Jungian Coaching Room Podcast S2E2 – Learnings and Sacred Rituals of the Theatre

Written by Dana Kabaila

In this episode, I speak with Bradley McDevitt (https://www.bradleymcdevitt.com/) a leadership coach with over 25 years of experience in theatre and psychology. He is the founder of Theater of Self – a somatic and depth-psychological methodology that fosters presence, resilience, and reclaiming agency.

Bradley first read Jung the year his father died. He was 16 years old and his photography apprenticeship mentor also had the experience of losing his own father at a young age. This mentor shared that Jung had served as a kind of father figure for him. The descriptions of Personality I and II and synchronicity were particularly captivating to Bradley. He had early experiences of knowing something before it happened and Deja Vu that felt enjoyable and blissful, offered a sense of familiarity, alignment (like a stereograph coming into focus) – a symbol of affirmation he was in the right place and time. I wonder how predictive capacities may or may not intersect with pattern recognition – spotting the subtle shifts even if we cannot explain how we do it.

In Bradley’s life and work, the theatre has provided a sacred space and experimental lab for play, self-expression, vulnerability, spontaneity and the chance to risk radical mistakes and collective healing. He describes it as a space that invites life in and provides opportunities to be witnessed and feel valued. It is also an arena that requires people to become conversant of their own assumptions and retract the 2D facades they place on others, especially marginalised folk. Bradley witnessed Peter Brook’s ability to bend time in the play Hamlet through the immersive flow of kairotic time. The eternal cyclical returns residing in art, nature, intense ceremony and life occasions. This is different experience of ourself and the world then in Chronos/chronological time.

Bradley’s knowledge of theatre is extensive and he honors its radical histories. He describes the Bread and Puppet political theatre company’s ethos of combining art with communal meals. Also, the principles of Burning Man including welcoming the stranger, protection from exploitation, discover inner resources, communal effort, radical self-expression and respect for the natural environment. Bradley boils this down to the idea of trusting one another and making beautiful things. He shows concern for institutional powers that hem the arts in, preventing expansive thinking.

We both locate our own early histories of threatre encounters. For me, this starts as an enraptured audience member. By the time I was watching peers in the secondary school production of Little Shop of Horrors, I had an almost painfully intense wish to be in the magic of their world. When I did join the chorus (or I believe the title role of “girl 1” in the Pajama Game), I found myself bored in rehearsal and stressed on stage. I couldn’t access the magic I had connected with from the audience. I think watching the show felt like an adventure and my mind was ever hungry to suspend disbelief, be enchanted and animate the world around me. Bradley’s description of the audience pact resonates with me – to participate with attention, energy, knowing, an felt and unspoken aliveness that is poured into the collective mystery. I am so curious about the archetypes of the theatre – the lighting, the ushers, the set builders. I found my performing middle ground in my final year playing clarinet in the backstage band. Here students and teachers played beside each other and what I remember most was mischief. For example, when the student playing the cowardly lion tripped over his own tail, our flute player (a teacher) laughed so hard that milk came out of her nose.

Bradley recalls attending a Punch and Judy style “panto” at the age of four and how it was charged, rough and the audience participated in raucous laughter. This style of British pantomime evolved from 16th century Italian Commedia dell’arte – street theatre with improvised performances, slapstick comedy, and a cast of recognizable stock characters. After this, he saw traditional Japanese bunraku (puppet theatre) where marionette-sized puppets were brought to life while puppeteers remained in full view of the audience. The master puppeteer even had his face exposed from black clothing! Well into the unfolding mythic, epic, stylised love story, Bradley felt the explosion of awareness of the puppeteer being right there in front of him. This person had managed to disappear into the puppet and Bradley saw this of proof that theatre made anything possible.

Back into the present day, Bradley extends this theatre magic beyond performers and performances by crafting liminal rituals and extensions into shamanistic incantatory memory. Bradley’s Theatre of Self practices invite presence (in spaces and among people) to cultivate willingness and availability to emerging inner images. He describes Theatre of Self as helping people get into their right minds connected with the hemisphere hypothesis of John Vervaeke (https://johnvervaeke.com/), associating the right side of the brain with humour, relationships, the big picture and the ability to hold the tension of opposites.

Our discussion also delves into methods of resistance to dominant power technology, surveillance and content. Some ways include being outside and with people, and answering questions unplugged before capitulating with digital mediums. This hones the human qualities of depth, commitment and purpose. I also share my excited anticipation of a revolutionary renaissance of local, live art, music, performance and knowledge sharing. I am lucky to be surrounded by local art, music and even an independent local newspaper, The Rotunda (https://www.northfitzroyrotunda.com/). Bradley also shares examples of social justice uses for technological tools in the example of Audrey Tang, the Digital Minister in Taiwan and author of the book Plurality. Audrey has a background in activist hacking and now works within government to increase transparency and combat disinformation.  Bradley imagines a roving stage of roundtable grassroots discussions that could be broadcast and is a member of the founding circle of the Carolina Commons (https://carolinacommons.org/).

Some of the other resources that Bradley shared in this interview are:

– Nicholas Janni (https://www.nicholasjanni.com/)

– Awakening from the Meaning Crisis by John Vervaeke – free 50 part lecture series (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLND1JCRq8Vuh3f0P5qjrSdb5eC1ZfZwWJ)

– Presence Based Coaching (https://presencebasedcoaching.com/)

Please share, like and subscribe. I invite you to email me with any questions or reflections at dana.kabaila@iajcc.org.