[Gymnfacymoota]

LAYERS OF INVISIBLE

Lee Worley, excerpt of “On sacredness”, chapter from Coming from nothing: the sacred art of acting

[...] the essential thing is to recognize that there is an invisible world which needs to be made visible. There are several layers of invisible. In the twentieth century we know only too well the psychological layer, this obscure area between what is expressed and what is concealed [...] This level of psychological invisibility has nothing to do with sacred theatre. “Holy Theatre” implies that there is something else in existence, below, around and above, another zone even more invisible, even farther from the forms which we are capable of reading or recording, which contain extremely powerful sources of energy.

In these little-known fields of energy exist impulses which guide us towards “quality.”

It [“quality”] is not communicated through noise but through silence. Since one must use words, one calls it “sacred” [...] The only question that matters is: Is the sacred a form? The decline, the decadence of religions comes from the fact that one confuses a current, or a light, neither of which has a form, with ceremonies, rituals and dogmas, which are forms that lose their meaning very swiftly [...] The only thing which may help us is an awareness of the present.

The sacred art of acting evolves freshly moment by moment. Sacredness is not a setting aside of the everyday in favor of some holier expression; it is an embrace of everything. Prejudice for or against the things of this world needs to be set aside. The actor must also set aside the desire for political correctness or applause in favor of the truth of the powerful sources of energy that are contained in forms but are not the forms. Although this world is filled with pains and tortures, the sacred actor dedicates him or herself to uplifting the human condition. That which he acknowledges as sacred reflects the size of the actor’s heart. Peter Brook challenges the contemporary theater to be a crucible whereby the alchemy of transformation can occur.

The sacred is a transformation, in terms of quality, of that which is not sacred at the outset. Theatre is based on relationships between humans who, because they are human, are by definition not sacred. The life of a human being is the visible through which the invisible can appear. Are we not all sacred actors?

Ashashane