Truly. I spend well over 50% of my nights attending plays and musicals. While the reasons for my chronic theatre-going are mainly professional, I would be lying if I said none of this was for my own enjoyment. I once read an interview with Sarah Ruhl where she talked about her most influential theatrical experiences.
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Beautiful story. Undeniably one that reminds a theatre practitioner of the importance of their work. What is so interesting about this article is that his discussion of never watching the play that is on tape in his basement sheds light on what it is that makes theatre a unique art form. That is, of course, that it is temporary, and inherently must be shared. The memory of the performance is something that has to be stronger for theatre, and is psychologically formed in a stronger way because the mind is aware that it is happening once, and only once. While it may be argued that a repeat performance squashes this argument, it is ultimately true that a single performance is defined by the audience and the performers in the room at the time. Thus, the performance becomes something special in our memories, and the experience is inherently stronger than that of a movie or other storytelling mediums. Stories like this come out of theatre because the bond between audience member and actor was placed intimately between son and father. As theatre performers, we may take a note that the goal of our work is to be truthful enough that a stranger can also form this same bond with another stranger.
I think there is a good point here about influential theater. A plays influence does not derive from its production value, or actor quality, it is derived from the productions impact on you. Now if you saw a Broadway show and fell in love with theater right then and there, that show is your influential theater. But if you are a 6 year old kid who goes to see a production of Pirates of Penzance at the high school you will one day call your own (although you don’t know it yet) in a theater you will one day control, and that production opens your eyes to the possibilities of theater, then that is your influential production. Pirates of Penzance is one of my influential productions but there are so many that I do not know. Probably the most influential productions for me are actually videos; Mary Martin’s Peter Pan as it aired on TV or Donny Osmond’s Joseph as appeared on TV. Those are not live performances so its not the same, but they are influential nonetheless.
The question this article poses is a very relevant one, one that we, as theatre people, should think about more often. Which show has made the biggest impact on us? I really like the author's answer, because it clearly relates to something else that is important to him: family. And that's why I think theatre is so special. It has the ability to connect different parts of our lives together into one thing that we can love wholeheartedly.
It's amazing how personal and different everyone's connection/relationship with theatre can be. Often times, the emotional connection that an audience feels towards a show can be entirely different from the kind of emotional investment a cast/crew has towards a show. This article offers another very personalized and delicate connection that the author has with theatre. Unlike TV shows/movies that can be replayed as many times as the viewer wants, theatrical performances can't be 100% the same every single time. Theatre is very powerful in many ways, and can often tell more stories than the one that is being told on stage.
This is why theater is such a beautiful art. I can relate to Ben is so many ways and I loved reading his story. Theater is something so personal when you watch, but also is best experienced with other because then you can discuss like Ben and his father. The end when he talked about when he lost his father, and theater was what connected him and where he could still share a moment with him, hit me hard. I myself often feel a connection that way with people too. This is why theater lives on, when it started back thousands of years ago and evolved and is here today, why the same stories are still told today, is connects people together is no other way possible. But then something that always for some reasons makes me smile is that when the curtain goes down after Les Miserables you have many in tears, but also people who can not wait to leave. I believe that one performance can change someone, and while it is doing that a million other things are happening around them - and thats part of the beauty theater is, is that is can be an escape into a different world.
If this article been anymore eloquently written, I think I might be writing this comment through gurgling tears of compassion and understanding and childhood. While reading this article I vividly remembered one of my very first theatrical experiences, the sound of individuals coughs and rustling in the audience, the unfiltered light onstage, the crackling microphones. I’ve re-watched this memory countless times over my life, and always with a fondness for live theatre and my youth. Theatre had some profound and for the most part probably uncommon effect on me as an eleven year old. I used to think that my memory and experience was out of the ordinary for someone at that young age, but I do not believer that to be the case anymore. I have dozens of close friends who are pursuing a career in theatre, and we all seem to share some extraordinary memory about our exposure to theatre as children, and the subsequent overwhelming effect it had on us. This had led me to question many times if theatre of great quality is still being produced for young children. If so, am I unaware of it? Or does the stuff today seem less Death of a Salesmen and more Suessical the Musical? I think young minds can certainly handle the weight and complexity of stories like Salesman, we just have to allow them to experience these stories, and not necessarily in a dumbed down version, or not even via recording, but through live production.
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