighten. Now I can continue to try to do this through my teaching, but I know I do it much more effectively through my acting.

Of course I do still retain a lower ego as an actor that fights for attention with its silly aspirations and vanities, its desire to be noticed and feted; and it continues to insist on getting in the way of my higher purposes despite my best intentions. But my aims have notwithstanding deepened since i began meditating- and they have begun to embrace a larger, more universal intention since I saw that plaque outside Dartington Hall (above) back in 2005. And as part of this deeper awareness and 'spiritualising' of my acting process these aims have become more refined and clarified. And of course part of this process in reconnecting with my divine purpose as an artist is my decision to apply for drama school- ideally (idealistically!?) to go much deeper into applying the lessons in a concrete way which I have been learning through my reading, meditating and writing in the abstract these last few years. I have always somehow known that an actor must train to develop the ability to grow spiritually. The two things have always been inseparable for me in fact, even though I have for one reason or another (usually inspired by fear) gone through lengthy periods trying to deny it. It's actually this symbiotic union that attracted me to acting in the first place-. It was always the most powerful means for exploring my spiritual potential, for tapping into higher levels of wisdom, being and compassion. Was it Artaud who said that the actor is an apprentice god? This is territory the lecturers, tutors and directors at the RSAMD will never go anywhere near of course! It will be up to you to take care of this core aspect of your development as an artist, as indeed it always has been your own private responsibility. Yeah, they'll teach you techniques and methodologies, but that is the end of the story as far as they are concerned. They cannot give you more talent, or make your soul grow. That must remain your own private business. Thankfully your own Inward Light can continue to be your own private tutor, your personal acting coach and guide, on call 24/7. It is this inner light which is the primary source and access point for your creative power as an artist. It offers the gift transformation, the promise of transcendence. No-one else can give you this beauty, nor indeed can they take it away. At least at MA level, where you are much more responsible for your own learning, you can continue to nurture this Inward Light by meditation and psychophysical means as part of your own daily discipline, and your Quaker faith, without interference from them- embodying the infinite potentialities and inspirations offered you by your Higher Self whilst the college lecturers suggest ways to apply it. Your inner guide will be a reliable way of sifting and organising the help they can give you, and selecting those teachings that may be used to help you become a better performer, and discarding those that will not. The RSAMD is an educational institution: they assess and grade students by empirical, objective means. This is of course total nonsense, but they have not found a way of measuring artistic success, or managing to give it a credible, quantitative evaluation. Because acting is primarily a qualitative, intuitive, non-intellectual activity when it is done well, they will never be able to teach you anything profoundly helpful. They cannot give you this. Their job is to offer students certain techniques and methodologies. It is then up to me to take these means (or not) and use them as function of the Holy Spirit.

If acting were that simple to quantify, then they could bottle the magic that great acting generates and put it in the college water supply. But acting is not a science. Because educational institutions attempt to appraise and calculate it in this absurd manner it is easy to dismiss the merits and value of such establishments, but as an artist who is hopefully on the threshold of entering its portals I need to accept and understand the limitations of their tools for assessment, and chooses to work within them. I must remember that all human measurements of artistic talent or 'worth' are flawed and inadequate. As Michael Chekhov said: "Acting is meditation". It cannot be measured. Knowing this makes me feel even less nervous about going higher now, because it is not my lower ego making me do this. God is. I am ascending because the intention is to take the work into the wider world. (I did not say my work- I said the work.) I am merely an ambassador, a humble channel for this stuff- a servant, a messenger. This is no false humility. The drive to act emanates from the divine, not from little 'Mark Coleman'.

King Lear (2006)

These past 4 or 5 years have been about gradually breaking free of this small-minded bondage, the impure intentions of feathering my own egoic nest that had corrupted my work for so long. In place of the mediocre aims of getting rave reviews for my work, or simply nurturing my own inner growth as an artist in order to become more impressive- what might be called politely art for art's sake, but is really art for my own sake!- it has become more and more about His sake- the desire to share something authentic and enriching through acting, to create better, more compassionate characterisations and so inspire other human beings in the audience- to herald the arrival of a kingdom of heaven, if you like, where people understand the true power of faith, imagination and belief to alter their reality. To, in the end, say something that will survive me. I have begun to grasp that the function of art- my function- is so much wider- not just in a token , intellectual sense- but so much more on a macro level, making a contribution to society and the wider world, to the soul development of Mankind. This is why I want folk to be moved to ask the same question that the crowds asked after seeing Michael Chekhov perform Hamlet.

And what do I believe?

It can summarised in three words:

All is Love.

with Cathal Quinn in Keats in Limbo (1994)

A simple message of course, especially when expressed in such bald terms- no doubt a fatuous one when written down or spoken aloud, but it is a message that keeps engulfing me (!) and all other voices in my daily meditations, one I can't ignore. And it is a call from a non-space of non-action to act authentically in space and time. I instinctively know that from this one perfect gift of divine wisdom is spawned everything else needed for the abundant life of creation.

Love as compassion. I am yearning for my audience to hear this silent call to embrace their fellow man with infinite, unconditional compassion. Meister Eckhart said "God's best name is compassion."

The actor's art is the Art of Compassion. I can think of no better definition. The actor enlarges his talent by seeking processes that enable him to embody compassion more and more... and more fully.

To make the ‘Inner’ content outwardly manifest- faithfully and authentically, to embody through the actor's psychophysical means Love into the world- through giving, giving, giving.

This must be your mantra as you prepare to study at drama school:

To give...

to give...

TO GIVE.

Don Juan in Don Juan Comes Back from the War

(Odon Von Horvath) (1993)

Divine Discontent

I am going to write here of something artists rarely talk about because it sounds fanatical, even crazymad. And this is going to come across like I have completely lost the plot. But I write this with all humility, because i know how far short I come of achieving my ideals.

But fuck it, it is what I think!!

My prayer life, daily meditation and spiritual writings have always been informed and intimately bound up with my experiences as an actor/ artist. Acting has remained my preferred and most creative form of worship for over 30 years. In my most sublime moments I like to think have been able to bring my entire soul to the acting process, as a gift returned to God... It is only then that the body and the mind and the heart all become imbued with the highest motives of my soul: 'gathered', as the Quakers might put it. It has been many years since I have really experienced this, but I do know first hand (better than anything else I have ever known) miracles in the theatre are possible. On those blessed 3 or 4 nights of communion with the divine (I told you it would sound mad!) I briefly succeeded in knowing what it is to become whole. It's not that I am perfect by any means (far from it!) but in those moments I am Being rather than behaving; totally congruent- inwardly and outwardly, bursting with the magic that transmutes the invisible and intangible universe of Spirit into the tangible, the worldly and the empirically real. The work feels touched, even embraced by God's truth, purity, grace and beauty; so easy and completely in the eternity of the now that I know it is God who is lifting me up and employing me as His channel.


...And it is exquisite.

So why can't it happen every night???! What prevents me from bringing my whole soul and every fibre of my being to the work each and every time, given that it means so much to me?

Well,fear, pride, shame about being inadequate or foolish, ingratitude to my Source, ambition, lack of faith, the desire to impress, the apparent safety of repeating ones successes (bad habits), all the mental nonsense interfering with your flow and focus- in fact the very same factors that interfere with all the many other forms of prayer or contemplation.

The purpose of my work as an actor is to be a channel of Love as I have already said in a previous blog. And, just as it is with any devout Mystic's earnest prayer, one is required as an actor to shed and utterly cede all egoistic control, to surrender and lie prostrate as you bathe in His divine influence and enter into the total bliss of fearlessness and yield to faith in the outrageous, the impossible. But this is never easy, because it ultimately depends on Grace and an utter and pure humility.

Most actors contrive to conjure in themselves (and hence their audiences) what Samuel Taylor Coleridge termed "the willing suspension of disbelief". But I think this neat little phrase enshrines a scant and tawdry form of 'artistic agnosticism',. It fails to foster full Flow and Connection. Coleridge's 'suspension' can only result in theatre that is comparatively mediocre and ultimately inert. It is only the truly great dramatists, directors and actors who will strive to go beyond this. These rare artists set their sights on creating not just a suspension of dis-belief, and not even mere belief. Instead they courageously pursue a dream of unshakeable Faith that can move souls to be totally transform under the light of Heaven. These geniuses in-spirit and en-courage us to live life in entirely new ways. Higher ways. Great acting proves to the hearts, minds and spirits who witness it that miracles are not just possible but inevitable when you commit fully to God's promises. In our cynical age where we want to ascribe such achievements to tricks, emotional manipulation, mass hypnotism, to scientifically measurable techniques and results, to psychological aberation or simple delusion, the art of acting must strive to retain its claim to being one of the last remaining antidotes to the zeitgeist of 21st century toxic Doubt. The theatre must lay assert its rights as a Temple where we can witness the full spiritual and transcendent supremacy of God's power moving mountains. It is time we stopped being ashamed or embarrassed of thinking in this way. OK it could be just an impossible ideal, a futile fantasy, but it is a Holy one and it can spur us on if we are willing to let it.
In my youth I would frighten myself with the possibilities of this power of which i write today. I feared that I might drive myself mad like poor old Ronald Colman playing Othello in that wonderful old movie A Double Life, and so I shied away from fully committing to these fanatical ideals. I would sit in Sutton Library as a 17 year old and devour Nietzsche and every acting book I could lay my hands on and dream all this stuff, but was too afraid to commit myself fully to it. Now I am approaching 50, and so much more secure in who I am and who I am not, I have to finally throw my old addictions to fear and pride aside and stand stripped naked before my God, without masks, and believe I am safe and relatively sound of mind. And so I here renew my vow- To surrender my will and soul to His service completely each time I act. Nothing else matters.