The Empty Space
“Along with the absolute rollercoaster of emotions that have raced through me over the course of a day since my unemployment, I have also discovered some odd impulses...”
Photo by Burke Campbell
“A word does not start as a word – it is an end product which begins as an impulse, stimulated by attitude and behaviour which dictates the need for expression.”
Hello friend,
I want to begin by thanking you for being here. Blogging is something I have thought of doing for some time, but never had the space to take it seriously. And that is the subject of this first blog post: The Empty Space - both a nod to a very famous book on theatre but also an encapsulation of where I find myself at this moment.
On October 1st, I started a new stage of my life. After nine years of working at Theatre by the Bay - first as an Indie Producer, then the General Manager/Executive Director, and (most significantly to me) as Artistic Director. It was a TOUGH decision; one that I still feel uncomfortable getting into the specifics of. If that is why you came here, I am sorry to disappoint. But one thing I will say is that, frankly, it was time. And that is something I will get into.
But for this first post, I want to talk about what I have been experiencing since locking the office door for the last time.
Running a theatre company is an all-consuming task. It can occupy almost every waking moment of your day, requires endless amounts of patience, energy, love, and dedication. It is an ultra-marathon consisting of many episodes of sprinting. Going from that to, well, nothing, has been an enormous shock to my system. Along with the absolute rollercoaster of emotions that have raced through me over the course of a day since my unemployment, I have also discovered some odd impulses. The first has been the need to stretch. I have spent at least an hour every single day stretching my body. It is not like I didn’t know how tight my back was from sitting in front of a computer for 8-11 hours per day and then sitting on the couch too exhausted to do much else, but the impulse didn’t come from me thinking about it. It was a deep, internal need to deal with the tension in my back, to feel my full wingspan, to tackle the tightness in my hips. I feel the need to expand in every direction and reconnect with my body after so many years of living primarily in my head.
“Theatre is always a self-destructive art, and it is always written on the wind.”
The second has been the battling desires to do EVERYTHING and do nothing. On the one hand, the fact that I have been granted some down-time has made me feel like I must make the ‘most of it.’ Clean the garage, purge all the ‘stuff’ and organize what’s left, all those things I have put off. On the other hand, knowing that ‘making the most of it’ likely means slowing the eff down and enjoying myself. Play Baldur’s Gate 3 all day! Read those books on the shelf you have never read. Go for a walk! Enjoy the (terrifying but) wonderful 24 degrees Celsius outside! And that battle has been a challenge for someone acclimatized to daily crises, intense grinding, and repeated rejection.
But most of all, the empty space has provided me the time to think deeply about what I want.
Thinking deeply about myself is something that the intensity of Theatre by the Bay has scarcely provided, and I have chosen to repeatedly drown out through an endless churning of Youtube videos, podcasts, and Twitch streams to make sure I was never alone with my thoughts for a single moment. But now, I have made sure that I leave the earbuds at home when walking Harley for at least one walk a day and have tried to become comfortable with silence.
That silence has provided me with the chance to listen to my heart again. Do I REALLY want to dive head-first back into the same struggles and challenges? Would I REALLY be ready for the challenges and hustle of freelance? Some days it is yes, others it is no, tomorrow, who knows, but I am listening. I CAN listen now.
And I am sorry to the people who love me who have been asking me to do this kind of thinking for years and I was not able to listen to with the proper respect. You know who you are, and you were, of course, correct.
And while I expand, wrestle with impulses, and listen, I am also taking this time to try some things I have wanted to do. I have been baking (can you imagine Iain baking a vegan, gluten-free tourtiere? Because that happened last week), reading novels, and more.
But I am also going to be experimenting with blogging and will try to upload regularly on topics like this, but also on theatre, producing, directing, and more.
I also want to experiment with Youtube videos! So stay tuned for that.
And some other things.
Who will I be on the other side of the empty space? I am not sure. I could be the same, but with stronger boundaries (a guy can dream), or I may need to be different. But I am trusting the empty space. It always provides.
“A stage space has two rules: (1) Anything can happen and (2) Something must happen.”
So, thank you for being here and I hope you enjoyed!
I set up this blog to leave comments so feel free to do that, or if there is a topic you’d like me to talk about, or a question you have, reach out to me on the CONTACT page of this website.
-Iain
(Quotes are from Peter Brook’s The Empty Space - A MUST read)