Thursday, January 21, 2010
Make Me WANT You
I have crushes on over twenty people in any given minute because whether or not i've seen them, heard them, know them, or even if they have never existed in life, I know something or someone is good when I find myself crushing on it's creator or executor. This is how I feel about theater. Clearly I don't judge all theater by these standards but I think that my crush meter is significant because if I am led to Google the moment I read the last sentence of a play or arrive home from a performance, I know it was good. I want to see a fast-paced play that makes me unable to blink, one that is organized and makes me stand when I applaud and not just because everyone else is doing it--one that forces me to search the writers and directors to see if their other plays are written like that so I know that it wasn't a hoax. Like in number 18 of "36 Assumptions About Writing Plays:" "Strive to be your own genre. A Chekhov genre. A Caryl Churchill genre. " I want to fall in love with the characters and I want to feel the feeling that I actually hate, the the completely empty feeling when you finish a book or experience, when you have NO idea what you're going to do because the world and people you were involved with is gone and the text that will never magically extend. I've felt this feeling walking out of shows before and when I reassure myself "don't worry, you can always see it again," it must have been good. I've been enamored with play characters for saying witty things that make me really wonder if I agree and I always find myself crushing on the troubled or mean ones that have a significant effect on the play's direction. I know I've seen good theater when I get nervous to Google the actors' lives because I don't want them to be real (when I crush on the character and plot before the actor and director).
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So much of what you said rang true for me and it's nice to know that I'm not the only one running to the computer to learn more about the show after I've seen it! I love when you said, "I want to fall in love with the characters and I want to feel the feeling that I actually hate, the the completely empty feeling when you finish a book or experience, when you have NO idea what you're going to do because the world and people you were involved with is gone and the text that will never magically extend." I think this is the ideal feeling for everyone, and that's when you know that you've seen something that's special. I also love when I've seen a show and days later I am still thinking about it and discussing it - I think that's also a key point and something I hope happens after every play I go see or every play that I read. You expressed so many things that I feel (or hope to feel) while watching a show or after attending a show, but I don't think I was really aware of any of it until now.
ReplyDeleteYes!
ReplyDeleteWe can't underestimate our GUTS in this. Just as Rivera said we should write from all our organs, so, too, do we receive plays with all our organs, not simply our brains. We will do a lot of analysis in this class, but we must ask questions of our hearts, our mouths, our stomachs, just as we engage our brains. It's a tricky thing, no, when we try to dissect art?