AARON PAUL GOTZON – Statement of Purpose

Submitted to UMKC in partial fulfillment of the application for candidacy in its MFA
program for actors.

Page 1: Statement
Page 2: Essay: Defining Moment in Theatre
Page 3: Essay: Defining Moment in Life

Stories are very important to me. Stories are important to everyone. As humans, we are
natural pattern seekers, struggling to make sense of the world around us. Narratives are
one of the primary methods we use to sort out the disparate threads of reality as we
perceive it personally and corporately. Stories are my job.

I am seeking graduate education to make myself a better practitioner of the art of theatre.
As I near the end of my undergraduate education, I find that there are many things I still
need to work on, many journeys left on which I need to embark, and many paths of
research unvisited, many roles unplayed. Of course, learning is a lifelong quest, and one
I don’t intend to give up, ever. On the other hand, I find that I still hunger for a
structured environment in which I and an ensemble of my peers, all equally hungry for
knowledge but unique in our approaches, share a kinship as actors. We struggle to find a
place in the conversation about theatre (which is, as art reflects life, a conversation about
the human condition) and we find our voices. We use our voices and bodies as tools in
service to theatre, and, we hope, something greater than ourselves.

It is my belief that theatre is a tool of change, an agent of metamorphosis. It has the

capability to effect mental, social, cultural, and even spiritual transformation like no other
medium has. Oscar Wilde once said, “I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms,
the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of
what it is to be a human being.” This is what the theatre can do, and this is why I seek to
wield this powerful craft to the best of my ability. I want to act, therefore action is
required. Action without the best of knowledge and carefully honed intuition is
misguided and sometimes destructive. Therefore, more education is called for. I use my
voice and body as agents of change, tools of action. I use my mind to learn. I seek to
combine both of them in a rigorous post-graduate training program, surrounded by
mentors and peers alike. And I would like to see what comes out.
In attempting to catalogue my memories of the theatre, it is often quite difficult to
pinpoint specific memories, and I wind up making broad, sweeping generalizations.
Perhaps this simply means that I need to organize my thought better, but I’d like to to
think that it has something to do with the fact that our art is ephemeral by its nature. An
almost ultimate synthesis, yes, of the visual and performance arts, of music and
philosophy, of history and dance and of instruction and poetry – but ephemeral. One
closure of the curtain, one final performance night, and it’s gone, lost forever. A work of
theatre from the past continues to exist only insofar as our feeble memories and attempts
at documentation can get at it. Even then, it’s not the fact, only the explication thereof.
Not the art, only the memory. It can only be the signifier, not the signified.

It has therefore been helpful to me to arrange my theatrical memories within a metaphor

of a journey. One touchpoint leads to another, the closing of one act with the opening of
a second, the applause (or cathartic) silence of one closing night to a new chapter of life
for both actor and audience. Take, for example, Siddartha Guatama’s “passing sites.”
They led him to a revelation, but without the visions along the path, the revelation is not
worth much. The journey has to create the ending.

Never has this been more powerful for me than when I acted in my college’s production
of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, playing Jamie Tyrone. This may be
because we embarked on the journey of production in (I hope) a way in which we paid
adequate tribute to the importance of the text and upheld its reckoning with the power of
human emotion.

Our first read-through of the play took place, as does the first act of the play, in the
daylight during a mealtime. We gathered at the home of our director around the dinner
table and began to read once our meal was nearly finished. As the play descended into
darkness (into night), so did we. There was a tornado warning in the area that night, and
the nighttime descended, we descended into the basement to wait out the storm.
Meanwhile, the storm rages among our early portrayals of the characters. As much as the
day began in brightness and laughter, it ended in tears and a wonderful catharsis that sent
us home after the storm had passed.

As the show progressed, some remarkable things happened to us all. We found that we
grew with the characters and began to adopt their personalities (subtly and without
attempt to “perform” them for exercise purposes). Each rehearsal began during the day,
shortly after mealtime, and we descended into a long night each evening, like the
characters in O’Neill. We began to think of the characters (since the play is
autobiographical) as ghosts of their former selves communicating through us as vessels,
and our spirit of trepidation and respect began to affect our acting space, until eventually
the whole theatre was permeated with our energies.

Just one of many touchpoints on my journey. I look forward to the next vision or
revelation, the next play. I look forward to getting to know my next character, identify
with the next playwright. It amazes me how anyone can learn of the actor’s journey and
not wish, earnestly and desperately, to take it.
When I was younger, I was a Boy Scout. In fact, I earned the Eagle Scout rank and still
carry my card to this day (fun fact: “accidentally” flashing your Eagle Scout card while
searching through your wallet for your license and registration will get you out of traffic
tickets – I know from experience). As I’ve gotten older, I’ve somewhat fallen out of
lockstep with a number of the policies and opinions upheld by the national office, though
I still have a great respect for the organization and its careful holistic development of
young people. I have great memories of being a scout, and consider my time spent in
meetings, leadership conferences, and camping trips to be some of the most formative
experiences of my life.

When I was a very young scout (a first-year camper, in fact, meaning that this the first
time attending summer camp with my troop), I remember taking meditative walks
through the woods of H. Roe Bartle Scout Reservation. Sometimes I would wander away
by myself (a big no-no, in violation of the “buddy system”) to think in solitude, but often
it would be with a small group of friends who were respectful of our surroundings and the
immediacy of the moment. Being still in the wildnerness helped me to focus. The air
seemed to clear every neural pathway in my tiny little developing brain. It swept away
the rubble to make room for each new journey, the ever newer inevitable pilgrimage of
growing up. The woods, filled with life, were able to speak for themselves, and I found
that most times I didn’t have to open my mouth at all to commune with my surroundings
(a new discovery for me and my big mouth). This quiet stillness ex veritas seemed to
effect all who walked with me, even when we walked together as a troop. For this
reason, when any of us spoke, it was always understood that it was out of a need to
communicate, not just to spend excess energy or fill the silence. The silence filled itself.

One evening, my troop and I took one of our walks to a place well-known to virtually
anyone who has ever scouted in Kansas City: the Point. A tremendous vista spread out
from an outcropping of rock over Lake Osage (formerly the Osage River, before it was
dammed up). A wonderful place to watch the sunset and consider the passage of time.
The very edge of the Point is marked with a line of white chalk, beyond which there is a
short path leading off the precipice and slowly winding down to a cave underneath the
lookout’s main thrust. In fact, formations of white-painted rocks and chalk lines sliced
and diced the landscape throughout the whole reservation, and first-year campers were
not allowed to go past them. It was only after the third year of camp and achievement of
a special honor that campers were allowed to venture outside the lines. I remember
asking my Scoutmaster that night what the cave beneath the Point was for. He said
“someday you may find that out, son.” And repeated himself, “someday you may find
that out.” His words, full of meaning, had to do with many things. Time, fatherhood,
brotherhood, patience, work, and play.

We all reckon with time, our fathers, and our sisters and brothers (biological and
otherwise). We mediate our vigorous work and exhilarating play with patience, knowing
that there comes a time for all things under the sun, and for all things there is an
appointed time. At least, that’s what we like to tell ourselves. Have we become adults,
jaded and cynical? Or are we all still children, playing on a cliff, learning to live?