Thursday, September 24, 2015
For Christopher Shinn, Confronting Death Brings a New Play to Life
The New York Times: Christopher Shinn tilts back in a metal folding chair until it reaches a precarious, 45-degree angle against a wall of the Hartford Stage rehearsal room. He watches silently as the first scene of his new play, “An Opening in Time,” begins with a bam. A baseball hits the house of the main character, Anne, who steps outside, startled. She regards the ball intently. And so does Mr. Shinn. His chair looks like it may slip and crash at any moment, but he never loses focus and never goes down.
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The concept of creating something to leave on the earth after you die is an intriguing one because it makes you think about your own life and what you would leave behind if you could. I enjoyed hearing a little about Mr. Shinn's writing style and the common themes of his work, because I hadn't heard of him before. It sounded like his plays centered around his personal experiences in connecting with other people, and the intense feelings that surrounded those relationships. Works like these make you think about your place in the world and how everyday experiences shape both yourself and the world you create. My favorite part of the article was the section on kintsugi: painting over cracks with gold to highlight the imperfections. I thought this was a perfect example of how Shinn's works show his most broken and desperate moments to the world not as a means of seeking pity, but to show the beauty found in the worst of times.
There's a saying that's been floating around the internet lately that the funniest people are the ones that have accepted their eventual demise. This is definitely applicable here. I don't know why, but once you accept the fact that one day you'll be dead, a lot of people stop taking things so seriously. They start talking about subjects that normally they wouldn't touch before. It makes you ask questions about your life and examine things more closely. After this introspection, many people find the humor where is hadn't been before. Therefore, the funniest people are the ones that actually are the most aware and okay with dying. We tend to write about things that we know, drawing from our past experiences to shape our future, and this is no different. I connect with the line "...going into therapy is the best thing you can do as an artist." As someone who has gone to therapy, I can attest to the merit of it in an artistic sense. Therapy asks the hard questions you don't want to ask yourself, which ultimately makes your art that much meaningful.
This reminded me a bit of The Last Lecture which I thought was an amazing book that nearly brought me to tears. It was interesting to read the writing of a dying man, his opinions and fears beyond his condition as well as his final goals. Some people become obsessed with their disease, others become fixated on leaving something, such as a legacy. Those who decide to write fascinate me because their outlook and feeling about life at the point where they are (or at least believe they are) dying could not possibly be the same as my own. It is a good study of human nature and I applauded Mr. Shinn for channeling his creativity through this fictitious 60 year old woman. I like that Shinn addresses the question of fear towards the end of ones life. While one individual may experience extreme fear for themselves and their end, is it the braver people who are able to brush off such fear and accept fate?
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