Tag Archives: Peter Brook

Into Culture: The Empty Space

For the last month we, the Senior Management Group of Bradford Cathedral, have been fine tuning the high-level vision document (read here) that was offered to the congregation and wider community with whom we have been listening and discerning at Pentecost. The process leading to this point has been long, intentional and in-depth. We have met with various groups of people from all levels of engagement and investment asking questions of perceived values and repeating patterns in the long history of the Cathedral. Some common threads became evident in our many discussions, positive and negative. The two main, negative stories that were told again and again were a narrative of scarcity and a narrative of being ‘passed by’/overlooked. Both need, I believe, hearing, tending to and transforming.

The narrative of scarcity can lead to two opposite outcomes: one is towards risk aversion, the other is the embrace of innovative use of resources. The narrative of being passed by can also lead towards two different options: the first is towards a lack of motivation, the alternative, to disregard the fear of judgement as no one is watching anyway. These dynamics will now, no doubt, be played out as we enter the next phase. We will need to reflect together on how we navigate between the two options and we respond to these named stories that we tell ourselves.

These narratives and their possible futures, mixed with the ongoing reflections about the way in which a cathedral engages in the cultural life of a 21st century, intercultural, UK city at a time of great social upheaval and change, have caused me to return to an old friend; Peter Brook’s, ‘The Empty Space’.

For long time readers of this blog you will know of my love for this book. Search for Peter Brook in the bar at the top and read over my reflections on ‘Theatre Church’ from way back in 2011 as I shaped my BA dissertation thesis on creative Christian communities. You can track how the theory behind my theatre making pre-2009 transitioned into my emerging Church leadership post 2012. You will see how I cited Brook’s writing on the power of theatre and its need for reform to continue to shape culture to explore how the Church too might reform to continue to also shape our culture.

For this month’s reflections, then, I turn to ‘The Empty Space’ and ask: how might we, at Bradford Cathedral, avoid ‘Deadly Mission’ and, instead, ensure we look always to ‘Holy Mission’?

Those two titles do not come from nowhere and are not my invention. Peter Brook begins his book by describing and exploring what he terms, ‘Deadly Theatre’. Yes, he does, at the simple level mean ‘bad theatre’ but what, in his mind, makes it ‘bad’? The whole chapter is a slow but achingly profound attack on commercialisation and capitalism at work in the 1960s. It is the way in which finance and economic need kills off risk in favour of secure ‘success’ and a return on investment. At times of scarcity, the money to pay for time to explore and develop meaningful and beautiful work becomes more contested and financiers want to limit the risk by ensuring that they’re able to make the books balance. This requires, therefore, a proven way to know what will attract the audience who will pay for the product put on sale and cover the cost of development. Art becomes a product to sell rather than a vehicle for re-enchantment and social transformation.

Deadliness always brings us back to repetition: the deadly director uses old formulae, old methods, old jokes, old effects… A deadly director is a director who brings no challenge to the conditioned reflexes that every department must contain.

Peter Brook, The Empty Space (London: Penguin Books, 1990) p.44

When money is tight there is little room to experiment. As part of our developing strategy at the Cathedral we have had to express an aim to be financially sustainable. It’s not the main headline but it is significant. We cannot do any of the exciting things we feel called to do if we cannot keep the lights on and the staff paid. This can lead, if we are not careful, however, to turn to that deadliness that, in the long run doesn’t excite or sustain the engagement of the ‘audience’ we long to inspire.

Lev Dodin, a brilliant director of the 20th century wrote about how his unsupported theatre company was enabled to create the inspiring work they did.

Failure… leads to quite artistic things, because if you are not afraid of failure you can try, you can experiment, you can search for new ways, whereas when you are afraid of failure you wouldn’t do it, you would do it the way you did it yesterday…

Lev Dodin in conversation with Robin Thornber at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, 23rd April 1994, Michael Stronin (tr.), cited in Maria Delgado and Paul Heritage (eds.), In Contact With The Gods?: Directors Talk Theatre (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996) p74

Bradford Cathedral has a history of being an embodiment of that Yorkshire spirit of ‘make do and mend.’ Whether it is the pioneering way of recycling old bricks to reshape the building, evolving it for a new context, or using wool sacks to protect the tower against shelling during the civil war. We have never been an asset rich, or even a financially rich cathedral. We may never be a glitzy place with historic reserves on which to rely, but we have always shown ourselves, like the beautiful people of Bradford, as resilient survivors. Our history is a tale of scarcity, but we have chosen, at some key moments, to be innovative and creative with what we have.

I want our contributions to City of Culture to not be safe, secure and risk light. I do not believe that there is, at this time, such a thing. The tribute bands and the franchise installations that do the rounds across the various cathedrals are just as risky financially as well as reputationally, I personally believe, and so if we are going to take risks let’s do it properly and aim for something that doesn’t pretend to be lively but is actually full of life and connects an audience with something transcendent.

…the notion that the stage is a place where the invisible can appear has a deep hold on our thoughts.

Brook, The Empty Space, p.47

This is how the chapter on Holy Theatre begins. It is what I spoke to the gathered artists at the Outdoor Arts UK Conference earlier in the year. We can, at the Cathedral, return to being the place where the Invisible appears, because the rest of our culture has lost its confidence in the Invisible. Our worship, our concerts, our envisioned co-productions should all be shaped by our pursuit to be embodiments of that Invisible Truth to which we commit our lives. Brook describes the work of Jerzy Grotowski, who I also have reflected on previously (read here).

The theatre, he believes, cannot be an end in itself… the theatre is a vehicle, a means of self-study, self-exploration, a possibility of salvation… the act of performance is an act of sacrifice, of sacrificing what most men [sic] prefer to hide – this sacrifice is his gift to the spectator.

Brook, The Empty Space, p.66-67

I see, in our vision at Bradford Cathedral, an opportunity to be an exciting workshop for the re-enchantment of the cultural life of Bradford and, in time, the UK and the world. We have expressed our ambitious aims to be reaching out to the world and encouraging experiences within our space of encounter with the Holy Truth. This is not just aesthetic beauty of the well performed choral music for which we strive or the excellent engagement with heritage and history that we wish to continue to develop but to be a place where new expressions will be forged giving people fresh insights into who they were created to be.

Interestingly, Peter Brook discusses Coventry Cathedral situated in the City of Culture 2021/2.

In Coventry, for instance, a new cathedral has been built, according to the best recipe for achieving a noble result. Honest, sincere artists, the ‘best’, have been grouped together to make a civilised stab at celebrating God and Man and Culture and Life through the collective act. So there is a new building, fine ideas, beautiful glass work – only the ritual is threadbare. Those Ancient and Modern hymns, charming perhaps in a little country church, those numbers on the wall, those dog collars and the lessons – they are sadly inadequate here. The new place cries out for a new ceremony, but of course it is the new ceremony that should have come first.

Brook, The Empty Space, p.50-51

I have ambitions to create within the historic space of the Cathedral an expectation that whoever comes in, for whatever reason, may be struck by the Invisible-Made-Visible. It is this incarnational mission that requires little speech but an enactment of intentional ritual and experience, a public spectacle of true sacrifice that all society yearns for in their deepest being, that will make us more accessible, more visible and more sustainable as we seek to weave Jesus into the rich fabric of the city and beyond. It is this striving towards Holy and not Deadly worship and mission that, I believe, will change the narrative of the Cathedral, Bradford and the world.

Into Culture: Women at the Well

One month ago I was installed as Canon for Intercultural Mission and the Arts in Bradford Cathedral.  As part of the service I was asked to choose bible readings. I chose to perform one of the passages of Scripture in a way that I used to do more regularly during my training at Cranmer Hall (it was called, ‘doing a Ned’, and I was wheeled out when dignitaries came to the college as a party trick!) The reading was from John’s gospel, chapter 4, and tells the story of Jesus’ encounter with a woman at a well. I chose this story as it presents, in my mind, an excellent piece of intercultural mission from Jesus. The woman is a Samaritan, whilst Jesus is a Jew. The woman is a lone female and Jesus is a lone male. Jesus is in a foreign land here; Sychar, where the story takes place, is in Samaria. All of this means that there are multiple and conflicting statuses at play and within this complexity of who has power and who does not Jesus speaks boldly, gently and disarmingly.

In my dramatisation of the story I chose to portray the woman as having some forceful agency; a woman who has experienced much pain and trauma who is understandably defensive and strong-willed. We discover in the interaction that she has been married five times and is currently living with a man who is not her husband. I think of the many women who live in fear of physical attack, particularly when in public and the presence of a strange man. I think of women who have lived experience of being overlooked or looked over by oppressive/aggressive men. I didn’t want this female character to be read as meek and subservient; she has thoughts and she speaks her mind to Jesus. Jesus, in return, accepts all that she presents with compassion and understanding, and yet, he meets her opinions and defence with an equal but different force of love or, as Oscar Romero calls it, ‘the violence of love.’ 

This biblical narrative, as I say, speaks to me of intercultural mission and this is why it has been, in my first month, a framework in which I have tried to live and work.

In my first week Bradford Cathedral was privileged to co-host (with our neighbours, Kala Sangam) the Outdoor Arts UK Conference. This national gathering of outdoor artists and producers was well attended with some wonderful performers and companies coming to the future City of Culture to dream and collaborate. Part of my role as residentiary canon at the cathedral is to welcome all guests and so I was invited to do that at the conference and to give some housekeeping notices.  As part of my welcome I spoke of the cathedral’s historic commitment to gathering people from all faiths and none (whatever ‘no faith’ means; that’s for another article!) to share in conversation about the immediate, real things of life as well as the sacred and transcendental things that we all experience. I quoted Peter Brook, saying that we were a stage ‘where the invisible can appear’, and then I finished by offering our side chapels as places of reflection and quiet and myself as someone who could sit with them in the silence or listen to their stories. This welcome was commented on by so many individuals who were touched by my genuine offer of support and care. It was, as one of the delegates said to me, the fact that I spoke knowingly of the stresses, pressures and particular loneliness of the artist’s life. It was the fact that I gave permission for the reality of their lives to be named and held with compassion just like the woman encountering the prophetic power of Jesus at the well.

From that conference I connected with so many exciting artists and was encouraged by the hope that emanated from the conversations. I heard subtle stirrings of people who would not describe themselves as religious (whatever they mean by that phrase; again, maybe for another time!) talk about the ineffable, transcendent quality of art that is so significant to their work and yet rarely is given space just to be; without words. It is the mystery at the heart of each one of us which, in our Western, scientific, materialistic culture is held with some suspicion or rushed to be defined or identified. It is the holiness that is fearfully known and often packaged too quickly as ‘self’. It is this rush and urgency when touching on the ineffable and often bewildering mystery at the very core of each of us that causes much of the confusion and painful divisions we see played out in our Western culture.  The paradox at the heart of our self-identification is that we all believe we know ourselves and, at the same time, we know that we are conflicted contrasts evolving and growing. Hearing the stories of many artists and people across the city of Bradford, I have met, again and again, women at the well who want to be secure in themselves and yet discovering that they do not know enough and then experience profound vulnerability. Jesus met her in that moment of vulnerability and held a safe space for her to be seen and known.

The conflict experienced by each one of us as individuals has been played out in pieces of work that I have seen this month. I think of ‘Ode to Partition’ by Tribe Arts and ‘A Tale of 2 Estates’ by Jae Depz, both expressions of different forms of anger, frustration and pain. Ode to Partition tackles the complex issues of race, faith, sectarianism, empire and colonialism. This spoken word piece written by a group of children of the partition powerfully articulates the experience of living in the UK and having South Asian heritage, in particular, migration caused by the partition. I noted that I was a minority in the audience, the show being aimed more overtly to those with lived experience of partition. I felt the responsibility, guilt and shame. I heard and experienced, powerfully, the rightful accusation put upon the British Empire and my historic ancestors and their leading role in this historic division. What I took away from the evening was a particular truth that art/poetry should provoke conversation. I left, however, with a sense of lack. I think it was a lack of enough expressed desire for healing. The piece was in development and I hope that the future ‘Tribe Talks’ event will work towards more of this need for healing for it is healing that I think so many want/need and yet we daren’t engage with that need for fear of being disappointed and hurt further. 

A Tale of 2 Estates was similar. This piece was a research and development piece produced over a two week period. There is so much potential in the work and I do hope they find the means and funding to develop it further. Again, however, I left feeling a lack. It was the same lack as I had experienced two weeks before. The piece (due to lack of time) didn’t engage in depth in what narratives we have for healing and reconciliation. This is what I have realised about the popular Western culture: we have lost narratives of redemption, forgiveness, healing and wholeness. We are all feeling the exhaustion of pain and struggle. We all feel the overwhelming chaos of uncertainty within and without of ourselves. We all are struggling to find peace. We just want to get the water and go home but where might we encounter the stranger at the well who sees us and names everything that has ever happened to us? How might we allow him to interrupt the story of our current culture of urgent, immediate judgement with gentleness and grace?

If City of Culture is going to have any kind of legacy in Bradford, I am praying for a legacy of genuine love. That is not the love that is broad and undefined. That is not love that is about total acceptance and affirmation of my current understanding of my own self identity. This is the love that gives me room to be and to change; to heal and become; to rest in the knowledge that I am not perfect and there is more that I can be if I allow someone to stop my inner monologue and whisper to me a different story. A society that gives that kind of space… that’s my prayer for Bradford.

If

There’s a question that puts fear into many people’s heart, forces others to put up defense mechanisms and for others encourages the opinion that the one who is asking the question is naive and foolish. I believe this question, however, opens us up to inner transformation and the reception of joy and wonder. This question, when entertained and digested, changes our view of reality so that all we experience is brought into question. What is this question?

What if…?

Konstantin Stanislavski, a Russian theatre director, actor and writer on acting method, discusses the ‘magic if’. This kind of questioning allows an actor to transcend their perceived realities/ actualities and enter into the realm of possibility/potentiality. What is interesting about this technique, in light of philosophical understanding of ‘truth’, is it calls into question what we know about our experiences. Too often, in life, we believe only that which is actual, empirical, stable and tangible.

Rene Descartes’ search for true knowledge led him to dismiss anything that he could doubt in anyway. After discarding perception as unreliable he arrived at the famous belief ‘I think therefore I am’. Descartes’ conclusion is based on an understanding that if he doubted, then something or someone must be doing the doubting, therefore the fact that he was able to doubt proves his existence. At the most basic, Descartes knew he was a thinking thing. Despite my reservations about how this theory has been adopted and adapted by philosophers since (enforcing a natural turn to individualism and self centredness), it is useful in beginning the process of understanding the world around us as questionable.

The Matrix popularised this concept in 1999 as the protagonist, Neo, is pulled from his perceived reality into the real world. All that he had experienced up to that point was a fabricated, controlled and projected world which only existed in his mind; his real body was being farmed and used as a battery for alien beings. His discovery and explorations all start with the potentiality of such truth; he asked ‘what if…?’

What if I’m not who I am told to be? What if this is not the only way? What if it’s not true? What if it is true?

I grew up in a house where the search, the discovery, the process of learning was embraced and encouraged. In our family understanding and learning was the main aim of life. This has shaped me to be a person who asks questions, who never ceases to test, reflect and explore (much to the frustration of those around me!) Such questioning is not a challenge to authority nor is it a rejection of tradition; for me it is an awareness of and search for Beauty and Truth in the world around me.

As I continue to settle into this new community in York, I am re-discovering how uncommon such an outlook on life this is. I have been fascinated by how many people react so strongly to simple questions. People have felt threatened, challenged, insulted by me as I grasp hold of things, turn them over in my hand, investigate, prod, probe but ultimately with an attitude of wonder and intrigue. My wide eyed excitement at learning and experiencing something; trying to identify the uniqueness and intricate truths about something, enjoying it for what it really is and trying to find that which will make it mare real, more truthful.

What ‘what if’ questions do is open up our minds to the possibility of an encounter with the unknown. The reason this is scary is because the known is safe, comforting, stable. It is a rock on which we can have some foundation. We all have, however, just under the surface of our consciousness, a deep awareness of the changeability of life, the existence of flux; truth is not as certain as we thought it might be. The moment we entertain this thought our hearts begin to race and fear sets in. In matters of faith this becomes difficult to take. How can God be our rock, our firm foundation, whilst at the same time be ‘unknowable’ and transcendent. God refuses to be held, pinned down, confined and articulated fully. His relationship with human beings, throughout the Bible’s narrative, is one of playful, part-revelation. Ultimately His approach to encounter is one of ‘glimpses’ rather than fully and unrestrained.

I digress.

Innovation and creativity always starts with a question. The power, however, is not in the answers to such questions but the journey it starts. People often misunderstand the role of questions. As a theatre director, my role was to guide actors through a process of discovery, an invitation to enter into a world of awareness to the stimulation of their environment. An alert, aware, responsive actor is a prepared actor; the same is true of human beings.

Here’s where the question becomes powerful: We walk around on this earth taking so much for granted, assuming so many things, leaving most ideas, objects, beliefs unexamined. Socrates was right,

An unexamined life is not worth living.

‘What if’ questions begin the process of examination and contemplation. This process is scary, unsettling, overwhelming and uncomfortable but it is only by entering into this space that you find a strength so transcendent that you can remain calm even in the deepest storm. Living the question, in my experience, is becoming aware of the beauty, wonder, and amazement of the world around us. The smallest thing becomes of infinite importance, you hear words with all their meaning, you see faces with all their history, you see the potential of every person, even yourself.

People today close themselves off to the unexamined out of fear and trepidation whilst, at the same time, they close themselves off to new discovery, life giving encounter, affirmation, understanding of what is really going on. That which seems frightening, overwhelming is in fact an invitation to receive a gift; life.

Peter Brook finishes his book ‘The Empty Space’ with the following thought,

In everyday life, ‘if’ is a fiction, in the theatre ‘if’ is an experiment. In everyday life, ‘if’ is an evasion, in the theatre ‘if’ is the truth. When we are persuaded to believe in this truth, then the theatre and life are one. This is a high aim. It sounds like hard work. To play needs much work. But when we experience the work as play, then it is not work any more. A play is play.

I’ve been struck by how many people have questions and they feel uncomfortable with them. They are told by some unknown force that questions are bad and should be eradicated. I find the opposite to be true; answers destroy life. Rowan Williams suggests,

Christ may indeed answer our questions, but he also questions our answers.

I have returned again and again to the realisation that life is best experienced as a playful exploration and creative journey. Answers are the end of growth, searching and newness; questions begin journeys, discoveries and new life. In the theatre ‘what if’ questions wipe the slate clean and begin things again. Questions invite relationship with someone. Questions, when handled as gift, encourage our souls to sing with wonder, humble adoration and openness to all that is around you.

As I ponder my place in this new ministry I am aware that the world doesn’t need a church to answer their questions but one that creates a safe place to seek, explore and experience the Unknown. A church which asks the questions of society’s answers is a church embodying Christ Himself.

Deadly Theatre Deadly Worship?

I’m aware I haven’t written about theatre for a long time so I want to unpick some thoughts I’m currently wrestling with as I continue the long process of writing the book ‘God of the Gods’.

My placement this year has been focused on being in a ‘creative’ community and seeing what one might look like. (You can follow the placement through the ‘Theatre Church’ stream by searching this site.) My reflections have concentrated on the capitalist mentality that flows through both the process of theatre and our understanding of Christian community. I have written extensively on this theory but thought I might share aspects of it as it relates to thoughts on theatre from the man himself, Peter Brook.

The act of creating a piece of theatre should be a journey of discovery for all involved. The current economic climate, however, forces the focus away from the search for discovery to a mechanical, predictable process aimed at achieving the highest income for the lowest cost.

A producer, who holds the finances, in order to increase that potential investment, funds a startup productions in the hope of building both a portfolio, artistic clout and financial capital to further that aim. In order to gain the most income they need to produce a sellable product, something popular and so they invite ‘creative’ directors and/or writers to invent a concept or write a script that will meet those criteria. These ‘creatives’ are therefore conditioned to develop concepts or write scripts to pitch to a producer who decides whether it will make a return on their investment. Theatre is, therefore, often driven by the marketability of the product rather than the necessity of the expression itself. The creative act is done by a solo agent and is completed before the pitch is made in order that a clear ‘vision’ is communicated to the financier. The process to construct the product must be planned carefully in order that it is the most successful (success being both how well it embodies the original concept and the amount of people who consume it.) Auditions are held to get the right people for the right job/role. Actors are tested and interviewed to see who has the right skills to undertake the role in the shortest period of time. Rehearsals are characteristically one sided. Directors ensure that the actors are doing what needs to be done to create the product as the director/writer see it. The actors ask for clarification and performing the role as prescribed and not participating in a journey of discovery; they’re cogs in a machine.

Peter Brook notes,

…a theatre where a play for economic reasons rehearses for no more than three weeks is crippled at the outset. Time is not the be-all and end-all; it is not impossible to get an astonishing result in three weeks…But this is rare… No experimenting can take place, and no real artistic risks are possible. (Peter Brook, The Empty Space)

‘Deadly Theatre’, as Brook calls it, is one that lacks life. This, he suggests, is not as easily discerned as you might expect. For something dead can be dressed up to look alive like the lifeless puppet manipulated to imitate life. Can our Churches experiment? Can they, what theatre practitioners call, ‘play’? Can they take real ‘artistic’ risk? I’d argue ‘no’. If every Sunday, or what ever day the community worships, is a ‘performance’ to lure in seekers then there is no space for risk. If something ‘fails’ then it will impact potential clients. If we can begin to call the seeker-friendly service a performance then our ‘rehearsal time’ is one week! Brook continues,

The artistic consequences are severe. Broadway is not a jungle, it is a machine into which a great many parts snugly interlock. Yet each of these parts is brutalized; it has been deformed to fit and function smoothly… In such conditions there is rarely the quiet and security in which anyone may dare expose himself. I mean the true un spectacular intimacy that long work and true confidence in other people brings about – in Broadway, a crude gesture of self-exposure is easy to come by, but this has nothing to do with the subtle, sensitive interrelation between people confidently working together. (Peter Brook, The Empty Space)

This kind of theatre is like a disease spreading through our culture. The big West-End musicals are all veneer with no substance of necessary expressions of human beings. Audiences are fooled into thinking that the more jolly, colorful and expensive the design the more ‘theatrical’ it is. No one questions this shallow performance style which has seeped into classic works such as Shakespeare making words that have so much potential life become boring. We have all become accustomed to it and so no longer crave the pure, life giving theatrical art.

In churches, regular congregations have become accustomed to the lifeless worship that is dressed up to imitate life. These imitations take on may forms depending on a particular tradition. The pentecostal inspired charismatic services need only to increase the volume and emphasize the rhythm to bring on their ‘spiritual’ highs. Watchman Nee says,

We have heard people say that…the moment they hear the sound of the organ and the voice of singing their spirits are immediately released to God’s presence. Indeed, such a thing does happen. But are they really being brought to the presence of God? Can people’s spirits be released and drawn closer to God by a little attraction such as this? Is this God’s way? (Watchman Nee, The Latent Power of the Soul)

What are we aiming for in community? In Christian community I’d suggest that we are aiming to share the fruit of the Spirit in the character of Christ to be reconciled to God and one another. In our worship, therefore, we need to be praying and living in the power of the Spirit. That Spirit will then go out from us to the others and unite us all together and bring us resurrection life; life that will not end. In theatre community I’d suggest the aim is similar. We are looking for a life that inspires each person to express themselves in a communal expression. Our self expressions can be affirmed as holding ‘truth’ by inspiring something within the whole community. Thus, that which is life to the individual participant is shared and encourages the other to experience life themselves. How do we discern whether a piece of theatre or an act of worship has ‘life-giving life’? Watchman Nee distinguishes between the life of the soul and the life-giving life of the Spirit,

“The first man Adam became a living soul; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” (1 Cor 15:45)… The soul is alive. It has its life, therefore it enables man to do all sorts of things…The spirit, however, is able to give life to others and cause them to live… “It is the spirit,” says the Lord, ‘that giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing” (John 6:63) (Watchman Nee, The Latent Power of the Soul)

Here it is important to state, one can perform a piece of theatre with life but it stops at self expression if it does not hold life-giving life or that which brings life to the observer/ the rest of the community. We are not searching for self expression but self expression within communal expression.

Christian community should pay attention to Brook’s warnings to theatre. We must discern carefully whether our self expressions don’t stop at the self but give life to others. We must be careful that our worship is not resuscitating our dead bodies for a moment but rather giving resurrected life. We can achieve this, I’m beginning to believe, by ‘playing’ constantly, feeling comfortable with others to experiment and to reject crude self expressions and aim for the self expression within communal expression that marks life-giving life to all. Feeling comfortable with others can only be achieved if we create space for vulnerability and commitment to community as a verb and not as a noun.

Theatre Church (part X)

I sat in Sanctuary 21 tonight waiting for the time set for the big introduction to this ‘thing’ that has been playing through my mind since Christmas to arrive. As the time ticked by and it got closer to the start, the big cloud of doubt floated into the space and hovered over me. “What if no one comes?” “What am I doing?” Throughout this all I remained optimistic “People said they’d come.” “This is clearly a need in this theatre community.” “People are excited about it.” The event was scheduled to begin at 6.45pm. Fifteen minutes after this time one person walked through the door.

Ministry training does not prepare you for this. One person! There are two responses to this fact; one, be positive or two, be disappointed. If you’re positive there’s plenty of Scripture that talks about persecution, the hard walk of faithful discipleship but then again, there’s of equal balance Scripture telling of God’s blessing to those who are faithful. I have spoken in the past about how to face disappointment and justifying reality til the metaphorical cows come home. This is not a time, while it is still raw and fresh, to justify what God is doing (or not doing). But I think it’s important to talk about failure.

In our church we hear success stories all the time, it’s not good for publicity or authority if we fail. Despite our deep understanding that for every good idea there are an average of 8 not so good ones. We push, as leaders and visionaries, our connection with God’s vision and God’s plans. In order to have the authority to lead a community one needs to have the discernment of God’s will and dream dreams and see visions. The truth is, we are not immune from spiritual confusion. But if I am to model authenticity then I need to tell the stories of failures or misguided vision as well as success and ‘wins’.

To be a pioneer is to take risks; to see an opportunity and to resolutely pursue it. I have taken a risk and it hasn’t worked so what is the response?

Return to the original, basic call.

What was it that God put on my heart that drove me to pursue this opportunity? My passion to connect with those involved in the theatre community, to offer them an opportunity to explore who they are and discover their creative voice; to give them a place where they can truly express who they are based on a knowledge of themselves.

Has that call changed? Is that not what is being asked of me now? No. That call is still there. What, therefore, is the next step? To continue and persevere with this idea or to change tact? Two interesting reflections; one, if I think back to my time in Byker (see ‘Death and Resurrection’ post) I am reminded of the power of continued presence in the face of so much temporary incarnations (quangos, consultants,etc) The second reflection is one that I want to explore in more detail and extends my reflections on the Cathedral Event that I’m apart of (see ‘Theatre Church (part VIII b)’ post).

In both the church and the theatre world the majority of thinkers and commentators would agree that to be product focussed stunts the exploration and deep reflection on culture and social movements. Both parties would bemoan the emphasis on being activity driven rather than the existence as good in and of itself. In the theatre, as the funding is cut, companies don’t have the luxury to explore, to research and develop ideas. There is no space, time or finances to allow the artists to explore, discover new things. Peter Brook suggests this replication, churning out products that are safe and driven by success, is ‘deadly’ and most people would agree. In the church, as we discover that creating a weekly event/service is sucking all our time and resources and distracts us from being community together, we speak about the ideal of being process, relationship based. The truth is, however, that processes, relationships, explorations cannot be measured. It is part of our capitalists’ mindset that if it has no profit, measurable success then it is worthless.

Success is measured on product shown, assets, ‘what have you got to show for this?’ The worth of something must be measured. Fresh Expressions are trying to counter this thinking but we can’t fight free from it. My latest experience would be measured as failure. If someone had invested in it then I would have failed and now would be the time to lessen the losses and salvage something from it. I want to shout from the rooftops “This is worth it! I have risked something, stuck my neck out and now I know what would happen!” To butcher a quote from Ernest Hemingway,

‘Only those who are prepared to go too far can possibly know how far they can go.’

I want to stay true to my call to process. To resolutely pursue this call to process, relationship and swim against the current of the capitalism that is a part of both church and theatre. I want to own my disappointment, yes, but to continue to explore the call put upon me. But how do you incarnate the importance of process in a world of product?

Well, like the Cathedral event, work with the current in order to subvert it. Sell a product in order to achieve a process and get people to explore and discover the benefits of the process. It’s a paradox that we exiles need to live in. In order to be counter cultural we need to be in the culture. To show the alternative we need to shine a light on the weakness of the option. Daniel, when in Babylon, lived the good Babylonian life and it was within this that he showed of the alternative way of life or the Pauline model, to become a Jew for the Jews, a
Gentile for the Gentiles all in order to show them the way of Jesus.

Connected with this is some thoughts on Fresh Expressions which were sparked by a fascinating conversation with Paul Burbridge from Riding Lights Theatre Company I had last weekend. He suggested the reason a theatre company cannot be church is down to the need for it to be inclusive of all people. If you limit the membership to those that understand theatre then it cannot be broad and inclusive. This is a very fair point. What makes a ‘theatre church’ church? Inclusion of those from all walks of life. Fresh Expressions need to embrace this inclusivity and not be limited to ‘skater church’, ‘curry church’, etc. Community must be defined by that which unites people in a group. These ‘expressions’ (skater, theatre, curry, etc.) gather people round something that makes them distinct but in order for them to mature into full expressions of church there needs to be deconstruction of that which excludes others.

It’s a paradox that one must define and sell the product in order to show that it’s not about the product; to show people that it’s the process of belonging that is more important than the product that you belong to.

Theatre Church (part IX)

I had sat in my tutors office with some fellow ‘ordained pioneer ministers’ students (OPMs) discussing how to establish a ministry ‘from scratch’. It was an interesting question in light of my tutors preparation on a sermon, preached last night, on Matthew 10. In this passage Jesus commands His disciples to go out in pairs to do the work of the Kingdom. My fellow OPMs, for their placement, were heading out as a pair to do ‘deep listening’ in an area near Durham. They were discussing the task ahead and how they, as a pair, were going to minister and be effective listeners and prophets. I sat in the room listening to their disucssions, how they were going to support each other, the importance of one playing the speaking role and one the listener, the model of Moses and Aaron and I had to ask; who was my fellow worker?

My wife is, of course, supporting me in my work but her own work means she cannot be actively present in the growth and foundational work of my placement. She will be a listening ear of my take on events but she cannot, by her absence, be as effective in listening to how God is moving. Who will be with me as I minister? Who will be the prayful partner or the active energy to balance my activity? Jesus sent the disciples out in pairs and it’s a good model but we must remember that most of the disciples will have been married, potentially with children. I am married but I don’t have a partner in ministry.

This has a knock on effect in terms of the changing shape that this community is taking.

The ideal leadership model for this placement, I believe, is a rotational leadership. Both Peter Brook, who I will be teaching tonight, and Jerzy Grotowski, who I explored on Monday, suggested a director should be a member of the ensemble and should not hold onto the power and direction of a groups discovery. This model of leadership is freeing for the whole ensemble, community or church but requires a great deal of trust and discernment. Both Brook and Grotowski, although proclaiming a collective leadership of the whole company understood the individual role and strengths of the seperate contributors. This rotational leadership doesn’t suggest that everyone, despite their lack of gifting or talent in leadership, should be forced into a position of power, but rather when someone has something to offer and a sense of leading the group into an area of exploration they will go ahead, blessed, of course, by the followers, the rest of the group.

As an individual ‘founder’ of this group I will, inevitably hold a great deal of power at the beginning. The members will look to me for direction, purpose, identity. My Christian walk, however, demands that I hand over that power quickly before, like Gollem in Lord of the Rings, it consumes me. My role as the ‘designated leader’ is not to hold power but to move the power round the group, discerning when its appropriate to weild it and when to pass it on and to whom.

Discernment is the role of the director. One person must be the discerner and watchman of the group. Jesus uses the image of the shepherd, who allows sheep to wander where the wish but to gently watch over them and go and find those that get lost. As a director who integrates themself into the ensemble, your role is to discern what is worthwhile to explore and what is not, when to step in and remind people of the direction and when to let that go. This is a balancing act and its not easy. As a leader of any group there is a call for one person to take on this task but it is important that that person handles power well. Which leads onto the necessity of a partner, an accountable persence to test the responses of this discerner. The group as a whole needs to play this role but too often people in the discerning role allow the power to speak lies and say “They don’t know all that you know. They are all walking off track and you know best.” To have someone marked out to be another discerner and to listen when one cannot and to speak when one cannot protects, in some way, the misuse of power.

Already I am struggling with the absense of another perspective on what’s being shaped and I need the eyes and ears of someone else to aid my reflections. Already I fell isolated both in my reflections and in the relationship building workshops. I’m meeting some fantastic people and all of whom are contributing to the shape of this community by their needs and interests and I don’t feel I have someone who can help me to remain faithful in the work set before me.

I could discuss the nature of accountability here and argue for the term ‘editability’ (see ‘Organic Community’ by Joseph Myers) but I don’t want to confuse the issue.

This past week I have been confirmed in the call to an apostilic mission of planting but the need for the support, not only of prayful communites and supporters but, of a partner in mission is important in all ministry. My next task is to discern who in the community gathering on Mondays will be my co-worker. I’m sure it will happen organicaly and until then I will remain patient.

London Calling (part II)

I’m sat in the basement flat of my dear friend Jay. He is currently working as Worship Pastor of St Luke’s, Redcliffe Gardens. He’s working on some new worship songs, singing praise and getting lost in melodies. He is carefully constructing phrasings and chord progressions to communicate, to the best of his ability, his love and praise of God.

I met him two years ago when we both worked for St Stephen’s, East Twickenham, he as the Worship Intern and me as a Pastoral Assistant. Our friendship was one that was both a blessing to me and a source of real inspiration. Jay’s major strength, amongst many, is his unflinching love of God and, despite struggles and frustrations he feels, when he approaches the throne room of God he is freed, releasing his infectious, childlike excitement for his God.

As I watch and listen to him constructing songs of praise I got to thinking about the creative process and how we remain in the tension between spontaneity and polished performance. How do you capture the moment of inspiration, work it through to a concrete idea and not lose the power of the original emotion?

Peter Brook comments,

Here, the French word for performance – représentation – contains an answer. A representation is the occasion when something is re-presented, when something from the past is shown again… It takes yesterday’s action and makes it live again in every one of its aspects – including its immediacy…the more we study this the more we see that for a repetition to evolve into a representation, something further is called for. The making present will not happen by itself, help is needed…We wonder what this necessary ingredient could be, and we look at a rehearsal, watching the actors toiling away at their painful repetitions. We realize that in a vacuum their work would be meaningless. Here we find a clue. It leads us naturally to the idea of an audience; we see that without an audience there is no goal, no sense. What is an audience? In the French language amongst the different terms for those who watch, for public, for spectator, one word stands out, is different in quality from the rest. Assistance – I watch a play: j’assiste à une pièce… An actor prepares, he enters into a process that can turn lifeless at any point. He sets out to capture something, to make it incarnate…When the actor goes in front of an audience, he finds…an audience that by chance brings an active interest and life to its watching role – the audience assists… Then the word representation no longer separates actor and audience, show and public: it envelops them: what is present for one is present for the other.

For the person who leads worship there is a need for the corporate worship to assist them, it can’t be just them trying to repeat a song. The problem with this, however, is that the personal relationship with God remains (or should remain) constant and so the re-presenting of worship is not as clinical as the performance put forward by Brook. For the actor, also, there needs to be a personal response to the action, an internal memory of the original emotion. The issue, I think, is when you no longer feel the same way; in Christian worship terms, when you’re not in a ‘praisey’ mood but rather struggling through the mire.

Here is the point at which corporate worship helps. Jay admits

Seeing one other person responding to God reminds me that God is bigger than I know.

The importance of corporate worship is to witness God moving in other peoples lives. This reminder drives us to respond afresh to Him and re-present our worship. For the worship leader, in particular, an initial inspiration for a worship song may be long forgotten as (s)he repeats it in order to perfect it but when they see God moving through other people in worship then this will assist them to engage with the original emotion, reminding them of who it is they worship.

This quote also helps us to understand how we engage in worship. It is easy to blame the worship leader, the preacher or whoever on our lack of engagement and, at times these have some validity, but we come to encourage each other, to remind each other of God and thus it is our responsibility to ‘assist’ the saints in worship.

A word from Steven Croft (whose book, Jesus’ People, I still recommend)

Intercession and individual prayer are important but…Again Luke is referring to something the Church does together: the evolving rhythm of worship and common prayer, which has always been at the heart of the Christian community… You might think it would be normal for any Christian team or group or church to give careful and regular thought to the way in which it prays together. In reality it is surprisingly rare…

St Luke’s needs to hold onto their passion to pray and worship together, that it is the heart beat of all they do. For, as Steven Croft continues,

The road for renewal for many congregations does not lie in doing more but in reconnecting again with Jesus, the source of the Church’s life: through retreat, word and sacrament, and the fellowship and the prayers.

Divine Director (part II)

I quoted Joseph Myers yesterday and asked whether we can begin to see God as an organic organiser rather than a master planner, but what’s the problem with seeing God as a master planner anyway? Nothing, directly, but it gets confusing, theologically, when you’re faced with instances in Scripture, such as Abraham at Sodom and Gomorrah, where God seems to change his mind and also when faced with the issue of prayer. If God’s will is going to happen why bother praying? Well, if God is a master planner then prayer begins to be seen as tapping a busy God on the shoulder saying “if you can find it in your heart to change the whole world order so I can have a parking space, that would be nice… but only if it’s in your plan…” What kind of relationship is being posed here? An authority figure demanding you do exactly as you’re told? Not really loving, is it? (Even if the plans are to prosper me and not to harm me!)

The other, more major, issue that arises when seeing God as a master planner comes when you’re faced with the crucified God.

‘What makes God the world Ruler, said Barth, as opposed to all false gods and idols is ‘the very fact that his rule is determined and limited: self-determined and self-limited, but determined and limited none the less’. (Karl Barth, ‘Church Dogmatics II/2’) Knowledge of this self-limitation derives from the cross, for if everything were rigorously determined what could the cross be but a piece of spectacular, though indecent, theatre? On the contrary the ‘necessity’ of the cross, frequently spoken about by New Testament authors, is God’s refusal to overrule human history. If the cross is our guide, God is no determinist.’ (T.J. Gorringe, ‘God’s Theatre’)

What is seen on the cross is God’s power working through human free will. God didn’t pretend to die on the cross. He didn’t hold onto control or power in that situation rather he became weak and died in order that we could know that

‘he refuses to manipulate or control but rather wishes to woo creation to conformity with his son, as Hosea suggests.’ (Gorringe, ‘God’s Theatre’)

Yesterday I mentioned an experience Peter Brook had while directing Love’s Labour’s Lost for the RSC. Brook told of his frustration when, early on in rehearsals, actors did not perform in the expected way. I will just write Gorringe’s reflections rather than rephrase,

‘This story is a marvellous parable of God’s activity. If we do in fact learn about God, and the mode of God’s activity from Christ then it should be clear that God rejected the prompt book option from the very beginning, and has been from the start ‘in amongst the actors’. God works without script and without plan but with, to continue the metaphor, a profound understanding of theatre and the profoundest understanding of the play…Interestingly Brook remarked early on in rehearsal that there was a particular rhythm to be found and a particular actor to find it, and this demanded ‘an almost metaphysical explanation’. (David Selbourne, ‘Making of Midsummer Night’s Dream’)All the director can do is illuminate the play and demand that the actors find their own inner resources. Often Brook simply sat in front of the stage drumming out a rhythm. Something like this is what God demands of us… Against this analogy it might be objected that it conceives God as simply one agent amongst many, just as Selbourne sometimes wondered whether Brook was one actor amongst many. This would reduce God to the status of a finite being. The giveaway here is the ‘simply’. God is indeed one agent amongst many, but he is the only unique agent, just as there is only one ‘director’. ‘God’ is the Creator and Sustainer, present in the personal reality of his graciousness to all things, and interacting with, and reacting to all things.’

People often ask me, “What makes a good director?” Well the answer, for me, is someone who is willing to guide rather than dictate. Actors are creative beings and are at their most powerful when they are using their creativity. To stifle the creative is to stop them from ‘existing’ onstage. A director’s role is to encourage actors to make right decisions and to enable them to react to impulses onstage. When I’m directing I spend more time equipping actors with tools and practical guidelines as to how to react than I do telling them how exactly to walk, stand and speak. This way of directing, at times, is frustrating for the perfectionist inside me, but in the end it’s the moments when the actors come alive onstage that makes me excited about theatre. Peter Brook, as always, says it best,

‘I think one must split the word “direct” down the middle. Half of directing is, of course, being a director, which means taking charge, making decisions, saying “yes” and saying “no,” having the final say. The other half of directing is maintaining the right direction. Here, the director becomes guide, he’s at the helm, he has to have studied the maps and he has to know whether he’s heading north or south. He searches all the time, but not haphazardly. He doesn’t search for the sake of searching, but for a purpose; a man looking for gold may ask a thousand questions, but they all lead back to gold; a doctor looking for a vaccine may make endless and varied experiments, but always toward curing one disease and not another. If this sense of direction is there, everyone can play the part as fully and creatively as he is able. The director can listen to the others, yield to their suggestions, learn from them, radically modify and transform his own ideas, he can constantly change course, he can unexpectedly veer one way or another, yet the collective energies still serve a single aim. This enables the director to say “yes” and “no” and the others willingly to assent.’ (The Shifting Point)

The same is true of Christian leaders. We may know the vision or see how things could be, but we must act in the way God would act and rather encourage collaboration rather than cooperation. We must tap out a rhythm and help the actors to find and discover the role they are playing and, most importantly, we must be ready and excited about being surprised by the new and fresh things the actor unearths.

In my placement, this year, I will have the joy and pleasure to work with creative individuals and watch them create and communicate stories and truths. I have discovered a way in which my passion and love of directing is truly godly and a spiritual exercise, for as I work ‘in amongst the actors’ I find God is there to.

Divine Director (part I)

My reading over the summer has been sporadic to say the least. I constantly jump from ‘Organic Community’, ‘The Empty Space’, ‘The Shifting Point’ (another Peter Brook book), ‘The Invisible Actor’ by Yoshi Oida and now into my more theologically heavy tomes, ‘God’s Theatre’ and ‘Transforming Fate and Destiny’. Books move from the top of the pile to the bottom frequently as my interest and whims change day by day. This reading is also interrupted by revision on theatre practitioner’s theories in preparation for ‘The Workshops’ running the first couple of weeks of term. Add to this the inevitable daily activities of a wife wanting to do those household chores put aside for the holiday season and you have all the ingredients for a mental meltdown!

There has been, however, some exciting and recurring themes coming through in my research and one of which is particularly helpful for me for a couple of reasons.

For those of you who have been reading for some months now will know, I have struggled with the idea of ‘God’s will’ and how one should discern it; the theological balancing of the providence of God and free will. My evangelical background has led me towards an understanding of God as having a plan for each of our lives and has a map of how our lives should be lived. This means that listening prayer becomes really important to discern which decisions one should make in order to be aligned to His will. This discernment is not a perfect solution as you can never be totally sure you’ve heard him right (if at all!) and so confusion and doubt creep in. The pray-er justifies decisions and outcomes depending on how confident they are that it was God’s will in the first place. This is an adequate theological standpoint and I’m sure there is some truth in it. It does lead to, however, some Christians proclaiming knowledge of God’s one and only will and leading many down destructive or damaging paths. I want to clarify, I don’t think everyone claiming to hear God’s voice in a situation is leading people into destructive or damaging paths but sometimes it has happened.

I struggle when new Christians come to this teaching. Having heard a gospel of grace and cleansing of bad decisions made, they are then pressured to hear God’s will in how to live their lives now and when they make one wrong decision then it’s hard not to feel like you’re not good enough to be a Christian because you’ve messed up God’s plan again!

Joseph Myers in ‘Organic Community’ suggests;

‘A theology of God as master planner implies that God has a purpose – even one purpose – for your life and it’s your lifelong job to pursue it, identify it, and live it out. The gospel becomes, “God has a plan for your life.” God has planned the job, the life partner, the house, the child, and so on. He wants nothing more than our cooperation with his plan. A theology of God as organic order, however, allows for collaboration with him. We are privileged to participate with him in the forming of our future. He invites our ideas, our energy, our creativity, our perspective. He gives up a measure of control to facilitate relationship with us and to demonstrate his love.’

In ‘God’s Theatre’ T.J. Gorringe dissects the main theological and philosophical thoughts on providence, walking his reader through Calvin, Augustine, Aquinas thought and many other historical heavy weights. He argues that you fall into the trap of saying human free will is always working contrary to God’s will and therefore we should cast it aside and be automatons or God works all things to good and so we can do what we like because God is going to fix everything anyway. There are other standpoints, as you can begin to discover, but I just want to give a flavour of the different and varied views. How do we balance God’s omnipotence and Scripture clearly proclaiming God having a plan for human kind and working in this world for the furtherance of the Kingdom and our innate free will?

Gorringe goes onto suggest an understanding of God’s work amongst human beings that has helped me to see more clearly how we can pick up Myers call for ‘organic order’ and see God as someone who wants collaboration rather than cooperation. Gorringe’s ideas come from none other than Peter Brook…

I was immediately interested!

He begins by retelling the story, originally told by Brook himself in ‘The Empty Space’, of one of Brook’s early directorial posts on Love’s Labour’s Lost for the RSC. I returned to ‘The Empty Space’ and read the account. Brook describes how he would have a scene mapped out before rehearsals; He knew where people should move and how and what every moment would look like. He would use cardboard figurines to move them about the stage at different moments and would have it all charted out. I was reminded, as I read this, of two things; firstly, how closely this describes my method of directing early on in my career and secondly, of this implement called ‘a director’s tray’ that was brought to my attention a week ago. This ‘tray’ marks out the stage into different areas and a director would move markers (signifying actors) around the tray like a general would in a war room. Brook, like many directors before and after him, discovered,

‘As the actors began to move I knew it was no good. These were not remotely like the cardboard figures, these large human beings thrusting themselves forward, some too fast with lively steps I had not foreseen…We had only done the first stage movement, letter A on my chart, but already everyone was wrongly placed and movement B could not follow… Was I to start again, drilling these actors so that they conformed to my notes? One inner voice prompted me to ddo so, but another pointed out that my pattern was much less interesting than this new pattern that was unfolding in front of me…I stopped, and walked away from my book, in amongst the actors, and I have never looked at a written plan since.’

I hope you can begin to see where Gorringe begins to see how God might work with human beings.

Join me tomorrow for part two of this post. Go and have a cup of tea or whatever your beverage preference is and I ask that you mull over how you see God working His plans in your life. Have you ever struggled with the idea of God having one plan for your life and that’s it? How do address life decisions? Have you ever struggled with discerning prayer?

See you tomorrow…

Monasticism and Asceticism (part I)

I want to begin by reminding myself of something said in the sermon by our college chaplain on Tuesday night; As church leaders we are the most at risk of temptation to boast of spiritual achievements (see 2 Corinthians 12). Having said that I will add that I tell you about the intense couple of days I have just had, not to boast, but to share and document what God was saying to me through the experience.

Now that disclaimer has been issued…

‘The Monastic Ball of Intensity’ (T.M.B.I.)(see Wrestling With Truth (part III)) and I have talked for some months now about reading Isaiah straight through out loud; we wanted to listen to the whole narrative as it flows. As the term went on and things filled our diaries, we found ourselves in the last weeks with very little time during the day to take on this exercise. We decided that it would be ‘cool’ to do it at night and ‘up the stakes’. As we talked about it the descriptive words used by both of us became less ‘interesting, useful’ and more ‘endurance, intense, hardcore, ascetic’ and we started to run away with ideas of doing an all night spiritual marathon with prayers and disciplines added on.

The final decision was: after the college communion on Tuesday night we would do Compline (Night Prayer) and start at chapter one. We would take alternate chapters and/or rotate through whoever came and joined us. We would light some candles and have a simple cross to help our focus but the main task was to listen and digest the words of ‘the great prophet’. We would stay up all night and fast in the chapel as we read and when we came to the end of Isaiah we would decide on another prophet (perhaps Ezekiel) and read through until we got to about 6.00am when we would read Morning prayer and prepare ourselves for a quiet day on Holy Island, organised by our college for the students.

And so at 10pm on Tuesday T.M.B.I., myself and three other students sat in chapel and said Compline together by candle light. We then went straight into Isaiah, chapter 1, verse 1: ‘The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz…’

During the evening we stopped and prayed for different things, we repeated verses that struck us as important, we knelt in quiet meditation. People came and went and by chapter 40 it was T.M.B.I. and I, one kneeling the other reading. The whole experience was intense, amazing and exhilarating. The sleep deprivation, although visible in my eyes was not felt in my spirit. I was buzzing as we head into the final chapters. God’s presence was so tangible; one person who joined said that as he walked in the place was heavy with holiness… but I’m heading too close to boasting of my experience.

At 2.30am, we had completed Isaiah and moved to our common room to reflect on what we felt God saying through the reading. The only word I could use was ‘relentless’. Isaiah, gives you no break from the anger of God, the passion for His people and, through it all, His almighty mercy. Hope is splattered through the whole book but always the background of depravity and darkness; specks of light break through blackness. T.M.B.I. commented on the ineffability of the text, all we can truly hold is the emotional response to the ‘relentless’ narrative of this relationship of God and his people. We were all struck, I think, by the importance of repentance for sin, not to cheapen grace and forgiveness and, most importantly, not to tame God! What does confession of sin and repentance look like in a theatre setting? I have some ideas already brimming, need to capture the truth of them…

T.M.B.I. went to bed after an hour and a half of chatting and I went back and read Acts, a perfect complement to Isaiah. I was struck by the Spirit (which I will not speak of) and it came as a drenching after an academic year where I have rarely been fed as deeply. When it got to 5.30am I started Morning Prayer, alone in the chapel.

Afterwards, I went, got washed and changed and went to meet a group of guys who I have prayed with over this year. I was flying, it was amazing… I can hardly describe it. The prayer session was fantastic and I’m so grateful for those guys who have supported and ministered to me and for whom have allowed me to support them in times of vulnerability.

And then on to Holy Island…

The home of St Cuthbert, ‘Durham’s Saint’, for many years, Lindisfarne is a place that knows monasticism! After a brief reflection in the church there I went for a solitary walk to some beach. As I sat I asked God to speak and sum up what happened the previous night. I was drawn to Peter Brooks’ chapter on Holy Theatre in ‘The Empty Space’ which now lives, again, constantly in my bag. He writes,

‘he himself was always speaking of a complete way of life, of a theatre in which the activity of the actor and the activity of the spectator were driven by the same desperate need… Artaud applied is Artaud betrayed: betrayed because it is always just a portion of his thought that is exploited, betrayed because it is easier to apply rules to the work of a handful of dedicated actors than to the lives of the unknown spectators who happen by chance to come through the theatre door.’

What a powerful way of describing the work of any prophet. I sat and thought about what I had heard the night before from Isaiah. ‘Isaiah applied is Isaiah betrayed’ for the exact same reason as it was for Artaud. Brook also says,

‘…maybe the power of his vision is that it is the carrot in front of our nose, never to be reached.’

I’m not sure about the ‘never to be reached’, in Isaiah’s case, but certainly not within the limitations of this fallen world. Isaiah’s vision is always out of reach in completion but that we grasp one thing and then another thing is brought into focus. I shared this thought with T.M.B.I. and he came out with a gem only he could say,

‘That’s why we have to stay mad!’

I wonder if he knew Artaud as the man who died with one shoe in his hand, in an asylum?

That would be a nice completion of my post today but… in true Isaiah fashion I will carry on!

As I stood on Cuthbert’s Island, a little clump of land which becomes an island at high tide, I heard the seals wailing. The sound was so powerful. It sounded like the screams of demons or of a damage generation. High on sleep deprivation and coming off an epic reading of the prophet, I imagined Cuthbert stood in prayer hearing the seals wailing, in the distance the mainland. What a powerful prayer tool! God called me to pray for this country and the emotional screams that echo through our land. I desperately wanted something to have as a reminder of that meeting with God and I went into the shops to buy some memento… it was all tat!

Hope was at hand. Friends of mine were making a visit to the Northumbria Community and I was keen to have a look at this way of life and to buy some spiritual aid. I have heard so much about this community over the last year and was intrigued about the nomadic nature of the community and how we, in the theatre world may use the framework.

When we arrived it was a lovely farmhouse, homely and welcoming. The people were awesome and very hospitable, which is good because it’s part of their Rule. I looked at their prayers and studied the literature they use and was dissatisfied. For me (and it is a very personal thing!) their liturgy and the focus of the community was a little too ‘hippy’ for me, too alternative. If anyone has gone to Greenbelt before and found some of the religious stuff too ‘60s love and peace’ then this place is not a religious home for you. Having said that, the welcome and peace around the house is wonderful and I can see, if you want a place to rest, then this is ideal. I just wouldn’t be signing up to read their Morning Prayer every day with a very earthy and ‘hippy’ mentality. This all sounds cruel, it’s not! I can’t describe what it is about the literature I saw but I accepted it wasn’t for me, although I would praise the theory behind it. The work of this community is important and, for others, will be a real home, but for me it isn’t.

What then of a monastic styled community for the theatre? What of a rhythm of prayer for actors who travel (see Riding Lights Theatre Church post)? I have started a conversation with a Fransican friend of mine, we shall call her ‘The Mother’ (not sure what she’d say to that but she has a great maternal instinct and it has slight religious connotations!). She follows the Fransican Rule and as I spoke to her this morning she spoke about the ‘fool for Christ’. I will speak more to ehr about it before offering embryonic thoughts…

How to end in Isaiah fashion? Chapter 66, verse 23 and 24:

‘“From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me,” says the LORD. “And they will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.”’

Relentless, isn’t it?