Pete on Tour - Part 1: Imposter Syndrome
Imposter Syndrome - Returning To Performing Post Lockdown
Here I am back doing what I love, what I’ve been trained to do - working on a show (my first musical) called Gin Craze! This is the first entry in a blog about my musings and experiences of each week, some will feel like essays, some may be quotes, poems or images. My first consistent blog, it won’t be identical, it won’t be perfect but maybe some readers can get something from it as much as I’ll get from writing it.
What are these blogs about?
Gin Craze is a new musical opening at the Royal and Derngate, Northampton (17th-31st July if you want to come along wink face). As I write this, it’s currently the end of rehearsal week 1. The whole cast and some stage management are bubbled together in an apartment complex. Following COVID safety procedures, we find ourselves having to go almost exclusively between the flat and the theatre. Our contact is limited with outsiders to socially-distanced interactions (including with friends and family). It is, in many senses of the word, intense.
What is it like being back in a rehearsal room?
There’s a huge electric surge of endorphins and excitement nearly every day. We are not only navigating the text, music, instruments and choreography but opening ourselves to touch and intimacy again, never mind character dynamics! Right now it feels like a massive, yet tentatively sensitive, high. But I’m very aware that what goes up must come down and no doubt we will have our trials and tribulations. That said I am with a brilliant bunch and I suppose these things are what strike me most about week 1: this rush, this energy and at the underbelly of that - the desire to be perfect and amazing from the get-go. Trying to be at the finish line of the race before even putting on my running shoes to train. It’s always something to be mindful of and so too is it’s accompaniment: imposter syndrome. Sam Dunstan named his Imposter syndrome ‘Tim’ and I think this is excellent advice. My imposter syndrome is now named Victor Salamander.
Victor Salamander - my Imposter Syndrome
Victor has been rearing his head a lot recently. Almost precisely because of how impressed I am of everyone else. At times, Victor tells me I’m not good enough, or worthy to be here despite the facts, despite the reality of the situation, comparing me to all these wonderful actors and musicians. But I know nearly everyone else feels exactly the same. We all are quick to give a compliment and, like the good socialised British people that we are, cannot take a motherflipping compliment. “Shut up, stop it” we all say and wriggle and curl up away from the pleasant words that caress our ears, yet are shut out by our imposters, insecurities and upbringing; the prison guards of our mind, our feelings. But the reality is we are all different and good at different things, and that’s ok.
Like Keith Jonhstone says
“If you believe you're good already, you don't need to do extra stuff to impress us. Your best work comes when you're absorbed; because then your ego is away.”
So too am I at the beginning of the process and still have somewhere to go. You wouldn’t expect a race car driver to do their fastest lap the first time round a new track, but because I have been “trained” I ignore that. Also, where does this expectation come from? We don’t know what the show is yet. It’s brand new! There are no previous versions, blueprints or manuals for how this “should” be. The more I can be present with what is actually happening and invest in that the better, instead of trying to be some fantasy. So that’s what I shall endeavour to do: Be brave, take compliments and as much as possible go with what is happening in front of me.
And to be clear these are not complaints but reflections and musings, however whiney I may write them :P I am very aware how lucky I am to even be doing this. All of this is a luxury many performers do not have right now. I am deeply grateful to all who put this in motion and looking forward to what will happen. Stay blessed people, new writing/theatre is alive, kicking and also drinking Gin!
Hugs,
Peter x
References
Impro, Keith Johnstone 1964.
https://theoatmeal.com/comics/oracle_compliments