PLAYING A ROLE: MELBOURNE LIVE THEATRE.
Kate Cole and playwright, Katy Warner, on ‘Grace’
Do you ever feel like you’re playing a role?
Don’t worry, most of us do at some point in our lives. The feeling that we’re impersonating the ‘real people’ out there who seem to be living a full, normal and carefree existence.
It’s a kind of social anxiety. The sort that makes us doubt what we’re capable of. A fear of failing socially or being ‘found out’ as a fraud. A feeling perhaps heightened recently by long periods of isolation, when face-to-face interaction has suddenly turned into an awkward zoom call, a staff meeting, or a hasty catch up with friends.
Many creatives deal with this every day, especially actors and writers. You’ve heard of ‘faking it til you make it’? Many creative people, even successful ones, never get past the sense of being a ‘tourist’ in their chosen profession. But how do you know when you’ve arrived as a pro? And is that a helpful state of mind for an artist to be in anyway?
We talked to Red Stitch actor, Kate Cole, and playwright, Katy Warner, about the latest addition to the Melbourne live theatre scene, ‘Grace’. We discussed preparation, the creative life, and the expectations of the ‘mother’ in contemporary society.
Imposter Syndrome
Imposter Syndrome is a psychological condition that many people have to deal with. Unlike simple social anxiety, Imposter Syndrome is a clinical condition associated with perfectionism. It afflicts those with low self esteem or unrealistic expectations brought on perhaps by their family environment, or from depressive personality traits. It affects high achievers (not surprisingly) most of all.
Treatments for clinical disorders can be complex, but often social anxieties can be managed with some positive self messaging: assessing our achievements objectively, valuing our efforts, and letting go of ‘perfection’ are great ways of dealing with it. That means avoiding comparisons and giving yourself permission just to ‘be’ what you want to be, even if you must fail at times.
Playing a role is more than a mask. Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
Extra Sensory Perception
Actors, perhaps more than most, are acutely aware of this mindset. Social connections are tools of the trade. That’s why you might find a distant, slightly weird actor-type in the corner of a party, trying to look invisible. It’s probably not because they’re impossibly vain (although don’t discount the possibility). It’s likely more to do with the fact that they’re ACUTELY aware of everything that’s being said, verbally and otherwise. Trouble is, they assume everybody else is equally aware of it too, or cares enough to let it bother them! Best thing you can do is smile and let the actor know they’re gonna be ok with whatever personality they brought along tonight.
And aren’t we all actors in some way anyway? Playing a role we dreamt up for ourselves years ago?
The older you get the more you suspect that maybe everyone is making it up as they go along. Fact is, everyone IS absolutely making it up as they go along. All those experts on Twitter? No idea. Politicians? Financial Advisers? Spare me…
What About When You’re Actually Playing a Role?
So, what do we do to prepare for playing our role every day? How do we centre ourselves? Ready ourselves for work.
Some people have rituals, others use props and states of mind to ‘get into the mood’. Others, again, have a very clear routine and stick to it carefully.
Kate Cole, is no stranger to Melbourne live theatre. As a founding ensemble member, she has appeared in countless roles at Red Stitch (Grounded, Suddenly Last Summer). Her latest concerns a successful career woman, Emma, who is being recognised for her lifetime of achievements in children’s literature. At the same time, she must confront the complex relationship she has with her only daughter, perhaps her only life ‘regret’.
As far as preparing to play Emma, Kate says she doesn’t do anything particularly ‘out of the ordinary’. To non-actors, however, this sort of work might look very un-ordinary: taking apart every comment or gesture, marking changes in thought, tone, intention and mood. ‘Inhabiting’ every scene. Memorising lines constantly, and belting out real emotions to an empty room.
Post show in the carpark. Photo by Lukas Rychvalsky from Pexels
Crashing in the Car
But Kate does find that her routine gets quite strict when turning the corner into production week: when the play finally moves into dress rehearsals and previews.
Red Stitch ensemble actor, Kate Cole
““…things become very regimented so I have the energy to perform each night. I speed run my lines, think about show notes from the director, exercise, have an afternoon nap, and eat dinner very early.””
The post-show state for an actor is often compared to that of a crash victim. It makes sense when you consider how odd the contract is between actor and audience (let’s all turn up at the same time and I’ll pretend you’re not looking at me while I impersonate someone going through something none of us would want to go through).
Kate says she usually finds herself after the event sitting in her car late at night, ‘wondering what on earth just happened’.
Planning for Success
For the playwright, Katy Warner, inspiration is about making the time to write, first of all. Writing a play means finding ways to let the act of writing carry you, holding on to the belief that it will lead you somewhere. In a way, it’s playing the role of the writer. Her ‘perfect process’ starts with five to ten minutes free form writing into a notebook.
Katy Warner, playwright.
Notebooks are also her go-to for capturing random ideas and scraps of dialogue in longhand. Then, when she moves on to the computer, she starts ‘figuring what exactly this thing could be and (begins) shaping it’:
““Once I have an idea of what it is I am writing, I will sometimes then develop a bit of a plan…and try to write to that – but being flexible enough to change direction if I need to. And, look, I mention planning but I’m really not much of a planner. I’ve been told that’s bad…that you need to plan because you can waste too much time writing without one. But, I think it is just planners who are telling me that!””
Interestingly, Katy’s latest play asks us to consider how we inscribe ourselves into existence with little acts of faith, and how we sometimes find ourselves playing a role we never intended.
Playing the Toughest Role of All
What about parenting?
If a creative life is an act of faith, raising kids is a leap into the void.
Motherhood might be a choice for many women. Maybe it just happens to you. Some of us don’t get a choice. Still, not many parents can honestly say they knew exactly what they were getting into when they became a parent.
Grace deals with this most delicate of questions: what happens when a woman’s professional life takes centre stage over family? Most people assume that motherhood is a natural urge for women and that creative or professional ambitions must be made to work within, or live subordinate to, nature.
In Warner’s play, children’s author, Emma (played by Cole), is confronted by her failures as a parent on the very night she is being honoured for her professional success.
The subject raises a number of uncomfortable issues. What do we make of those people, women in particular, who have strong creative drive but who find themselves parents more out of social expectation than anything else? Moreover, how are the children of these ‘selfish’ mothers to reconcile their feelings for their parent? What do they do with the love deficit?
It’s a role that women, in particular, are supposed to instinctively understand, and yet there are so many for whom the maternal bond with a new baby is absent, and others where it never really develops at all
Creative Parents
‘Grace’ puts the issue of motherhood front and centre, with three generations of women thrown together and no easy resolutions offered for their differences. How do we judge Emma, the ‘missing link’ in the chain, for her lack of warmth? Do we commend her achievement as we might do an absent father, in spite of her shortcomings as a person, or condemn her as a cold and distant parent?
Katy Warner says that, in writing ‘Grace’, she realised she was partly grappling with the issue of whether or not to have children herself.
““I was thinking about how that is one decision you can’t really alter. But what happens if you do? If you do decide, after the fact, that it was the wrong decision. Or if you decide, after the fact, that it would have been the right decision?””
It’s perhaps even harder for people in creative professions where the work is so all-consuming and the income so unreliable.
Grace
However, for Katy, you don’t have to necessarily be the birth mother to play the mother role. Parenthood and family relationships are complex, and they evolve over time. A child finds love in many places at different times, and hopefully there is ample supply.
Parenting, it seems, is neither straightforward or easy, nor is the creation of art. We find ourselves in unexpected situations every day, and we can’t always know how well we’ve performed.
For the title character, Grace, love is found in the creative act itself. She manifests the dream of her mother, and follows where the dream, and the love, take her.
Warner hopes that the play will make audiences sit up and think about someone they are close to. And, if possible, maybe call them up later just to say ‘hi’.
Grace by Katy Warner at Red Stitch Theatre, February 5-27 (Previews Feb 1-4)
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