Theatre. What Is It Good For? Absolutely Something (Michael Gibson)

Theatre is a relationship between two individuals or groups that can encompass many things, but the main concept is that relationship or interaction. The textbook identifies several of these types of interactions by first isolating the concept of performance and then separating it into three distinct categories. First off there is personal performance which anyone from childhood to adulthood experiences. We constantly represent, often misrepresent in fact, ourselves as something. We use “props” and dialogue in everyday life to convince ourselves and others of our intentions. Community performance takes these smaller individual interactions and collectively applies them to a wider range of “dramatic expression[s] that are fundamental to the community” (Arnold 5). These “rituals” take the form of religious events, weddings, and graduations. These are out-of-the-norm processes that serve to emphasis a significant communal event and subsequently strengthen said community, an extreme example being the Hopi Indians (they personate the kachinas). Finally there is professional performance in which performers intentionally study their own lives and the lives of those around them in an effort to relay to an audience these experiences in a variety of forms may include physical humor, word, storytelling, dance, or creation of character. I believe that theatre allows us to experience a world that we are unaccustomed to. The world we often experience is confined to the rules of reality. Of course it’s often said that truth is stranger then fiction, and maybe so, but often truth is relatively confined, and it is up to the medium of theatre to relay to us this incredible story. I go to the theatre to see something spectacular, something that I would otherwise never be able to experience but at the same time, theatre may take something ordinary and contemplate it. My theatre of choice, movies, allow me the sparkle of “what if?” What if these things happened? Theatre is an escape from what we know to be true, yet in so many cases a reflection of what was always there. It takes mundane experiences and focuses on them, revealing them to be much more than anticipated. I loved the “Lord of the Ring” movies for their incredible imagination, yet I also loved “The Death of a Salesman” for its profound reflection on a mentally troubled salesman and his entirely normal family.

Written by Michael Gibson - February 13, 2007
Posted by Kirk Andrew Everist