Seeing again

“I can see things, or I can try to control how things see me. I cannot do both at the same time.” - Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Target.

Most of my masters are theatre artists: actors, directors and designers. Many I know personally. Many I know only through their words. All are students of human behavior, dedicated to honesty on the stage, believing that if they play truthfully, for a moment we—their audience—will transcend our little life stories and experience our selves within a greater universal story; we will release control and come fully alive. We will “see.”

Seeing is not as easy as it might seem. Visual artists train for years to see what is there, not what they think is there. Seeing requires a return to the time before you had words, concepts, and definitions for every thing. You’d be amazed at how many colors there are in a “yellow” #2 pencil when you look past the idea of “yellow pencil” and actually see the shapes, shadows, and light.

Sometimes I set a chair in front of my students and ask them what it is. “A chair!” they cry with indignation, certain I am wasting their time and afraid I will publicly embarrass them. They have stopped seeing. They think I am asking a trick question (and I am); I have ceased playing the game of “correct and incorrect” answers—and that can be dangerous.

I ask, “What could this be in the eyes of a three year old?” The ideas tumble forth: “A Castle!” “A tunnel!” “A hat!” “A boat!” “A monster!” They laugh and giggle as each new possibility is offered. They can’t help playing with the chair, demonstrating each new discovery. They are engaged, a sure sign that they are seeing.

Creativity is not the domain of The New; it stands firmly in the land of unimpeded expression where you “see what is there, not what you think should be there.” Remove the limits. Follow the impulse. There is no trick to re-inhabiting your innate creativity. You simply have to see again. It takes work when you are no longer three years old–we’ve all been subjected to the most rigorous dullness training—but it is worth the effort (even the most dismal cubicle has possibilities when you show up unfettered).

Of course, there is a flip side to every coin. If you can’t see the multitude of color and possibilities in a simple yellow #2 pencil it’s a good bet that you also can’t see the rich complexity of the human beings who are sharing the planet with you. I was recently on a small boat in Alaska that came across a pod of whales. Our excitement was palpable as the whales stayed with us for several minutes. We ooohed and aaahed and applauded. We were in awe of them, their world so foreign that we could not take them for granted. I was overwhelmed with the realization that my fellow passengers and I could not extend to each other the same specificity of seeing that we granted the whales. We don’t see each other. In workshops, Patti and I often do an exercise in which people are gently led into the experience of simply being present with one another. They see and allow themselves to be seen. It is difficult, frightening, sometimes impossible, but always awe-some when achieved.

 

Theatre artists know this. Like visual artists they work hard at seeing—which helps them learn how to be seen. They learn how to be present and, therefore, available with each other (this is what is meant by playing truthfully). Magically, if actors are present with each other on the stage, the audience, as a single body, will become present and available, too. Everyone involved will forget about themselves and look out to the other. They see. They reach. They join. If the actors are dishonest, pretending, then the audience will remain a gathering of individuals that might be entertained but will never be transformed.

“Change does happen to us, but we change when we see things more as they are. It is to do with a change in direction. When we see things for what they are, we become realigned automatically. Change, transformation, metamorphosis are out of our control.” -Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Target

The rules that apply on the stage also apply off the stage. If change is what you seek, availability and seeing are good places to start. Two rules for the stage: 1) “You can never change how another person sees you”; and 2) “Act on what comes to you, not what you think should come to you.” In other words, let go of control. Relinquish you dullness training. Engage. You never know what you might see.

 -David Robinson