The best advice I was ever given was if you’re in a new cast and no-one seems to be a wanker - then it’s probably you.
As artists you have to give yourself the best possible chance of expressing yourself in the way you want to, to those you want to listen. That’s the bottom line.
You need to be able to walk into the performing space and trust your ‘voice’ and your body to tell the story that you want to tell - to move, shout, whisper, sing, sign, mime - however you decide to tell the story (with whatever you have at your disposal), you want to know you can express chosen narrative, character, emotion, nuance, because - as the cliché goes - your body is your tool.
Everything you do matters when all eyes are on you. The words ‘passionate about my art’ are thrown about, and the truly great actors are generally full of humility, they are fascinated by people (building relationships), endlessly picking over the bones of the world, dismantling it to see how it works and putting it back together in myriad ways.
We are drawn to people who care, we just know when they are genuine, we know when they are interested in us, and all too often we have a very polarised view of the world because it’s easy to streamline our timelines into something that resembles us, what we agree with, and it’s all too easy now to lose the riches of difference. Artists need the riches of difference and infinite energy to argue. But it’s also good to stop and reflect and sleep.
So, listen to the news (but question what you hear and see), follow people on social media who you don’t agree with (and don’t just shout them down, silently or otherwise without knowing why), read books and plays and poetry (yes, try some, even the pretentious stuff) that you wouldn’t normally choose (you never know...), strike up conversations with people who catch your eye when the opportunity comes (the times I’ve done this and never regretted it, no lie) and ask questions and REALLY LISTEN to the answers, then ask more questions.
And DO NOT spend too much time with those who don’t ask questions in return.
Avoid being high on disapproval and low on self reflection (I read that somewhere and liked it), find what fascinates you about the world and decide what - if anything - is worth saying about it from your point of view, and then decide how you want to say it.
As artists it’s your job is to make trouble. Stick the world under a microscope, shake stuff up, but to do that you have to listen as well as shout, you have to be humble, you have to quietly put a story together from as many perspectives as you have the time and the patience to give it, and then you have to tease out what’s important to YOU and what you want to say about it… oh, and you have to decide who you are talking to. Do you only want to talk to those who already agree with you? And if so what are you saying? If not, what are you saying? Why? Who cares? Literally? And why should they?
So that’s my advice.
Decide what you want to say, who you want to listen and how you are going to make them care about it. And make sure your voice and your body can translate your vision. And do not spend any more time than you have to around egotistical, power hungry wankers. Life is too short and the theatre-world is full of them.