Timon of Athens

Have been doing an actor training program with the Bell Shakespeare Company in Sydney recently. Since my voice training years I have developed a great interest in Shakespeare, not just from a performance point of view but also from a language point of view. For a lot of people, Shakespeare is about structure and rules and “doing it in a certain way”. However for me it is about finding out the relationship between Elizabethan and modern English so that they are understood in a day-to-day usage context.

At the end of the training, we were allocated scenes to be performed to an audience. I was allocated a scene in the less frequently performed “Timon of Athens”. I was quite glad that I was not just doing some popular scenes from some popular plays. I feel like a challenge and “Timon of Athens” was a timely arrival.

For those who are not particularly familiar with the play, “Timon of Athens” investigates the relationship between money and friends. Timon who was a wealthy man in Athens wasted his wealth on his friends meeting their needs and solving their problems only to find out that once the money was gone so did his “friends”. He was repeatedly warned by one of his acquaintance Apemantus but words were to his deaf ears. The scene I did with my scene partner was about Apemantus seeking Timon out in the wilderness and mocked him for not listening to his warning before. It was a very smart and quick wit verbal tug of war between the two characters. I enjoyed doing it a lot.

When I was reading the play and researching on the play to prepare for the scene, I felt a very strong connection with its theme.  In the scene that I was working on, Apemantus said to Timon:

Your flatterers yet wear silk, drink wine, lie soft
Hug their deceased perfumes, and have forgot
That ever Timon was

For me Shakespeare’s insight to money and relationship was spot on. Where are those “friends” when you need them most?

Although I was never as wealthy as Timon and was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I was trained by my parents to be caring for others whenever I can. I tried to help out my friends whenever I could if it was possible for me to do so. However, as years passed, I gradually understood that some of these people whom I once thought they were friends, are nothing more than people who came along for a ride in your life. There is an old Chinese saying: “In hard times, see true friends”, which I think carries the same wisdom as Shakespeare did in “Timon of Athens”.

Despite I never expected people to return favours when I extending my helping hand to them, I do admit that when the “Timon moment” arrives, I couldn’t help but felt disappointed. I have never become as cynical as Apemantus was when it comes to friend, but over the years I couldn’t help but getting a bit more and more cautious about who I open myself to and who I could treat as friends.

Nonetheless, when it comes to human relationships, it is still hard to avoid the fact that you could get hurt. When people look so genuine, how could you distinguish the truthful ones from the ones who are just “in for the ride”? How do you deal with situations when people stop answering or replying to your phone calls and emails when they think you are no longer of use to them? How do you handle people who suddenly flock back to you as soon as they saw there are opportunities? Timon, after his experience is determined to destroy these people and wanted to have nothing to do with them. Apemantus wanted to give the world to the beasts and rid of the men if he has the power. That might be possible when you are in ancient Athens or are living in a fantasy world, but reality is still reality, and there is nothing more real than that. We could attempt to cut people off but with modern technology people can reach us by just sending a text message. When these people contact me again would I have an iron heart to delete these people off my life? It is easy to “unfriend” someone on Facebook, but it is a lot harder when you have to deal with this in real life (come on we all know most “friends” on Facebook are not real).

I think generally the world has gotten enough tougher than Timon’s time with the “evolution” of our culture. However, it seems that human nature still hasn’t change much when you can still feel strong connection reading something that was written centuries ago.  After the last few months, I certainly have moved myself towards the Apemantus and Timon’s end on the human relationship scale. But would I end up being as cynical and sceptical as they are, I don’t know.

The House of Healing

In Tolkien’s “The Return of the King”, Faramir, Eowyn and Merry were all taken to the Houses of Healing in Gondor to be treated. When Aragorn arrived to tend to the wounds affected by the Black Shadows, he mentioned to Eomer and Gandalf that for Faramir and Eowyn while physical wounds could be healed by applying the leaves of athelas on them, it could be their will that eventually take them down. Faramir was tormented by the rejection of his father who would “trade Boromir’s death for his” and for Eowyn, she was “loving a shadow and a thought”. Faramir came around when he woke up but for Eowyn, she did not know whether living would be despair instead of joy as she said, “But to hope? I do not know”.

The gist of this is about the will to live and it mentioned about a total care that was required not to just heal the body but also the soul. Aragorn was hoping that Faramir would come around, and miraculous as manly as these men are, Faramir wants to live because now the king of Gondor has returned and it is his duty to live and serve. As for Eowyn, she went to battle to seek death after Aragorn left her for the Paths of the Dead, but she escaped it despite she was gravely wounded when she killed the Witch-king of Angmar. When she woke up, Aragorn asked Eomer not to leave her, as she needs the love of her brother if she was to recover.

The Houses of Healing always fascinates me whenever I read “The Return of the King” again. I even bought the extended movie DVD simply because they have put the Houses of Healing part back into the movie. What fascinates me was Tolkien’s emphasis on healing both the body and the soul even when the injuries seemed to be physical only.

In the past few months I have been lucky enough to participate in a very meaningful project – Chris O’Brien Lifehouse. It is a new cancer research and treatment institute that focuses on patient oriented total care.  Its vision was to provide cancer treatment and care in a way that patient would not feel helpless and lost. It also has a strong focus on providing emotional support to patients and their carers. It acknowledges the importance of a strong mind and a calm mental state to assist the healing process. For me it is like a House of Healing in the modern times.

I first came across the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse when I did a corporate video for them back at the end of last year. At that time we were shooting a video for the integrated medical system to be deployed at the facility. There I met the Director of Patient Experience, Marketing and Communications. She explained what the project was about and I was fascinated by the idea.

Being a person who had a family member touched by cancer when I was at a very young age I understand the journey very well. Although I did not fully understand what was happening at the beginning, I still remember how cancer suddenly turned from something belonging to soap operas to something happening at home. It suddenly became very real. I still remember mum going into the hospital for her operation and her journey to recovery through numerous chemo sessions. I remember how I sat in the long, beige and heavily sanitised corridors with her waiting for her turn to receive treatment and hoped for the best. I remember how we tried to get home as quickly as possible after treatment before her condition kicked in. I remember how helpless I was when she was dealing with the side effects of treatments day in and night out. I still remember the faces of other patients waiting in the corridors – most of them trying to put on a brave face but when the verdict of more sessions were required was handed down, how they fell apart and broke into tears. These are pictures that had never left me and would never either.

So when I heard about the vision of Lifehouse, I was completely fascinated by it. I kept in touch with this Lifehouse lady when she told us that probably Lifehouse would be recruiting the following year preparing for the opening. At that time I did not expect anything to happen as I had a pretty good full time job already. After all I have never worked in health care unless you consider a guest role on All Saints counts.

Months passed. I left my previous job for personal reasons and started looking for more contract nature kind of work. I sent my updated CV to this lady at Lifehouse informing her that I am now available for work if Lifehouse has use for my skills. A few weeks later I received a call from the HR consultant there informing me about they needed a receptionist for the front desk before the hospital opens later in the year. I thought it would be a good chance to understand the organisation so I accepted the position. Later I agreed to move to a different role because I was touched by the enthusiasm of the staff there trying to make a great vision a reality. I wanted to contribute my skills to make it happen.

It is now less than two weeks before Lifehouse opens. There are still lots of work to be done and sometimes people are stressed out. However, everyone is working hard together to bring this vision to life. I think that is what I appreciate about this organisation. I do not know how long I could stay involved in this vision, as my contract will be finishing in mid December. But I am glad that I am part of it. We might not be able cure cancer with a 100% success rate at the moment, but this modern House of Healing could make the healing process a lot more bearable than what my family and I had gone through all those years ago. That is what I believe in.

The Skin I Live In

As an actor I always remind myself to be more thick skin. You can never survive the ordeal of an acting career if you are easily hurt by people’s comments and rejections. This is particularly true when you want to be an actor in Australia while possessing a different skin tone to what most power brokers want. The journey of an acting career is never an easy one, but I think so far I managed the ups and downs of this road pretty well.

However, what I found in the recent years is that if you want to just survive a 9 to 5 job you will need to apply the thick skin principles in the acting industry too. This kind of sucks in a way that because 9 to 5 jobs are supposed to be no brainer mortgage paying activities that sustain a certain lifestyle you hope to maintain before the “big break” arrives.

I don’t usually go into details about my daytime profession in a way that I kind of want to separate it from my creative life, which I prefer to live and relish. However, from time to time I do find that I was forced by people I work with in my day job into a position that I have to put an extra layer of acting skin to just to get through the day.

The acting skin provides a strong buffer against your true self, which is at times more vulnerable and exposed when being cut. It is thicker and usually has stronger elasticity that could just bounce off attacks. It is a defence mechanism you need to survive the acting industry. For me, I was lucky enough to receive a full training in this area but had been resisting applying this into broader aspects of my personal life. However, as a person who cares about getting things done correctly, willing to work hard to achieve great results while at the same time trying treating people with respect, I find it harder and harder to receive reciprocal response from some of my work colleagues nowadays. As time passes I found it harder and harder to deal with people who have no basic respect and courtesy for others. So in order to avoid conflicts I start pulling an extra layer of acting skin and live inside it at work. Still I can’t help but asking myself the question, “ Am I living a real life or am I compromising my own principle of living it real? “

The good thing about mankind is human beings are social animals. We build upon and improve each other through social activities and companionship. However, as with all things this aspect of mankind does have its dark side. Several occasions in my work life had got me seriously re-evaluate whether I should continue to treat people truthfully and honestly at work. I know that I don’t want to go all bastardy or bitchy (not that I can’t) because I do not want to commit myself to lowly activities such as office politics and backstabbing. I am not trying to stay on the high horse either – it is just not me. So if assault were not an option I would need to up my defence. This is where the acting skin comes into play. However at the same time I would also think is it worth it? Yeah I need the job to pay the bills but this is not an acting job afterall.

I always maintain I would do whatever it takes to move my acting career forward as long as I am not compromising certain basic principles. The acting skin is a mechanism to help getting me there.  For other parts of my life, I would prefer to live in my own skin and be comfortable and happy in it. So it is frustrating when you feel that you are compelled to use a skill that you developed for something you love to deal with something you utterly despise and hate. Is it possible to avoid this? Yes, if you leave that environment you could continue to be true to yourself. However, in this modern society, unless you are doing something totally independent and able to make a good living out of it, you would inevitably need to deal so craps and junks.

I guess I am just moaning over a human condition that has no cure. Or perhaps I should just stop letting these kinds of situations getting to me. Maybe I am just growing old as the clock tripped over the other day so I became more sentimental about things some modern people no longer hold great values to. Whatever reason it is I think I should just have a beer and stop thinking about this.