Why I Love Theatre

Death, I am sure, is like never being born, but death
is better thus by far than to live a life of pain,
since the dead with no perception of evil feel no grief,
while he who was happy once, and then unfortunate,
finds his heart driven far from the old lost happiness.
She died; it is as if she never saw the light
of day, for she knows nothing now of what she suffered.
But I, who aimed the arrows of ambition high
at honor, and made them good, see now how far I fall…

— Andromache in Euripides’ The Trojan Women.

This is presently my favourite text from a play. I would have never stumbled upon this monologue if I did not choose to take the FPA 357: Context of Theatre II course. This is the class that most people in the theatre program dread because this is probably the most difficult theory / art & culture studies class in the entire school of Contemporary Arts (at least that’s what I believe it to be). But having said that, I am enjoying and starting to appreciate the classic Greek tragedies that formed the basis of many contemporary plays.

Before, when people asked me why I like theatre better than film, I could never fully explain myself or give them an elaborate answer. I think I may have found my perfect answer now though. Following along on the required weekly reading list, I discovered a passage in Marcia Ferguson’s A Short Guide to Writing About Theatre that seemed to have extracted the passion I have for theatre right out of my heart and explained that exact feeling thoroughly:

Theatre is a meeting place where a variety of opinions and tastes can come together and experience the same play at the same time, in the same room, and elicit very different responses. This “liveness” of theatre distinguishes it from many other forms of contemporary media.
…
Theatre is one of the few remaining art forms that brings artists and audiences together for an event they experience at the same time, in the same place… If a play makes us sad, if it makes us laugh uproariously, or if it’s an embarrassing failure, our feelings about it are shared with other audience members, as they are with the performers themselves.

What can be more fun than that? You are doing something you love with the people who love doing the same things you love and then sharing that love with the people you love. What’s disappointing, though, is that even though you are trying to share that love with the people you love by giving them lots of opportunity to participate in the work that you love, they don’t appreciate it. (Am I getting too wordy here?) I remember hearing someone else say that theatre is like a prolonged social event. You make new friends and they become your short-time permanent family. Just by reading a play or being involved in a theatrical production, you are going through a phenomenal experience: mind-boggling in some ways and innovating in other ways because “…plays contain essential ideas, passions, histories, and emotions that use the materials of life to lift us to new ways of seeing, thinking, and feeling.” (p1, M. Ferguson) Your lives are being changed and transformed in ways you don’t even realize.

So why do I love theatre? “Theatre is life” (Peter Brook)!