Matthew Purdon

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2009-07-07T09:49:00.000-07:00

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Reality is not Linear

2006-03-02T08:50:00.000-08:00

Every now and again, when I'm acting, I have this acute awareness of the past or future. Like all of sudden I'll be in the scene and I'll feel like I'm performing in front of an audience. I'm not referring to those moments of self-consciousness, where you think and worry about the presence of the audience. Rather, it's like I've tapped into something greater. The ritual aspect of saying the same lines with relatively the same gestures awakens me to the depths of space. The space itself contains all events past and present. The future audience becomes present now.

There are other times when, in the midst of the rehearsal, just by looking at the achictecture of the theatre, I step into the past. Away from computers, TVs, cell phones, etc., everything simplifies. I feel like I'm at the turn of the previous century. I feel a sense of everyone whose passed through the theatre and performed on its stage. History become a living presence. I feel at home.

Relaxation

2006-02-28T08:44:00.000-08:00

The best thing any director can say to me is "Relax, don't try to make anything happen. Listen to your partner. Let your words effect you as you speak." Luckily for me, Ken does a great job of giving me this reminder at rehearsals for "Humble Boy". I'm relaxing more and more as an actor.

My old pattern of "performing" is still a bad habit. The frustrating part is that it makes the rehearsal process longer, because once I relax, I find a better choice, which changes how I'm playing the scene. My hope is that I continue to relax so that my initial choices arise spontaneously. The goal, of course, is to find that same relaxation in auditions, which is the most stressful of all acting environments.

Last night at rehearsal, I allowed myself to fully relax. It made the acting a lot of fun and so many new things emerged. As we move into our second week of rehearsal, I'm hoping that I'll be able to shed all the unncessary tension. It used to take me half way through a run to really relax - but then I was stuck with my choices. This time, I'm hoping that I have the relaxation and foundation of choices that allow me a spontaneous freedom for opening night.

Play

2006-02-22T08:21:00.000-08:00

This word keeps coming up in reaction to my acting work. The other day, my acting teacher said, after doing an improv, "You were really playing in a way I hadn't seen before in your work." Then after rehearsal the other night, my director said, "You are really starting to play now." This makes me happy. For I can see that my best work comes when I relaxation and openness allows that sense of play.

Reflecting back to my MFA thesis show, "The Jester's King", it had a lot to do with play. The death of the king was the death of an identification with a very Saturnian figure. And yet, I was also owning myself like and adult. I was serious about playing. In doing so, I experienced a new level of freedom to play.

It's weird, on one hand I feel that I have always been playing around. I often feel that I need to be more serious and adult about my life. But I also feel like I've always been too serious and need to play more. I think the same thing is occuring on a societal level. America is very creative and playful, but so much of it seems childish. And then it is also so damn purityrannical, lacking play. I often feel that the most serious work we can be doing is restoring a sense of play back into society.

What if I took my play completely seriously? What if I owned play as a fundamentally essential quality to my life. I think it would bring me closer to true beingness. It might radically change the way I am living my life.

The Egg is Hatching

2006-02-21T22:35:00.000-08:00

Last weekend my girlfriend and I were at a restaurant/bar celebrating a belated Valentine's Day. The bar was in the shape of an oval and the ceiling looked the shell of an egg. It was a pale yellow faux marble painting. The marble streaks made it look like cracks. It felt like we were inside of an egg shell that was cracking.

Later that night, my girlfriend gave me a hand made card. It was a giant white bird embracing two hearts. The white bird felt like a spiritual love, embracing our two hearts. The white bird is also a spirit guide of mine, that resides in the heart.

That night I had a dream in which an egg cracked open, revealing two white birds, like the two white turtle doves that I used in a recent installation.

Something alchemical is happening inside me and between us.

30 Seconds

2006-02-15T09:21:00.000-08:00

For the past three nights at rehearsal, I have had these brief moments where I totally dropped in. They feel like moments of grace. In these moments, I am completely connected to my self, I know what I'm saying, but I don't know what will happen next. And I am extremely relaxed. I get so excited and perhaps too aware that it is happening, that I fall out of it again. My hope and desire is that my work will invite these moments more frequently and for extended periods of time.

Questioning Gifts & Giving Questions

2006-02-10T08:37:00.000-08:00

Just finished the first full week of rehearsals on Humble Boy. Ken, our director, has done a very good job of creating a relaxed and open atmosphere to stimulate creativity. At the same time, he's very specific about what he wants. An actor himself, he offers a lot of great ideas to try out. These gifts have been very useful in helping me ground some of my actions and moments of my character.

But these gifts also frustrate me as an actor. It makes me go, "I wish I had thought of that first." I know when my choices aren't working, but I don't always have an immediate idea for a better solution. So I easily accept Ken's gift and use it. Maybe after I play with that idea for awhile, it will feel like my own or it will lead to something else that is my own. Using his gifts certainly speeds up the rehearsal process and open up my creativity in a certain way. But I wonder if they also shut off a deeper connection to my creativity.

Gifts, in general, are funny things - they are as much about the giver as they are the receiver. Gifts are also used to form relationships through a mutual sense of obligation. It it very rare that gifts are given completely free. Receiving these acting gifts from a director operate similarly. There's an obligation to try it and to please the director.

I find myself in a similar position often when teaching. As the teacher, I tend to be more aware than my students and I use that awareness to support their growth. I often give them ideas to stimulate their creativity and explore more choices. The student then finds him or herself in the position of feeling obligated to please the teacher by using the idea.

It seems to me that gifts which are ideas or solutions reflect the giver's understanding, but don't really aid the reciever in making the discovery. The receiver may be able to use the idea, but confronted with a similar situation in their creative process again, won't know how to proceed.

As a teacher, I always encourage my students to find their questions to guide them. But I should also be applying this more deeply in my dialogue with them. Questions will aid them in discovering the path, to learn not just a solution, but a new creative path.

Answers are not free. They are limited by the giver's perspective. A free gift is a question - for it can unfold in any direction.

Nervous

2006-02-06T08:29:00.000-08:00

When I tell people that I'm an actor, one of the common responses I get is, "Don't you get nervous?" to which I would reply, "No, I never get nervous." That is no longer true.

I just had another audition this past weekend. I was very relaxed and energized as I arrived, but then I suddenly got nervous and stayed that way throughout the audition. Now, I'm not so nervous that my hands shake, my voice cracks, or I start to sweat and make mistakes. It's not that kind of nervous. It's much more subtle.

I think it is arisen from my growing openness and vulnerability in my acting. There's more of "me" showing up. The reason I never got nervous was that I was always protected. I was playing it safe. Being nervous stems form the fear about being open, of showing myself. I suspect that over time, the fear will subside and I won't be as nervous. That I will really connect with the true power of such vulnerability. But right now, I'm going more on faith than a deep trust of it.

Another reason that I'm getting nervous is that I'm also discovering how important acting is to me. I really want to get these parts. I feel a tingling sensation in my heart. I love acting. It makes no sense, considering how many other career options are open to me and how successful I've been at them so far. But something is pulling at me. I am allowing myself to really own this dream, to feel it and it's scary. That is also part of the nervousness.

So being nervous is a good thing right now. It's the surface fear that arises when I contact the hopes and fears of my true heart's desire.

Love Makes the World New

2006-02-02T08:57:00.000-08:00

I recently saw Malik's new film, The New World and was, still am, deeply moved. I've been thinking a lot about the difference between story and drama. Most Holywood films focus on creating a tightly plotted script. A good example of this is a film I recently saw on a plane, The Perfect Man. The story was so well plotted, the drama got squeezed out of it. But in The New World, the drama is given room to breathe. Malik uses long sequences of images and sound to create emotional spaces. He uses film as an expressive and poetic medium that opens up space in the soul of the audience. The film communicates, experientially, a sense of presence.

For me, The New World of the film's title is not America (or England for Pocahontas), but a metaphor for continually seeing the world a new. This desire is why we enjoy travel or new jobs or even having children. They break us out of our routines and restore a fresh perspective. This freshness also engenders a sense of freedom, of new opportunity - the spirit of the pioneer.

Often, when we lose touch with that experience, we rediscover it in love, as does Captain John Smith in the film. This also has it's pitfalls, for we then mistake our lovers as beings the source of that joy, instead of something deeper, we lose it, as does Pocohonatas. But we can never lose such deep love and joy - it is always there, we just fail to see it. The lover only helps us find it again.

The world is the same as it always has been - constantly changing. Our contact with the constant presence of love inside our deepest Self, is eternal freedom from being attached to the way things are or afraid of changing it. This experience of eternal presence allows us to find joy in the changes of the world and ourselves. Love makes the World New.

The Power of Stillness

2006-01-29T08:45:00.000-08:00

I met with Ken Sonkin, the director for Humble Boy this past week to discuss the play. At the end of the first scene, Jim (the Gardener) comes on to the stage. Ken and I disagreed about whether this was the first time I had seen him since returning home. Ken thought it was, which is a naturally more dramatic choice to make. I thought it was the second time, based on a few lines and that I didn't seem to have a big reacton to seeing him. I felt that if this was the first time, I might act a little surpised or say something about it to another character who is on stage. I didn't understand why Felix was so still.

I thought about this for awhile, imagining what a first encounter might be really like. As I did this, I found myself paralyzed upong seeing Jim. I understood why Felix is so still in the scene. Although I'm not sure it is the first time that I see him, I now understand the power of the encounter and why Felix doesn't have a bigger reaction. He is so shocked to see Jim that he is paralyzed - which is a very big reaction, but very still.

This little investigation was an important guide for me. My first instinct was to do something dramatic, to show the character's reaction. But when I began to really get into the psychology, I found something much more real. I didn't need to show anything, just receive the depth of the experience. This is how I want to work on the show. No need to show the audience. Trust myself in staying centered, working through the thoughts of the character and the audience will understand what's going on.

And now I understand the power of Simon Russell Beale - who originated the part of Felix. When I first went to London in 1994, I saw him play Ariel in The Tempest on the Baribican at the RSC, directed by Sam Mendes. At the time, I didn't understand why Ariel just stood there, not flying around like most spirits I had seen. Twelve years later, that is the only thing I remember from the entire production - Simon Russell Beale, just standing. Total presence. The power of stillness.

Humbled

2006-01-10T18:33:00.000-08:00

Well, I was cast in Humble Boy as Felix Humble at Ross Valley Players. I had wanted to do this role ever since I saw the season announcement for the theatre, but I 've been talking myself out of it ever since. Was it fear? Fear of failure? Of success? Fear of contacting some truth about myself?

After I was told by the director that I got the part, I found my self in a very odd state. I wasn't excited about the opportunity, but overwhelmed. I felt a sense of confirmation about my ability as an actor, the enormous work it will take to play this part, and a sense of gratitude that no matter how hard I tried to get out of it, my soul got what it wanted.

I wanted this part because I knew it would push me into new territory. I can not perform this part the way I used to. The only way to work on it is to follow the truth that it unfolds in me. I am not thinking about how "I" will play the party, but how the part will reveal itself to me. How much truth can I find? How much truth can I handle? The part is great, and I am humbled by it.

A Touch of Truth

2006-01-02T09:28:00.000-08:00

I started educating myself about theatre in high school, when I started buying plays in used books stores and reading them voraciously. I also had a season subscription at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, where I was exposed to great contemporary plays such as Equus, American Buffalo and Cloud Nine. Since then, I have seen hundreds of live theatre shows. But only a handful of them have stuck with me. These are the plays that have affected me deeply, often reinstilling my faith and commitment in the pursuit of truth in the theatre.

I was in NYC for New Year's to catch some good theatre. I saw Albee's Seascape and Abigail's Party, both very good shows. But the performance that burned into my retina was Gabriel Byrne as Major Melody in O'Neil's A Touch of the Poet. My heart was torn open as I saw the pain of having too much pride. And I saw myself, my father and my grandfather. His performance touched greatness. I'm not sure if I can articulate exactly why, only to say that there was a stillness and presence that he transmitted from the stage to the audience from within the reality of his chracter. This is the level that I seek to attain in my own acting. At the every end, during the bow, all the masks of his character were stripped away and he stood with that clear and open presence - just himself.

As for my own pursuits. I have several performance projects that have arisen which seem more pressing than playing "Felix" in Humble Boy. I've been thinking that I shouldn't go to call backs. Yet, since seeing Gabriel Byrne, there's this little thing telling me, you can do that role, you can reach your own level of truth by exploring it. I feel I must make a decision, which is never a good feeling. Decisions are of the mind, the real choice reveals itself with strength and clarity in the body.

Acting in Pursuit of Truth

2005-12-23T10:36:00.000-08:00

In January, I'll be starting a new acting class with Richard Seyd. It's an expensive class and the focus is on acting. It doesn't tie in to my other interests around social interaction and performance. So I asked myself, why do I want to keep developing my acting skills? Why do I want to be a good actor? As I sat with this question, I found some very clear answers.

At the most basic level, I'd liked to be known as a good actor. It appeals to my ego and narcissism. But beyond that, I have to say that I deeply admire and respect the skill of exceptional actors. The skill of the best actors is transparant. To acheive that level of acting skill would be among my prodest accomplishment.

At a deeper level, the study of acting is the study of being human. It's a physical, emotional and spiritual research into the human experience. Acting is away to revela truth to myself and others about what it means to be a human being. That is something I want to understand more deeply and share with others. Acting is a very useful way to do that.

This study, and the skill that I seek to develop, is limited by the barriers within myself. To pursue acting as a path of inquiry into truth reveals the many layers and masks of my identity. I don't want to mistake the mask, the role, the character, etc. as myself. Transparency is achieved by understanding how those masks are tools to reveal what lies beneath. Uncovering the truth beyond the mask reveals another barrier to revealing the Self.

By connecting with my Self, I can connect intimately with others. That is another reason I wish to act. The experience one has on stage, with other actors and with the audience, is very intimate. It is a safe container for exploring dangerous territories of the human experience. And I love that exploration and the intimate connections that it fosters. At times, the intimacy of the stage has been a falst substitute for intimacy in life. That does not interest me anymore. The intimacy on the stage should be an extension of life that also expands one's capabilities in personal life. In the end, I am acting in order to discover how not to act.

My pursuit of acting for discovering truth is related to my interests in psychology, philosophy and spirituality. None of these paths are better than another. They are multiple modalties, each with strengths and limitations for revealing truth.

High Performance & Productivity

2005-12-14T21:01:00.000-08:00

Just Be

2005-12-13T09:23:00.000-08:00

Last night I had a callback audition for the lead part in "Humble Boy" at Ross Valley Players. The character is my age, has a similar level of education and I resonate with certain aspects of his emotional life. He also stutters, which is something that I did as a child and occasisonally do in extremely emotional situations. In otherwords, the character wasn't too far from myself. There was very little to hang on to to create an external shell. I had to really let myself just be. Of course, being at an audition ads this extra pressure of feeling you have to do something, to show the director your skills, talents, emotions, etc. I fought against that inclination.

The director let a lot of people go after the first round. Maybe ten of us were left for a second round. The energy of the room settled and I started to relax into the character and script. Finally, in the fourth and final scene that I read, I was just being. I barely felt like I was acting, but the centeredness in my body, connection with my partner and emotional responsiveness was clear and real. It was one of the simplist acting experiences I have ever had. This was a real triumph for me and one that I hope I can continue to build on. And ironically, one of the lines my partner said was, "Don't you get it, I'm giving you an opportunity just to be." Art and life, they are so closely intertwined with lessons for living.

My Heart is an Egg

2005-12-09T10:12:00.000-08:00

This feeling of not wanting to perform has become increasingly intense for me. I even cancelled two auditions. They just didn't seem that important to me. But it's not that I don't want to continue my commitment to performance as an artist. It really is that I'm tired of performing my identity. I'm interested in pursuing a path of performance that is about contacting Being.

I was feeling said around this issue yesterday. Pausing to take in the experience revealed a sense of wounding in my heart. This is something I have often experienced. As I felt into the wounding, I felt a hole open up and something escaping. It was like a release of heavy air. This lightening effect was soothing. At the end of the experience, my heart appeared to me like a giant white ostrich egg, sitting in a delicate gold stand. This was a completely new experience for me. It felt as if something had finally ended and that something new was waiting to rebirth.

Make-up: Private Performances in Public Spaces

2005-12-07T09:09:00.000-08:00

I was riding the BART into work this morning when I noticed two women applying their eye make-up. The application of make-up, which my grandmother refers to as her "mask", is usually done in private. It is a private performance in itself which serves as a preparation for the public performance of persona. In contemporary society, the anonymity of public transporation creates a pseudo-private space. It allowed me to become a voyeuristic audience of this private ritual.

The woman I most closely observed continued to stroke her eyebrows over and over, long after she had applied her make-up. I imagine that this repetive gesture began with a real purpose. She needed to smooth back her eyebrow hairs or blend in her eyeshadow. Somehow along the way, the gesture took on it's own ritual signifigance. Perhaps it allowed her to contemplate her self in the mirror longer, or feel the self-stroking touch of her hand on the face. Something very private was going on in a totally public space.

It reminded me of the amazing gesiha transformation that B. D. Wong made on stage in the Broadway production of M. Butterfly. His performance was highly theatrical, public and private, similar to this woman's BART ride ritual. The performance of make-up application is a private theatre of narcissism. Daily make-up masks hide and reveal who we truelly are and want to be.

Chit-Chat is Chit-Chat

2005-12-05T21:25:00.000-08:00

I was sitting in the hot tub today at the gym, listening to a couple of guys talking about which high-end hotels in Singapore and Thailand had the best gym. It was small talk, with a certain performance of their identity and status. Amazing to listen to how the details of the conversation led to a rather involved conversation. Change the details and they could have been two actors talking about which theatres have better dressing rooms, or two financial advisors talking about which mutual funds might have a better return, or even two grandparents discussing the exploits of their grand children.

On one hand, the essence of such aconversation is comparison. The shared information helped each person get a better understanding of their individual reality. It helps them determine if they are doing or not doing the right thing in their given role. It is a potentially dangerous move away from Self. I've become aware of how my own comparing mind is not very useful when it comes to experiencing reality.

On the other hand, the information was irrelevant. Such a conversation is just a vehicle for relationship. When the two gentleman got to the subject of cold pool and their aversion to it, I tried to jump in and recommend that shocking the muscles really aided relaxaton. I spoke my words with an emphatic enthusiasm to ad validity to my opinion. I was included in the conversation briefly, before the men continued speaking among themselves. I don't think I was really wanted in the conversation. Perhaps I had intruded in upon their relationship. Perhaps my own comparison, embedded in my recommendaton, disrupted their reality.

And then I got to thinking again about the similarity of all conversations. It is so easy to get caught up in a particular reality. Work, hobby and family conversations create a perspective. Each perspective, forming a community with it's own borders. We easily become invested within those borders. Because I move through so many different communities, I'm questioning the reality of those borders and the seriousness of those perspectives. They all seem false and fragile. There's a much deeper reality below the surface talk. Chit-chat is chit-chat. What is it like to engage in conversation from the depths of one's Self with an Other? I suspect that it feels something like love. How's the saying go, "Love needs no words."

Unmasking Reality in Virtual Worlds

2005-12-04T11:20:00.000-08:00

I was thinking this morning about the connecton between cyberspace and theatre again. It's amazing how much of my life is spent in relationship to these intangible realities. Both are virtual worlds, mirroring what actually exists before disappearing when the stage or monitor lights are turned off. Sometimes I chastize myself for getting lost in these illuminated reflections. Acting on the stage or designing interactions in cyberspace can be an escape from experiencing the joy and tribulations of the ordinary world And yet, without the virtual, I canot see. It is the power of reflection in virtuality that awakens my ability to see reality.

I want to peer into the depths of existence - to know the real world hidden underneath the ordinary world. I am particularly curious to understand how I buffer myself against directly experiencing that reality. I wear so many masks, that I am often only the shell of a person, engaged with another shell. But when I step onto the stage or drop into cyberspace, my delusions and ideals collide with each other. The false constructs that defend against anything real are actually undone by my flight into the virtual. The virtual doesn't support the fantasy, it breaks it. As the light of the real pierces through the cracks in my mask, it dissovles the surface and I contact the real world.

Strange, this interplay. The ordinary world is so clouded that I have to enter into the virtual worlds to find the real world. That is why I love them. They help me to see the real world so often obscured by the ordinary. Each awakening of the real changes me. It allows me to see the real in the ordinary more clearly. This constant interplay between the imagined and the real in the virtual mirrors our own condition as human beings. They arise and dissappear as quickly as the impermanence of our lives.

Stripping Away

2005-12-03T16:33:00.000-08:00

Today I had a monologue coaching session with Andy Murray, an artistic associate at California Shakespeare Festival. We spent an hour and a half working on Banquo's "Thou hast it now..." solilioquy from Macbeth. The speech is only 12 lines long, very simple. I thought it would only take a half hour to work on and they we could look at another monologue. But I had developed a performance overlaid with emotional, vocal and gestural indications, that we spent the whole time stripping it down to just it's essence. It was a hard exercise, just to play the action of the thoughts. It worked my edge.

As a performer, I want to be seen. And I often feel I need to do something to be seen. But that's a barrier to being really seen. I need to trust that I am interesting enough if I just stand on stage and play the actions of my character. I don't need to "do" anything to make it interesting. There's a deep life lesson in this. I don't need to do anything to be a human being.

After the session, I was paralyzed. The stripping away of my false identifications as an actor brought up deep feelings of deficient emptiness. I had to sit with those feelings for a good hour. I didn't want to "do" anything but get away from the emptiness. I saw through how any action, in life or on stage, is often a defense agaist contacting that deficient emptiness, the core of all narcissism. As I sat with the emptiness, I relaxed back into myself. I was able to trust more deeply in my beingness.

My newly arisen desire to study acting more deeply is part of my spiritual practice as well. It is another way for me to strip away the layers of the false self and touch that which is uniquely me. Trusting in that is not something that I just want for my acting. It's how I want to live my life.