Writer, actor, musician and astrologer Ed Maxcy came to Findhorn in 1969 and is described in Eileen Caddy’s Flight Into Freedom as “Eddie”, the young American whose first job was to type out her daily guidance. He later edited the first complete version of Eileen’s God Spoke To Me (1973), and published a volume of his poetry, Guidelines, under the name ‘Alexis’ (1974). He worked in performing arts at Findhorn for many years and, drawing on his training in drama, he initiated the development of the Group Discovery games.

Ed wrote this account of the community’s early theatrical endeavours in 1979, when he had returned to Findhorn after five years in London. He left again in the 1980s to live in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. Ed died in 2006.

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I came to Findhorn in October 1969, following a period of fifteen years’ professional training and experience in theatre, television and films in New York, Boston and San Francisco. During my first week at Findhorn I met ROC (R. Ogilvie Crombie) who explained to me that Findhorn was destined to include theatre as part of its creative activity, although the time was not yet. He told me there had been a group of performing artists at Findhorn during the summers of 1967-68, and that they had shared their songs, dances and sketches with the community. At one time it was felt that this group was intended to ground the performing arts energies at Findhorn, but it never quite developed that way, although undoubtedly they provided the initial impulse and broke the ground.

In the Spring of 1970, ROC returned to Findhorn for another visit and he and I performed a scene I adapted from The Lord of the Rings. ROC, who had many years’ experience acting in and directing plays for theatres in Edinburgh as well as appearing on television, played Gandalf, and I performed the part of Bilbo. This was my first experience of performing theatre before a Findhorn audience, which consisted of about thirty people. ROC and I later performed the same piece at one of Sir George Trevelyan‘s weekend conferences at Attingham Park in Shropshire.

When David Spangler first came to Findhorn in the summer of 1970 I told him of my feelings about the importance of the performing arts. David shared my enthusiasm, especially for music, and spoke of the importance of festivals celebrating the major turning points in nature’s seasonal cycles, the equinoxes and solstices. He said that when he returned to Findhorn later that summer, he would give his full support to the performing arts and would also help initiate festivals here.

I was away from Findhorn during July and August and when I returned in September there were quite a few new members, some of whom played musical instruments, sang or danced. Also, during the summer there had been other musicians visiting Findhorn who had apparently performed music of a rather disturbing nature, which had occasioned the first transmission (communication from a non-physical intelligence or entity) through David on art and new age energies. The transmission stressed the importance of attuning to love and truth in our artistic expression, while it discouraged rebellion or acts of self-indulgent spontaneity, which are the antithesis of true creativity.

We had our first one-day festival at the autumn equinox 1970. The ‘theatre’ aspect was a short music-theatre piece entitled Lucifer Rising. Ian Campbell composed the music and accompanied the singers. I wrote the lyrics and directed. David Spangler performed the role of Lucifer, Lark Batteau played Lilith, and there was a chorus consisting of half a dozen community members.

Finding time to rehearse was quite a challenge, as everyone had a full work programme seven days a week. We did most of our rehearsing fairly late in the evenings, but were granted one Sunday afternoon in which to bring everything together, although there was opposition even to this from some quarters. The festival performance was held in the dining room of the Community Centre.

Over the winter months, while David was away, one could sense a powerful creative energy seeking to emerge. A number of songs were written, particularly by Lark Batteau. In the early spring of 1971 Lark formed a dance workshop one evening a week, and I initiated the first drama workshop, also once-a-week. It started purely as an experiment; an opportunity to have fun together with theatre games and improvisation using some of the techniques I had learned in New York when I worked with The Premise improvisational theatre workshop.

The sessions proved to be quite popular, and a large segment of the community began to attend, including a number of the older members, such as Jenny Walker, Joan Degan, Eve Godfray, and John and Mary Hilton, as well as many of the younger people who had joined us by that time. On some evenings I counted nearly thirty people, which was quite a large percentage of the community at that time.

Michael and Annie Worth joined the community in the winter of 1971 and attended the first drama workshop session. I immediately recognised Michael’s immense talent, and became very excited over the prospect of working with him. Even though he had never acted before it was clear that his gift for improvisation was equal to that of the very best performers at The Premise; it simply needed drawing out, nurturing and discipline. His inventiveness, imagination, pure spontaneity and enthusiasm for acting far surpassed that of anyone else in the group, including my own, and once Michael had tasted the joy of acting it seemed that he simply couldn’t get enough of it. A theatre workshop one night a week was hardly ample to contain his abundant energies, and night after night he would come over to my caravan, dragging along with him an assortment of ladies he had managed to round up from the workshop membership, so that we could create improvised scenes together.

Peter Caddy began to wonder what was going on. “What’s the object of the exercise ?” was his question. He felt that dance and drama workshops in and of themselves were a waste of time and energy unless we were able to produce something which could be shared with the community. So we began to have the occasional ‘Fun Night’ which provided an opportunity for the budding performers to try their wings before live audiences. We repeated some improvised sketches from our workshop sessions, and attempted others based on audience suggestions. The results varied, ranging from the inspired to the embarrassing; obviously there was a great deal of work to be done. I began to introduce more serious elements of improvisation into our workshop, such as sense memory and emotional recall exercises, based on the Stanislavsky system, and to give people scenes from scripted plays to work on. The extra time required to memorise lines and rehearse scenes outside of the workshop resulted in some people dropping out, and before long our drama group was whittled down to a more manageable size.

David Spangler returned to Findhorn that spring (1971) and joined in our activities. With his support things began to move ahead with a clearer sense of purpose, augmented with a series of transmissions which he received from St. Germain (the ‘Master of the Seventh Ray’, to whom the sanctuary in the Park Building is consecrated) on the subject of the performing arts.

The transmissions carried with them blessings and encouragement for the work we had embarked upon, as well as clarification of Findhorn’s destiny as a creator of new forms of artistic expression. We were urged to experiment with new forms of creativity as well as to serve as interpreters of the great works of humanity’s cultural heritage, particularly those dramatic works which carry a universal message still applicable today. Not all of our work need be spiritual or cosmic in its import, and indeed we were impressed with the value of works which dealt with the essentially human side of existence, but St Germain advised us to bring qualities of love. joy and upliftment into all our creations. We were asked to bring creative attunement into all areas of our daily lives, to use each moment as an artistic exercise in enhanced awareness and creative expression, and to view all life as an improvisation.

We were told some of us would take upon ourselves the mantles of professionals, or priests, within our given art, and were advised to begin our sessions by consciously attuning to the particular Muse which personifies each given field of artistic expression; to be open to guidance which would assist us in purifying the energies with which we would be working, so that they could flow into the community and out into the world in unadulterated form. We were also told that eventually a drama troupe would form at Findhorn with its own group consciousness, not as a separate body of individuals, but as an integral part of the greater whole. This group would gradually move into its own separate status within the community so that artistic creativity and performance would become its primary occupation and responsibility.

To me, one of the most inspiring aspects of the St. Germain transmissions was the exhortation that we explore the possibilities of creating a new kind of drama based on a new collective vision of the future of humanity. This would involve a new presentation of those archetypes which stand at the gateway of the future and which hold the keys to the realisation of humanity’s future potential. The vision around which this new kind of theatre would coalesce would be a cosmic vision: humanity undergoing new tests and initiations, and realising its own divinity.

The ancient battle between good and evil, light and dark, the forces of evolution and involution, would provide the basic dramatic conflict which would seek its resolution, not through suffering and crucifixion, but through acceptance of change, growth and responsibility. This new drama was not meant to take the form of the heavy Morality Plays of the past, but should embody humour, pathos, effervescence, strength, lightness, seriousness and joy; a kind of spontaneous fantasy grounded in the structures and disciplines of reality. It would provide a living mythology for the future and have a transforming impact on the consciousness of people, especially those of the coming generations.

A tall order, but one which I resonated with, and shortly after this transmission, I received a cosmic inspiration for a drama along these lines, a rock opera based on astrological symbolism: humanity’s odyssey through the twelve archetypal tests and labours symbolised by the signs of the zodiac. The title was The Spiral Experience. I went to Peter and told him of the inspiration I was receiving, and that I needed a week free from my regular work (which at that time was editing and typesetting) in order to get the basic plot line and structure worked out. Peter gave me the green light, and I spent the next week writing the scenario (a scenario differs from a script in that it does not contain dialogue).

The thing which amazed me was the way the scenario began to write itself, as the hero moved through his twelve tests and initiations. Before I knew what was happening, the responsibility the hero was carrying was transferred to the audience, and the drama reached its denouement with the audience itself being offered the opportunity to collaborate with the performers, to help them arrive at the crucial decision which would determine the hero’s fate and the outcome of the play. With this format, each performance would, in certain respects, be different from any other. I had not even conceived of such an idea when I had set out to write the scenario.

Prior to this I had always been opposed to the idea of audience participation, having been exposed to experimental theatre in New York, in which the audience was dealt with in a shocking and aggressive way by the actors. This was participation of a different nature: an invitation to share in a decision-making process, an opportunity for the audience to assume responsibility and authority in the very creation of theatre itself, and the format of the play allowed for free choice in the matter. It was structured in such a way that it could stand on its own and bring itself to a viable conclusion should the audience fail to respond to the invitation, or refuse to accept responsibility.

While I was writing the scenario, I realised I needed a sense of the kind of theatre in which it could be performed, so that I could conceive of the kinds of spatial dimensions in which the action of the drama would be carried out. I did a drawing of the stage and auditorium I was visualising: it took the shape of a pentagram, a five-sided arena stage with the audience on three sides, the other two sides being used for the background and stage-set, consisting of a cyclorama on which images could be projected, with an arrangement of platforms, ramps and steps placed in front of it. The audience was seated in three sections, raked upward, with two aisles leading downward onto two points of the five-sided central stage.

It was obvious to me, as well as to Peter and David, that in the spring of 1971 The Spiral Experience was ahead of its time in terms of our physical capabilities and personnel (the minimum cast was 17). But the vision was there, to be returned to in the right timing.

Meanwhile in our drama workshop we explored themes dealing with the more human side of our existence. Michael Worth wrote a one-act play, Hughie’s Room, a rather tender comedy which we performed for the community. In our improvisational work, in addition to regular exercises, we developed a project around a central theme: the challenges of moving from old to new age consciousness. Each member of the group created and developed a character from typical middle-class life, rather like contemporary Commedia dell’arte, and then we explored various potential relationships between the characters, most of whom were members of a family which was struggling to emerge out of the ruts they had got stuck in, and into a new way of living together. The end result was an hour-long improvised play, Janus and the Sparks, which we also performed for the community.

The community had acquired many additional members over the summer of 1971, quite a few of whom had interest, talent and experience in the performing arts. A number had approached me about joining the drama workshop, but the existing group had a level of integration which made it difficult to incorporate new people. In July David received a transmission on drama from Aureolis (Peter Caddy’s Rosicrucian teacher, and a playwright, who died in 1942) stating that it was important for people to become integrated into the community as a whole before becoming involved in workshop activities. Autumn seemed the most appropriate time to incorporate new energies, so the drama group took a month’s break at the end of summer, when a number of people either went on holiday or left the community.

That summer I was given the book Improvisation for the Theatre by Viola Spolin, which provided me with the guidelines for a new workshop which began in autumn. It presented a much more systematic approach to the training of the actor than the patchwork of exercises and games I had pieced together on my own. A number of the newer members joined the workshop and we started again from scratch, but this time with more method and less madness.

In September the community acquired The Park (The Park Building) to serve as the beginnings of the Findhorn College. The conservatory was turned into a lecture room, which could also serve more adequately than the community centre as a space for workshops, classes, rehearsals and performances. We began to hold our drama-workshop there, and it was decided we should prepare a full-length production for the Christmas Festival. I wrote The Genial Muse, a fairy tale fable with music based on a dream I had had shortly after I arrived at Findhorn. It dealt with the conflict between the forces of involution and evolution, of gravity and levity, and extolled the value of joy, fun and music in helping to lift us above the more mundane concerns which tend to drag us down.

The production was directed by David Beardsley, a new community member who had had theatre experience in America. David also supervised the building of a portable stage and installed a lighting system. with a dimmer board and a set of theatrical lights. Kristin Lightstone, another new member, designed and made costumes for the production; her sister Kathi played one of the leading roles; and her other sister, Barbara, who was married to David Beardsley, was our stage manager.

The production of The Genial Muse was a major cornerstone in the development of theatre at Findhorn. It was our first full theatrical production with all the trappings: stage, sets, lights, costumes, make-up and music, composed and performed by another new member, Milenko Matanovic.

The Genial Muse represented another turning point. During the month of December its preparation and presentation became the major occupation and responsibility for the people who had major roles in the production: Michael Worth, David and Barbara Beardsley, Kathi Lightstone and myself. In January the five of us plus two others began working together as a unit, preparing our next presentation, an adaptation of Bernard Shaw’s St. Joan. Barbara played the role of Joan, David directed and played two roles, and Michael and I played three roles each. Kathi did the lighting, Kristin the costumes and Rebecca Cotterel was stage manager. During January and February, the preparation of St. Joan represented our major contribution to the work programme, as well as the acting classes which David and I were now offering to community members in the lecture room of The Park during the afternoons.

During that time a variety of courses, both day and evening, were offered to community members under the College programme (see the file, Findhorn College Curriculum 1972), and most members had a daily programme fairly equally balanced between work and classes.

We performed St. Joan for the Spring Equinox Festival of 1972 to an audience of community members, guests, and visitors from the local area. Invitations were extended to us to present the play at Forres Academy and the Kinloss RAF Base Little Theatre. However, a few weeks before our scheduled performance at Forres Academy, David Beardsley suddenly decided to leave Findhorn. At first it seemed we would have to cancel the performance, but fortunately Grizelda Paterson, a professional actress and theatre director, had recently joined the community, and we restaged the production, with Michael and I playing David’s two roles (in addition to the three we were already playing). St. Joan may seem like a rather dry, literate play to present to teenagers, but the youthful audience actually cheered at the curtain call.

Over the spring of 1972 a great deal of energy went into the construction of the new dining room in the community centre, which was built with a central area which could serve, amongst other things, as an arena stage for theatre-in-the-round and cabaret theatre. It was scheduled to be open in time for the Midsummer Festival, for which Performing Arts had a great deal to offer. Under the inspiration and direction of David Spangler and Milenko Matanovic, The New Troubadours formed and gave us a multi-media presentation with music, dance and visuals entitled Homeland. The drama workshop presented Images, an evening of one-act plays I had written. There was a cabaret evening with musical numbers and comedy sketches. We repeated St. Joan, and the new dining room was opened with an arena theatre presentation of the Off-Broadway musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown with new music composed by Milenko.

With the opening of the new shop at the caravan park entrance, Captain Gibson (at that time owner of the caravan park) offered us the old shop to turn into a theatre (in the back room of what is now, in 2005, the bakery), provided we would present shows every weekend that would appeal to the holidaymakers who come to the caravan park over the summer. We had to make a quick decision, as we had only ten days in which to convert the shop into a little theatre and to prepare the material for our first show, but it was too good to turn down. The very next day the construction crew and the performing artists were busy at work getting ready for our opening on the first weekend of July.

We presented eight different shows in the Little Theatre over the course of the summer. The New Troubadours composed and sang many new songs which they were also recording for the Homeland and Love Is tapes. The nucleus of the acting company that summer consisted of Michael Worth, Barbara Beardsley, Kathi Lightstone and myself, but we were augmented at various times by Pete Johnston, Barbara D’arcy Thompson, Jennifer Daubigny, Rebecca Cotterel, David Spangler, Renata Benedict, Kristin Lightstone, Tim Currant and Foy van Dolsen.

Michael and I wrote a number of new comedy sketches, but much of our material was improvised, often based on audience suggestions. There was very little dance because the stage seemed too small. However, for the last show of the season, a dancer named June Marsh came up from London and worked with Lark Batteau and some of the other dancers on a presentation which was largely improvisational. The way in which they used the space of our little stage made me realise the Little Theatre was far less limited than I had thought it was. There were possibilities we hadn’t even explored yet, not the least of which was bringing all elements of the performing arts together: music, dance and drama.

Each of these areas had its own focaliser, but there was no one to focalise Performing Arts as a whole; consequently each group did its own thing quite well, but there was no sense of a unified production with all the separate elements contributing to an overall common vision. My idea for a Performing Arts focaliser was of someone experienced in theatre, a nurturer who would draw out the potential in the creative artists. This person would also help organise rehearsal schedules and the allocation of time and space, a problem which was becoming increasingly more complex with all the creative activity taking place within the community. However, for the sake of objectivity and detachment, as well as conservation of energy, I did not feel this individual could or should be actively involved in the creative aspect of the productions.

During the summer months, with so much energy going into the Little Theatre productions, workshop activity had ceased. By the time autumn came, we found ourselves in a familiar situation. A number of people were leaving the community, while others had joined us who wanted to become involved in the theatre. So once again it seemed the most appropriate thing to do was to start another drama workshop. In a way, I began to feel as if we were treading water, starting all over again with an essentially new group. The kind of continuity which I felt was essential to develop a stable, at least semi-permanent drama troupe, seemed to be impossible to achieve. People would come to Findhorn, stay here for a year or two, just begin to reach the point where they were really producing something of value, having learned valuable lessons, and then would move on. What was the answer ? Obviously a fresh start was in order.

When it was announced that a new drama workshop would form, a large number of people turned up for the opening session. With the exception of Michael Worth, Kathi Lightstone and Rebecca Cotterel, all were new to theatre at Findhorn. We began with Viola Spolin’s Theatre Games (from which Group Discovery later developed), and very quickly the new group really took off. They brought a great deal of joy, talent, creativity and imagination to the proceedings, plus a quality I had never before experienced in a newly formed group – a sense of purpose, dedication, discipline and concentration which was rare with beginners. After the natural weeding-out process which happened of its own accord within the first few weeks, a strong and stable group consciousness began to emerge, plus a quickly arrived at consensus that we should meet three evenings a week instead of one, so that the group’s development proceeded very rapidly.

By early November the group was ready to take on a major project for the Christmas Festival: a full-length play. It was decided that we should produce Tobias and the Angel by James Bridie, a Scottish playwright, and Eileen Caddy received guidance (as she always did in those days) confirming that this was the right choice. In many ways the play directed itself. The company was so well attuned and proficient at improvisation that, for the first time, we were able to approach a production in organic fashion, working from the inside out instead of the other way round.

The actors did not receive their scripts until the second week of rehearsal. Instead, I gave each a brief typewritten biography of his character, and synopsis of the basic actions which occur within each scene. Then we set about to create the physical environments, the settings in which the action of the play took place, and improvised the various situations which occurred within each environment. We improvised scenes which occur off-stage and prior to the action of the play as well. I discovered that this approach not only brought truth and credibility to the actors’ performances, but saved time as well, for by the time the actors received their scripts they were ready for them and learned their lines very quickly. In addition, most of the actors voluntarily spent a great deal of time outside of rehearsals, working together in small groups. The end result was one of the most vital, lively and enjoyable productions, even though the script itself was rather a weak one.

Tobias was the most technically complex presentation we had taken on thus far, requiring four changes of scenery, elaborate costumes, special lighting and sound effects and even “magical” moments such as a demon appearing in a puff of smoke, and a seven-branch candelabra with flames shooting several feet into the air (made from gas jets). Most of the people who volunteered to help us on the technical side were not members of the drama workshop and had not had the opportunity to become attuned to the group process. The result was that many of the production elements were not ready at the time they were needed; we never even heard the sound effects until the opening night performance.

I learned from this the importance of integrating all elements of theatre into the workshop process, so that everyone connected with a production is unified by a common purpose and spirit of dedication. However, the technical snags did not mar the performance, and the opening night went off smoothly. The actors were so well attuned, and so thoroughly grounded through their rehearsals, that they were able to withstand any amount of confusion and pressure on the technical side during the final stages of rehearsal.

The Christmas Festival of 1972 was an amazing one, with much love, light and laughter, and it lasted for ten whole days. The Beautiful Vision group, under Ian Campbell’s direction, lived up to its name with a multi-media presentation involving music, dance, drama and visuals. The New Troubadours gave a full evening’s concert. There was a circus, a cabaret performance, a children’s theatre presentation, a game night and a formal ball.

A number of visitors from the local area attended the performance of Tobias and the Angel and we received invitations to perform the play in various locations in the surrounding area, the first of which was scheduled for mid-January in Forres Town Hall. We went back into rehearsal, reshaping various aspects of the show and replacing one actor who had left the community right after Christmas.

Three days before the performance, Paul Thomson, who was playing the leading role of Tobias, went rock climbing, fell forty feet and broke both his ankles. Even though the doctors said he would never walk again, Paul now walks beautifully, but Tobias and the Angel never trod the boards again. The idea of replacing Paul in this role, which he had made so much his own, was unthinkable, even if we had had more time, and the Forres performance had to be cancelled.

Meanwhile, David Spangler was planning a production of a musical he was writing, Freedom Man. He drew most of his cast from the drama workshop. I decided to withdraw behind the scenes for a period of time in order to work in the Arts and Crafts Studios and to put more of my energies into the new College programme which was in its formative stages. Freedom Man, like The Spiral Experience, was undoubtedly ahead of its time, and has yet to take full incarnation in performance form. David wrote a good deal of the script and he and Milenko composed a number of excellent songs, but for various reasons, after about a month the project was shelved.

During early 1973 Performing Arts, which Michael Worth had volunteered to focalise, was focusing most of its energies on music, dance and multi-media, with emphasis being placed on the work of The New Troubadours and The Beautiful Vision group. In an attempt to expand operations, Michael organised a series of Friday afternoon attunements which anyone with a gift for performing might attend. Soon these attunements were attended by large numbers of people, although none of them, with the exception of The Troubadours and The Beautiful Vision group, was producing much in an organised way. In spring a conference titled Introduction To Findhorn was held at the Westminster Theatre in London. The New Troubadours and The Beautiful Vision performed and Michael did a monologue in gibberish.

I was asked to take on the focalisation of Performing Arts for the summer season in the Little Theatre. Once again we were obligated to put on eight shows over the summer. It seemed the best way to get the ball rolling was to do a presentation for the community’s Midsummer Festival prior to the opening of the Little Theatre in July. There was no way of knowing for certain who would be committed to the summer season, but the Festival production would provide an opportunity for a nucleus of performers to be drawn together, which would serve as a seed group.

At the regular Friday afternoon attunement which Michael had established, I presented a vision to the group: a multi-media production, involving visuals, music, dance and drama, based on the theme of the Summer Solstice and the evolution of the energies of nature to that point, through the three signs of the zodiac between the Spring Equinox and the Solstice – Aries, Taurus and Gemini. The group, about thirty people, seemed to resonate to the idea, and several volunteered to take part in various capacities. I worked up a basic script, including narrative, stage directions, dialogue and lyrics, based on some of Dane Rudhyar’s writings, entitled At the Northern Gate, which I handed to the group for their suggestions and a general reworking. During the a week’s rehearsals, several people dropped out, mainly because of work commitments in other areas, and the final cast consisted of ten people, the nucleus of which was made up by The Beautiful Vision group. The production was comprised of audio-visuals, electronic music, song, dance and drama.

At the next Friday afternoon attunement, about thirty people were in attendance. The discussion centred around the production of At the Northern Gate. Nearly everyone had seen it. Some people liked it, while others didn’t, but before long the group was picking it all apart and the atmosphere in the room became prickly. Suddenly it became crystal clear to us. Naturally the performance hadn’t been perfect and there was plenty of room for improvement, but if people were aware of where improvement was needed, then the thing for them to do was to help make things better by getting involved and not just sitting on the sidelines criticising.

I called for a show of hands for volunteers to take part in our next production, the official opening of the Little Theatre for summer. There were few volunteers; people were too busy, had too much on their plates already, too much responsibility. Then what business had they being there calling themselves a part of Performing Arts when they weren’t doing any performing ? I singled out the focaliser of construction, who also happened to be an excellent musician, as an example. I didn’t work on the construction crew. What right would I have to go to their weekly attunements and tell them what they were doing wrong ? The Performing Arts was open to anybody who was willing to work, to make a creative contribution, but it wasn’t open to sideline critics. The world already had enough of those. The message was quite clear: get with it or get out.

Gradually, over the summer, quite a few people got with it. The vision I held for Performing Arts was one of unity: for the various artists to operate together as a whole group, rather than an assortment of splinter groups, as had been the case the season before. We took as our operating premise the principle of synergy: that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and that the group prospers when the individuals who comprise it are most fulfilled, and are granted the freedom to be themselves while contributing their gifts freely, and with responsible awareness, to the group process. The technique which helped us concretise this principle was provided by Viola Spolin’s Theatre Games. She calls it Parts of the Whole, in which each individual is given the time and space to contribute his own specific part to a group creation, a creation which is virtually limitless in terms of its potential as others add their creative gifts.

Each Wednesday afternoon we would come together and share whatever we had created that week individually or in small groups. One person might sing a song, another might play an instrument, a third might read a fable, perform a dance or a sketch which he or she had written. Then the rest of the group would see what they could add to what had been created. The guitar solo might set the keynote for a set of lyrics or a dance, or other instruments might join in. The fairy tale or fable might provide the foundation for a multi-media presentation, including actors, dancers, musicians and visual effects.

Anything could happen and did. Sometimes a central theme could be discerned from the material and someone would volunteer to act as moderator, providing narrative material to bring all the threads together; or two people might develop a character relationship to serve as a link for the various songs, dances and sketches. Sometimes an individual member would come to me with an idea for a theme for the next show which he or she had already discussed with a few others of the group, and would serve as focaliser for that particular production. On other occasions a theme might emerge at our Friday afternoon attunement which would give us the keynote on which to base our creations. Once we threw the I Ching and came up with the hexagram of Grace, which gave us the theme to follow for that particular week. Each show was totally different from all the others; new people joined in and the cast varied from week to week, with a few regulars on hand for nearly every production.

This is not to say that everything was peace, harmony and perfect attunement. Far from it. We experienced our share of personality conflicts, disagreements and creative blocks. There were times when it seemed as if the show would never go on, where it took the purest act of faith imaginable to move from tech rehearsal (we never had full dress rehearsals; there simply wasn’t enough time) to opening night performance – and faith was one of the major keys to our success that summer.

Midway through the season, just before going to the isle of Iona, Peter Caddy told me he wanted to enlarge the Little Theatre to twice its present capacity, in terms of both stage and auditorium. When I presented this to the group everyone was thrilled, at least initially. We certainly needed a larger space in which to work. However our enthusiasm for the project began to wane considerably when Craig Gibsone pointed out a few cogent facts to us. First of all, the Little Theatre didn’t belong to us; it was Captain Gibson’s, so whatever money or work we put into it would be going into his pocket instead of the community’s. Secondly, the building was falling apart; the timbers and beams were rotten as well as the foundations. What was needed was a virtual rebuilding process. These facts gave us pause. We took the whole question into meditation, and what emerged was a unanimous, beautiful vision of a new theatre, but more than a theatre, a universal hall to serve the entire community.

The Performing Arts group was united in its vision of a universal hall, but I hadn’t the slightest idea how I was going to explain this to Peter when he and Eileen got back from Iona. However, I needn’t have worried, because when they got back Peter informed me that Eileen had received guidance that we were to put no time, money or energy into rebuilding the Little Theatre, but that the time had come to build a hall instead.

During the remainder of the 1973 summer season, I took less and less of an active part in our productions. The group energy was now moving on its own momentum. Each show would have its own focaliser; the person who held the vision for that particular presentation and helped bring it into shape. There was one performance for which I didn’t even attend rehearsals, but had the advantage of seeing fresh on opening night, so that I was able to view it from the same perspective as any member of the audience. People were expanding their abilities and going beyond their seeming limitations; dancers were singing, singers were acting, actors were playing musical instruments and musicians were dancing. The Performing Arts seemed to be reaching the goal I had set at the beginning of the season, that of unity and wholeness, while I was coming closer to what I believed a focaliser’s function to be by keeping one step removed from the creative process itself.

At the end of the season I withdrew from Performing Arts to work with the educational branch of the community and to serve on the first core group. Ian Campbell became the new Performing Arts focaliser, and I used whatever influence I had to help strengthen his position, particularly fighting to get the Performing Arts recognised as a significant aspect of community life and service, so that those individuals who had demonstrated their ability and dedication in this area would be given time and space to develop their skills and to fashion their products.

Over the autumn and winter of 1973-74 they did several excellent productions which I witnessed as a member of the audience. I was particularly impressed with a production entitled Imagine Time, directed by Nan Gray for performance in Elgin Town Hall. Michael Worth wrote a couple of interesting scripts, Santa Claus and the Karmic Board, presented for the Christmas Festival 1973, and Up ‘n Atom, produced for the spring conference. The latter, in particular, seemed to be moving toward the kind of vision which St. Germain had inspired us to experiment with, as it depicted the odyssey of an atom through four kingdoms of nature: the mineral, vegetable, animal and human kingdoms.

Plans were underway in early 1974 for the building of Universal Hall, and a group of architects was working on the project. Numerous meetings were held, in which departments which would be using the hall, including Performing Arts, stated their needs. Nan Gray and Ian Campbell represented Performing Arts at these meetings, but I never attended any of them, as I knew essentially what the hall would look like anyway. I still had the drawing of the pentagram-shaped open stage and auditorium which I had done back in 1971 for The Spiral Experience.

In the spring Ian Campbell left Findhorn, turning the focalisation of Performing Arts over to Virginia Edson. As summer rolled around I thought it might be nice to get involved again, strictly from an acting standpoint, so I took part in a revue presented for the Midsummer Festival, called The Spice of Life which revolved around the central idea of an amateur dramatic society opening up one of its rehearsals to an invited audience. This allowed for a certain amount of improvisation, audience suggestions and participation within a structured format. All the songs, sketches and dances were rehearsed, but the interchanges between performers, director and audience were spontaneous, although following a prearranged line of development.

My final contribution to theatre at Findhorn, prior to leaving to work in London in July 1974, was primarily from a writing standpoint. In collaboration with Patti Lightstone, Michael Worth and the dance group, I helped to script and write lyrics for a musical called The Solar Special, based on the astrological symbolism of the planets. The theme was the initiation of planet earth into her rightful role in the solar system, and of humanity’s taking on responsibility and stewardship for the planet. This rather lofty theme was brought down to a highly entertaining and understandable level by having all the planetary archetypes take incarnation in human form and play their roles as the staff members and crew of a nuclear powered jet-train on its maiden voyage across the nation. The show had amazing potential which was hardly realised as it was rushed into production in only two weeks, and was in need of much more careful consideration than it got. At present it is back on the shelf, along with Freedom Man and The Spiral Experience.

While living in London I had the opportunity to see the Findhorn production A Head of Our Times both at Ockenden and at the Commonwealth Institute. This presentation perhaps came closest to the kind of cosmic drama which St. Germain was seeking to evoke from within our experience. It dealt with universal symbols – the struggle between the personality and its Higher Self, the relationship of the physical, emotional and mental bodies to the soul, and the archetypes of the unconscious, the anima, the animus, the ego and the id. And yet, it was peculiarly lacking in wholeness and integrity, consisting of a number of relatively disconnected comic and dramatic sketches, songs and dances, many of which had originally been created on quite separate occasions, then stitched together like a patchwork quilt and stretched in an attempt to make them fit into a central theme and purpose. The performances ranged from slick professionalism to ragged amateurism, with Michael Worth, as usual, holding up the centre of the proceedings, rather like a tent pole, giving a virtuoso performance which ran the gamut from moments of sheer inventive genius to those of rather cliched pedestrianism.

But here I am, sitting on the sidelines, sounding like a second-string drama critic from The Daily Mirror. As I once told the would-be performing artists at Findhorn, the world doesn’t need more critics. If you can’t get involved in the action and help us make things better, then what right do you have to be here ?

That’s why I’ve come back. To get involved in the action once again, and help to make things better.

 

© Ed Maxcy

See also:

Performing Arts In The New Age