Burnout is a b*tch
Long time no see, right? Sorry for the absence on our end, if you read our last blog post it might have given you a bit of an idea why (balancing life and theatre is a stressful time) but if I’m brutally honest this post has taken so long to actually write because I have had very little motivation to do so. And, to clarify, by little I mean absolutely none. Olivia and I had always agreed that we’d take it in turns working on the blog side of the company, and I knew it was my turn, but the task of actually writing it fell to the back of my brain for a while and by the time I’d remembered it I realised I didn’t actually have anything worthwhile to write about. Or, at least, I didn’t think that I did. Looking back on it now, I actually think it would have been incredibly useful to document how I was thinking and feeling back then, both for purposes of analysis but also for reflection. But alas I didn’t, so now here I am, wanting to write about finding drive after losing it for a period of time, and discovering it’s a lot harder to remember that drive-less time than I thought it would be. Oh well though, I’ll do my best to put it all into words that make some kind of sense but don’t hold it against me if I fail.
Where to begin… okay, how did Lockdown 2: Electric Boogaloo treat everybody? I hope it was okay for all of you, mine wasn’t too bad, but November in general was an interesting time for Haywire. A lot of exciting things, a lot of projects that were started and ideas that were had, but also a lot of reality checks. A lot of depressingly difficult costing. Where some ideas were created, others fell through from sheer lack of time. But I think if I were to have to describe the month in just one sentence I’d probably say this: November was the month of realising just what we’re up against. It was the month where we clocked that, while we may have new and energising ideas for the company, the realities of making them happen were a lot less energising and a lot more this-makes-me-want-to-curl-into-a-ball-and-cry kind of vibe. The realities of expenditures, and funding, and collaborations did, for a period, put a little bit of a damper on the perfect little box that was Haywire.
Looking back on it, I think part of the issue comes down to what I spoke about in my first blog post; the fact that Haywire was started at a time when full-on theatre wasn’t possible. Haywire was conceived during a time when small scale companies like ours weren’t in a position to be able to create the same level of work just over a digital network, so they simply had to reinvent, or just stop working for a while. When you don’t have the funds to pull off a full NT Live digital broadcast (I wish!), you have to get a little more creative. We did this. In ways that I’m incredibly proud of and that we hope to carry forward to some extent in what we do in the future. But our digital work played by entirely different rules to how our live performances would. It was all new work, so no negotiating or waiting on the rights agreement to be finalised. The worst we had to deal with was our writers taking an extra evening to reply to an email. Everything we did was monologue based, which meant we only had to wrangle one actor at a time, and in those scenarios where we couldn’t find someone who fit we could use either Olivia or me. We didn’t need to market the performances in the same way as we would a standard show; there was little to no cost involved so we weren’t reliant on ticket sales to refill our empty pockets. No lengthy casting calls, no complicated scheduling, no ridiculously stressful production week. It was all streamlined, like a beluga whale.
At this point, I should say as a disclaimer that I am not about to go on and complain about how much work goes into making live performance, or attempt to argue that we should limit live performance down so that it may be as painless to pull off as aforementioned digital work. Part of the joy of making theatre is the toil and hard work that goes into it; the late-night rehearsals, the last minute tech changes, the Hollywood style actor and director blowouts. But the transition from one to another is interesting, and it’s that I want to talk in a little more detail about.
Cue then, the cold water of moving from that painless, digital existence into a costly, tiring, and scary live one (it’s gone a bit Black Mirror for a second hasn’t it?). But no, all jokes aside, switching from having to create online theatre because a pandemic means no one can go outside, to attempting to create live performance at a time when the pandemic is still raging, for a few months time when, depending on who you ask, we may either be entirely in the clear, in Lockdown Number 3, or all dead and underground with the dinosaurs is a ridiculous concept to try and wrap your head around. Add to this the stress that the show you’re preparing for will be your company’s flagship tour, the first piece of live performance we’ll have done since leaving education, and will cost actual money that comes out of your actual pockets and you’ve got yourself the recipe for a pre-career career meltdown. It’s an insane amount of pressure and a challenge that sometimes feels impossible. I have those days when I’m looking over budgeting and plans for the next few months and that small voice in the back of my brain that tells me nothing will work out suddenly feels very loud. Imposter syndrome, and self-doubt, and constant undermining of your own work is a continual battle and one that, I’m not too proud to admit, I spent a lot of November losing. I began to fall out of love with the artistry of what we do, as the mechanical and technical elements of it became more daunting. The online project became something to churn out, just to feel like I was achieving something, versus an active and constant workload that I was excited to start on each day. Don’t get me wrong, I still think the work we put out in that period was strong, and as impressive as those pieces from the beginning of Haywire’s existence, but I know deep down that if I had stayed in that rut for much longer, theatre with Haywire would have become much less of a passion, and much more of a job. It is my aim nowadays, and into the future, that it can be both, as it was when we first started.
What exactly caused that rut? Not sure I could exactly say. I’m sure it will have something to do with the dreaded Second Wave (cue horror movie sound effect) and the subsequent Autumn Lockdown. Being told to stay inside and not go to work isn’t quite as fun when the sun isn’t shining and the daytime only feels about 4 hours long. Part of me wonders if it is to do with feeling as though you’re caught in an eternal spiral. The pandemic began so we all locked down, then the pandemic was a bit better so we all went out, then the pandemic got worse again so we all locked down, and now it’s apparently better so we can all go out again, even though we all know that in a few months it’ll be worse so we’ll all have to stay inside. There’s nothing we (as in the little everyday people who aren’t running the country) can do to change how the government alters restrictions for the virus so we just have to go along, trying to push through and achieve a kind of normal even though the idea of doing so seems unreachable. In a lot of ways, attempting to break into the world of theatrical performance seems similar. When you start off you have nothing, because no-one has anything, so you push yourselves to make something regardless and eventually reach the point where the best scenario is to break even on your finances because a loss would mean you’ve sacrificed your time and money for nothing, and a tangible profit is nearly impossible. So then you do the shows, and for the sake of optimism let’s say you do break even, then you’re right back to square one with no money left but still the desire to continue making work. The world of funding and grants is a tricky one, controlled by politics, activism, and the phenomenal drive to see underrepresented voices be heard within theatre, but one that often means creators feel the need to ‘box tick’, limiting their creation to work which will loudly advocate change and, as such, be more appealing to donors. It is my greatest wish that Haywire is able to create work like this, work that can openly and proudly stand up for people who deserve a place in the arts and will find it harder to get one, but I also would like Haywire to be a company that, if it feels like it, can also just put on a play because it wants to, and because said play would make pretty good theatre. We can’t do either, though, if we can’t find our way out of that aforementioned cycle of no money, expenditure during creation, reimbursement via ticket sales, and then right back to no money. And that’s why I think artists experience burnout and disillusionment with their craft so quickly: we simply can’t see a point where it can become a viable, profiting option for our careers.
That’s a very depressing idea though, and as such this would make for a very depressing post if I just left you with that, which I think is why I subconsciously held off on writing this until I felt as though I was in a more optimistic position. Right now, I feel as though I am. I went through a period of feeling as though creating wasn’t as much fun as it used to be, and then was brilliantly reminded of how incredible creating, and things that people create, can be. I read work that inspired me, and that made me remember why I enjoy theatre. I consumed and took part in work that felt moving, engaging, important. I sat back and listened to others, watched what my peers and those I respect were making, and reminded myself that not everyone moves at the same speed, and not everyone moves in the same direction. And that’s absolutely fine. We may be ahead of some people in one way or another, or behind others. That is absolutely fine. At the end of the day, the arts industry shouldn’t be about outdoing each other, even though it so often is. We are only held to those standards of constant competition if we decide we want to hold ourselves to them, if we are happy to move in our own way we can do so, even if it doesn’t feel as though we can. It has always been the aim of Haywire to create something that moves people, and I do believe we will do that, even if we might not turn over the world’s greatest profit. Who knows, perhaps in a few more months all of this dreaming and confidence will have disappeared again and I’ll be back at the start. In fact, I’m almost certain that will happen (apologies in advance, Olivia, but this should give you enough time to prepare). The important thing though, and the thing I’d say to any creative or artist who might be reading this, is that those feelings are entirely natural, entirely valid, and entirely passable. You just have to remember why you chose to be that artist, that creative, in the first place, and hold onto that like the last bit of driftwood in the middle of the ocean. It’ll get you through. I’m so unbelievably excited for what we have in the works, and I can’t wait to share it with all of you, when it’s ready. When it’s meaningful, and touching, and real. When it’s what we made Haywire to create; the meaningful, the touching, the real. I don’t know what you call the other side of burnout (burn-up? burn-in?) but as it currently stands, it’s a pretty good place to be. I hope to see all of you there too.
Lucy x