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March 14, 2009 / Ruminations

Saturday Morning Random Thoughts on Theatre

If given the choice between seeing good theatre and a failed attempt at great theatre, always pick the latter.

Theatre does not “hold a mirror” up to life. Bad theatre lies about what it means to be human, good theatre reveals something true about being human, something we don’t pay attention to in everyday life, and great theatre offers us the gift of ourselves.

I am more and more convinced that training theatre artists to be accomplished story-tellers—rather than discreet cogs in a theatrical production institution—is vital to the health of theatre (and theatre-artists.)

Believe you are brilliant in the face of the world, but accept you know nothing in the face of each new project.

Don’t trust your friends to be honest about your artistry. Don’t trust the audience to be honest about your ability to tell the truth. Only trust yourself when you know you failed to achieve perfection.

Listen. Watch. Reflect.

Don’t reward theatre that is intrinsically dishonest by making excuses for it. Recognize the lie and learn from it.

Just because you like a show, doesn’t mean it is good. Just because a show is good doesn’t mean you will like it. Sometimes we prefer comforting dishonesty to the truth and to pretend otherwise is to perpetrate a lie.

On this day..

  • Land of the Free, Home of the Brave . . . NOT! - 2008

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One comment

  1. Joya says:
    March 14, 2009 at 10:02 am

    Here, here!

Comments are closed.

Liminal

1: of or relating to a sensory threshold

2: barely perceptible

3: of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition

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