Does quitting my job to follow my dream make me a quitter? This process reminds me of my decision to leave acting after identifying with a performer’s life for almost twenty years. After going through a bachelor of fine arts conservatory in Boston and a master of fine arts one in Missouri, I had a choice: make a career of it or leave it all behind. It was a difficult choice because everyone knew me as the actor and very little else. I had done over a hundred theatre productions by the time I was twenty-five years old. I had been a student of human behavior, voice and speech production, body mechanics and classical theatre history. I studied the method of physical action, practicing clown technique and Greek tableaus. The expectation was that after high school musicals, a bachelors and masters degree, I was sure to continue. Well, there was only one problem. I wasn’t free. I lost the enjoyment of performing and was instead caught in a web of self criticism and tension.
This was never clearer than in my second year of my masters programs. I was cast in the role of Cleante, the voice of reason in a French Comedy called Tartuffe by Moliere. It was an appropriate role for me at the time. I was totally left-brain so an analytical, technically correct, talking-head in super tight French neoclassical attire with a gargantuan wig was perfect for me. Oh the wig!
This role however sent me into a deep depression. I could not breathe and it wasn’t because of the costume or the 47 hair pins keeping my wig in place. I just could not be spontaneous and this lack of freedom was reflected in my voice, my movements and my expression of feeling. In a nutshell: I thought I was awful and felt everyone knew it. Opening night arrived as did my first long speech. (I had many in the play). To illustrate how “so not on” I was that night, the hair pins decided to steal the show. At every pause I would take, a hair pin would fall to the hard wood floor- tink. It happened over and over and over again followed by snickers from the audience every time. Okay, so it is funny now, but it wasn’t then.
I just wasn’t happy. I had lost my passion to perform and although everyone said it was in my blood, I made the decision my final year to leave acting for good. Why continue doing it if you can’t soar.
Not until one last play. This time it was the role of Malvolio in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. By the time I had gotten cast in the role of the deluded, puritanical manservant, I had already informed my colleagues and my directors that I was quitting acting. Having made this decision freed up my creativity enough to enjoy some of the rehearsal process.
There was one night when everything changed. We were doing a run-thru of the show and my director had one note for me before we began. He elected to give it in front of all my peers and every one of my third year graduate teachers: “Dennis, I want everything you do tonight, to be done for the very first time. Do not do any physical action either with your voice or your body that you have ever done before. Do you think you can do that?” My mouth dropped. Complete and total spontaneity? You have got to be kidding. His message was simple: Ignore your left brain. Ignore what you think you know and stop identifying with being the doer. Use your right brain that houses all creative and intuitive impulses and allow yourself to be an instrument instead of the actor. As my first scene began, I felt like Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom. Jones took a step into the abyss to reach the Holy Grail and the bridge then appeared. I gave the best performance of my life. I had no idea what would come next and the moment always arrived. And then the next, and the next.
As I look back at the last twelve years since I quit following a career in acting, I know that the bridge has always appeared. It was the right decision and I now have faith that even though I don’t see all the steps coming together yet, I will follow my director’s advice. I will not look back to old patterns or past mistakes. I will not try to rally the forces of worry to ensure security for tomorrow. I will to do everything for the very first time.
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