Why Theatre? I find that the answer for this question, for many years, was: I have no choice, this has been chosen for me. It was true, I often felt guided and at times I was even distraught by an internal sense of not having a choice. It had to be so, it had to be done, no conversation.
But now, as I am beginning to relax into this reality of all the unknowns of theatre, the unknowns of the self that one discovers or undiscovered in this work, I can see how it was the only way I would survive until today. The feeling of having no choice made me keep going despite myself. I say this because I can see a bloody trail of battle, between the feeling of having to do theatre and all the internal conditioning which made the creation of that work more complicated, more painful and less joyful it could have been.
So I am glad I had no choice, for I would not have kept going, with all the unnecessary baggage of beliefs I carried in myself. What am I referring too? Well, why is acting about getting it right? Being good enough and accepted? Or why do we say things like, being an artist will not make your rich? Why do we accept that the film industry is so rich but theatre is poor? Why did I think I was not good enough? I did not deserve to be one of the few who made good money? Or that my words, my work, my creation was not as good as xyz?
When I was nineteen I was terrified to be told by some authority figure who apparently had the sacred stick of creative power that I was not good enough. Now, years later, and after years of exploring, healing and discovering the artist child in me, who is perfect just the way she is, this seems such a horrible state of affairs to me, to have this kind of authoritative stance within a creative art. In truth, who has the authority to say to anyone else, they cannot be the artist they know themselves to be, the artist they were born to be? And we all know being young is confusing enough without these experiences that may set us back years before we begin to manifest our soul's true desire.
So, why theatre? In my case I found that my path of self discovery, self recognition and freedom was directly driven by the need to make theatre. Maybe, since it would have been harder for me to walk towards freedom with such deep experiences of transformation, as we know theatre is capable of. I was guided with an iron internal hand to stay on track, so I could discover myself, and find my way to the path of freedom. A freedom which unfolds expansively every single day.