Praying and Acting

Abstract

This essay is about praying and acting. It is about acting and praying, each: earnestly, intentionally, and thoughtfully. Fundamentally, this essay is about how the processes of praying and acting similarly cultivate within a practitioner an ongoing foundational state of creative, spiritual 'readiness,' which could, at any given moment, erupt into a brief period of unity between said practitioner and a transcendental force (be that 'God,' some other conception of the divine, or the character being embodied by the actor). The terms 'praying' and 'acting' are friendly and familiar to most, but this familiarity also makes them far too vague to productively compare. As such, they must be redefined as 'mystical practice' and 'embodying character.' Though more specific, both of these terms are less commonly known, and so require some explanation. Standing, then, as representatives of each of these terms are the mystics - John Cassian and Thomas Merton, and the actors - Konstantin Stanislavski and Michael Chekhov, through whom 'mystical practice' and 'embodying character' are each in turn specified, explored, and compared. Through this comparative framework, this essay contends that both disciplines are best understood not as singular 'actions' (to pray, to act) but as ongoing, intentional processes consisting of repetitive physical and mental exercises. Commitment to 'praying' and 'acting' as processes, then, leads the practitioner to develop an innate awareness of their ultimate reality and creative ability (understood as Merton's conception of 'Contemplation' and Stanislavski's 'Creative Mood'). This innate awareness pervades the practitioner's being and allows them to be 'lifted' (during prayer or performance) into a moment of ecstatic unity with a certain conception of a transcendent force (with the Christian God in Cassian's 'Fiery Prayer,' and the emergence of the 'Other I' for Chekhov). Ultimately, this essay argues that acting (as embodiment) and praying (as mystical practice) are soil, tilled by the tools that are the codified exercises of acting methods and spiritual practices, in which seeds of curiosity and intention take root. One day, after much tending to, they sprout and bloom into gorgeous flowers of love for the world and intimate knowledge of reality.