UNDER CONSTRUCTION

In a Nutshell

Underlying all the lame excuses for excluding plays from our post-modern lives is the intense love-hate relationship between most all religions and live theatre dating from the dawn of Western Civilization.

In fact, elements of theatre remain at the core of all religious ritual; they trigger emotional and spiritual response—they set the mood, light the spark—while all good theatre is profound and mystical.

The defining distinction between religion and theater is that one worships god and the other explores humanity. All other differences are insubstantial. Religion is belief; theater is the suspension of disbelief. Excuse me? What’s the difference?

What happens when you watch a play? Two things at once. Actors perform on a stage in present time, and characters engage in conflict somewhere else, out of time. And you believe them both, trapped between two worlds, susceptible to thought and feeling.  This is the mystic essence of theater as religion. Like the body and blood of Christ: you recognize the real-world truth of the charade, but if you don’t believe the art as well—if it doesn’t carry you beyond mundane reality—you have no business being there; either the play is very bad (or badly played) or you’re incapable of appreciating it. Some people can’t be mesmerized. (Some don’t believe in God.)

That essence, by the way, is what distinguishes theater from film and television. Actors on film aren’t present in the space. An audience might be utterly absorbed by the action, but if the counterpoint reality is missing; there’s no mystery.

Actors, then, like priests, are trained to recite the words, perform the sacraments, to lead the audience, the congregation, to believe…

Theater always deals in the dual realities of the human paradox. It shapes meaning from chaos and void, makes sense of the absurd, links the one and all in every consciousness through metaphor and illusion. The logic of the argument is magnified by the emotion of its context. The suspension of disbelief enables belief in any and all things.

One who so believes is called a Thespian.