As I sit here beside the steady flame of my candle, I have been trying to remember how many productions I have directed at my school. My first one – ‘A Christmas Carol’ – was in December 1983. Initially I began counting them on my fingers as I tried to remember them in chronological order. I did quite well. But inevitably, another play came to mind and I had got the order wrong so I had to start counting again. At that point I wrote down the number 10 on a piece of paper, whenever I got to the next ten. But then another two had slipped the net and I got worried about the right order of another two and I stopped. This ceased to be a memory exercise, let alone an exercise in mindfulness (as my mental stress evolved rather than dissolved). It became an exercise in humility, as, in the end, I couldn’t remember them all in my head. So I had to bow to writing all the titles down, in order year by year, and, strangely enough, they fell into place. When, I looked over them, I hadn’t missed out one.

The truth is, I tend not to write things down. This is because I have always had a good memory. I’ve always been efficient at learning lines: I am a ‘quick study’ as they say in the Theatre. It’s how I got through my exams at school: I learnt the information like a role and would pretend I was teaching the topic to a class. This wasn’t so useful when I did my English finals at Oxford with ten exams in a row! I did a lot of talking to an imaginary class that week! But it was the germ of my career. I can’t stop imparting my knowledge to others. I guess I am a natural teacher – and probably a crashing bore at times too! My friends have never told me I am, so they must be good friends. Perhaps after reading this, they will! No wonder I wasn’t successful in bars sometimes.

So after I compiled my list, I discovered I have notched up 57 productions (including the latest one I am directing – ‘The Prince and the Pauper’ – which will be on at the Rose Theatre Kingston on Thursday June 27 – tickets can booked on the theatre website!). Alongside that list, there are 27 tours of Hungary, some involving one play but more often then not two.

In his surreal early poem, ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock’, T.S.Eliot writes: ‘I have measured out my life in coffee spoons’. Similarly, I could write: ‘I have measured out my life in productions.’ In fact, I just have this evening, with my list. Except, of course there has been more to my life than presenting plays. In my school career, I was teaching English and Drama too. Heaven knows how many lessons I have taught in 34 years at the school! And I spent a lot of time guiding sixth form students towards university and some towards drama school.

But there has been more to my life than school. I didn’t become a teacher until I was 27 and worked in offices before that and saw so much theatre (and took in many ideas for staging by osmosis!). And now I am moving on from teaching to blogging and writing. As I have mentioned in a previous blog, friendships (both in and out of school) have been so very important to me, as well as family too.

I was thinking about my image of the stained glass window again the other day. In another blog, I likened all my friendships to a stained glass window of abstract design: each pane a separate friend and linked together through knowing me. The other day I was thinking of my own life as a stained glass window too, composed of the various facets of my life. I imagine my teaching and my theatre work would be two very large panes and I an unsure which would be in the centre. Actually my Christian faith would take centre place. The pattern is unimportant, I suppose, the arrangement doesn’t matter really. Or perhaps the design is something I should explore further.

However, it is important to realise that, as individuals, we are many different things. We may not be a polymath, learned in many different subjects and academic disciplines. We may not be a Renaissance man or woman (like Da Vinci or Michelangelo) with creative skills in different areas. But our lives do have many different facets. There is that bland phrase ‘life’s rich tapestry’: well each individual life is a rich tapestry.
However it is very easy to fall into the trap of being defined by one’s work, concentrating on one pane of glass in the window, if you like. This is often when work takes over and that is very easy if you aren’t in a relationship as I discovered around my 50th birthday. I was living to work rather than working to live. It can be so easy to fall into this trap if you are in the creative arts. You begin to think in terms of the next project all the time, in my case, the next production or the next tour.

I suppose great artists never get out of this syndrome and that may be why, frequently, they aren’t very good with relationships. They live for their art, like the opera singer Tosca, in Puccini’s opera, who sings ‘I live for Art, I live for Love.’ She is meant to be a great singer (and you have to be to sing the role itself) but she is also a highly jealous lover. Her jealousy is manipulated by the villain Baron Scarpia, leading to her tragic end. The greatest exponent of the role, Maria Callas, mirrored the syndrome in her own life: she was a phenomenal operatic artist but her personal life was tragic.

This syndrome of thinking of the next project all the time has stayed with me, but to a lesser degree. It is difficult to shake off, especially as I have been writing for school as well. It has not just involved planning a play but writing it as well, you see. That has continued into my retirement as I am still directing at school.

It is so important not be defined by your job or retirement can seem not only like a loss of focus or purpose, but a loss of identity. Shakespeare’s King Lear goes through this in what is Shakespeare’s most monumental and bleak tragedy. King Lear is old and decides to give up his kingdom to his daughters. But he cannot stop being King even though he has given up his kingdom. This is because kingship is his identity. Even in his madness in a howling storm he shouts to the elements ‘Aye, I am every inch a King.’ I have not felt like Lear since I officially retired in 2017, but I have had my moments. I even envisaging my retirement as my next project for a while! The syndrome persists you see.

The problem is we are constantly defined by what we do. How often, since leaving university, have I heard the line ‘What are you doing now?’ It has morphed into ‘What are you going to do now you have retired?’ And I feel a compulsion to say something, as if I am making an excuse for being idle. These questions are given out of an interest in my life and concern, I hasten to add.

I have learnt that the real question is not ‘What are you going to do now?’, bur ‘What are you going to be now?’ Life is not about doing but being. Being a whole person.

Ave atque vale until the next blog.

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Neilus Aurelius
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