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Today is World Theatre Day.
Happy theatre day fellow theatre workers!
Many of us feel suspended in a long dropped cue. Like a pause when you fear your partner thinks it’s *you* who has forgotten the line.
It is a strange strange time but particularly for those of us who love the theatre.
Why do we love the theatre? Personally it seems important that we have no answer.
Sure, I’ve often felt forced to explain why theatre is important. But really why it matters to me I can never explain or justify.
I speak as an addict of TV drama and could probably now do a Master’s in Swedish criminal law procedure.
But that is not the same as watching a live performance. For in a live performance the audience is part of the act of art.
After this dread period, live audiences will stream back and we will make theatre with even more gusto. Because? Because we miss so badly our collective spaces, particularly theatres, where we can hear people say things we wouldn’t say, feel things we may not feel, do things we certainly would hope never to do, and yet feel connected in our differences, in both the logic and mystery of experience.
And we will put up with a lot of inconveniences, dreadful traffic, ticket prices – just for the sheer pleasure of hearing another person breathe, the timbre of a living human’s voice, feeling another’s joy or pain, not the duty but the pleasure of empathy.
We now have Russian and Italian actors missing the shows they should be touring. This morning, an Italian actor messaged me and asked if we had been dreaming vividly. Well, yes we both have!
I wonder if it’s true for you too?
Theatre cannot die…..
Declan and Nick