Choosing the Critical Incident

Part of the reflective practice that forms the first part of the Professional Doctorate is examining a critical incident from your own profession. My critical incident flows from a letter written by me to the Head of School at Bretton Hall in 2005. (letter may be uploaded later). This is two different professions clashing, my sense of identity and the endless critical decision-making that forms a major part of the profession I belong to, have belonged to, may still belong to. The reason why so many theatre people are so superstitious is that success or failure to thrive doesn’t simply depend on talent or hard work…it really is being in the right place at the right time and having the ability to recognise that point, that “tipping point” that Malcolm Gladwell describes. Despite the difficulties and insecurities that can go alongside a career in theatre, many hate the idea of taking up another job or career, no matter how compatible, interesting or downright necessary. I believe that much of this is to do with a fear of losing identity with oneself and mainly with one's peers and community. "Oh poor X, I hear she's doing this now...such a loss" is a common and dreaded report. When working with international colleagues, I get the impression that having other jobs and professions alongside making theatre is considered normal and practical - particularly when funding for performance is hard to achieve. However, in the UK there remains a tendency to compartmentalise - you may take a lightly regarded temporary job when between contracts but anything too serious is regarded as defection. And always, always, hanging over the heads of would be teachers is the dreaded GBS quote: "he who can does, he who cannot teaches".  So the decision to take up a teaching post after a long career in professional theatre is often seen as failure, quitting the team, no longer being "one of us". That can feel like losing a family and identity for the petty and pernicious need for financial security.

Frying pan to fire

I am a theatre director who has recently (three years ago) joined the world of academia. Why did I do this, especially in a country that still views "those that can, do it: those that can't, teach it"? I would like to reach back in time and shake GBS warmly by his scrawny neck for creating an attitude of snobbery and separation between  practitioners and practitioner/teachers that has never gone away. 


I worked in professional theatre from 1979 to 2007. In that time I saw endless rounds of cuts to the arts, especially during the Thatcher period. At times, it seemed that my career was in a strange type of recession. I joined the profession when the joyous good times in arts seemed to have gone and life was becoming grim. I was lucky to stay in work 90% of the time but felt like a Jonah as each company I worked for faced funding crises and the majority closed. My c.v. looks like a memorial to companies past. 


I progressed to running companies myself and quickly learnt that the term "Artistic Director" is a misnomer - you have no time to be artistic as an AD - its all about the administration and funding. I ran 5 companies in total - all with artistic success and some with financial stability. In 2007 I grew tired of the constant battle with the Arts Council and instead joined a University. What was wonderful was the chance to create interesting theatre without having to sell a tour and to work with new and rewarding talent. What I didn't anticipate was the sheer lunacy of the higher educational system and the vicious snakepit that is daily academic life.

Sleepy Brain and the Eureka Moment

Einstein said that he got his best ideas whilst shaving, Brahms was said to get his whilst polishing his boots. There have been many occasions when I've had the beginnings of short stories arrive in my head whilst cleaning my teeth. I wondered for a long time if there was some neurological link between massaging my gums and hitting the "hot spot" in my brain. What is common with all these is that ideas arrive when you're not paying attention. Inattentiveness unlocks flow.

I belong to three different professional communities: firstly as a professional theatre practitioner; secondly as a teacher and practitioner of The Feldenkrais Method and more recently as an academic. All three communities deal with the inattentive moment. For the actor, being "in the moment" requires a conscious unconsciousness, the director needs to recognise and respond to a creative moment that may have arrived unplanned for in the rehearsal room. The Feldenkrais practitioner deals with being attentive to a moment without judging or presupposing. In predicting how a movement may take place, the practitioner imposes limitations on the event and may fail to observe what actually happens. The academic - well, a teacher in higher education - encourages the thinking process, finding questions rather than answers. The thinking process is a journey that is cut short when you scrabble to find the "right" answer.

Sleepy Brain

I haven't posted for a while as I seem to have no time left at either end of the day to think creatively. Lately I've been rewarding myself with veg-out TV which has all the elements of heroin without the expense or the track marks. I talk the talk endlessly with students about having thinking time before starting to write but over the last few days I wondered how much of this is true.

This morning I woke at 5.45 with the "critical incident" clearly outlined in my brain - the eureka moment that I'd been mulling on for the last fortnight. I gave up on trying to go back to sleep (I had promised myself a much needed lie-in) and decided that if I didn't write this all down, I would lose the insight. I speculated on the potential of "sleepy brain" - not unlike dream diary but rather than recording dreams, noting the moment when the brain had finally processed something and was ready to summarise before getting distracted by the constant minutiae of the day. I awoke with a clear rationale and sense of direction for my assignment and the need to set all this down. However, first I had to get up and find my laptop. In the process of this I had a pee, fed the cat, made a cup of tea, tried to log onto blogspot (whilst feeling guilty that I'd failed to keep a daily blog, then wondered if keeping a public blog put me in danger of being plagarised, then chastised myself for considering that anyone would READ this blog). I had completely forgotten my password so then had to re-submit a new password (only to be told that I couldn't use a previous password...obviously the belatedly remembered lost password) this meant going onto my Hotmail account to retrieve the reset link whilst desperately trying not to read any other emails because THE WHOLE POINT OF DOING THIS AT 6am IS SO THAT I WOULDN'T LOSE THE INSIGHTS I'D GAINED WHILST NOT BEING DISTRACTED BY THE STUPID MINUTIAE OF LIFE! Daniel Stern in his work "The Present Moment" records all the thoughts that can inhabit a few fleeting moments in a person's mind whilst deciding what to put on a piece of toast; how many of those thoughts form part of a compost on which to grow something valuable and insightful and how much forms a sludge that blocks the brain and uses up our energy?

I think that - despite being a night person who is slow and stupid first thing in the morning - sleepy brain may be the best channel for my writing now. It is in the quiet and unpeopled hour before life starts ringing its bell that I can allow reflection in.

Making and breaking a plan

I've just been listening to Carolyn McCall CEO of Easyjet on her career and how she hasn't had a plan in her career, but responded to events as they arrived. There is a strong emphasis on ambition and determination for success today but I wonder if a strong drive can make you too focused on what is in front and the mileage needed with too little attention paid to the wider horizon and the possibilities that may be running alongside your busy path. McCall gave the appropriate advice about doing what you like and not trying to please others when choosing a career but I think decisions about life events are not always this simple. There is a common trend that having a good mentor or role model makes for more confidence and success and that old cliche of successful men having a good wife in the background has shown time and again that when you aren't worrying about the housework you are more likely to achieve your goals. So what about the successful women? McCall thanked and appreciated her husband and also said that her children grounded her. Do we all need someone to come home to and who will pass the glass whilst commiserating on the day? Certainly, when I was married, the evening ritual was the de-brief, taking it in turns to go first to rant, weep or celebrate the day's events. Although it pains me to say it now, I know that without having a partner to say: "don't worry darling, they're all fools and you can do this job because you are brilliant" I doubt that I could have continued in my career.
So, if you are single and childless and don't have a close personal friend who is there for you every day - is it impossible to succeed? Do we need the restriction of family life - the school run, the unplanned events and crisises of others - to force us to be more productive and creative with our time? How does the single person sustain their self belief without feedback and emotional transaction?

Starting Out

I had my first session at University of Sunderland on the Professional Doctorate programme yesterday. Met my peer group - an amazing set of people with very varied backgrounds and interests. It feels like I am in stimulating company - something that is important to me at this stage of my career. Like most people, I had fears and doubts about taking up yet another challenge but yesterday confirmed my belief that this is the right step.

An essential part of the Prof Doc is reflective practice. I encourage my undergraduate students to create blogs for their reflective practice, so I am going to do the same - let's see how this develops...