Monday, October 20: Theatre Can Change the World

The ten students in the 3rd-Year class are currently putting on a production of The Giver (it's an adaptation of the book). Today I attended a preview performance, and it was truly phenomenal. Whenever I see quality of work that gets done here, I feel so very blessed to be part of this program. Beyond that, I feel honored to have been chosen to become a part of it.

It's neat to see the people that I hang out with doing this work. It's also cool that the person who designed lights for this production went to undergrad with me. This show was created by people who I consider to be my peers, and I loved seeing what they were capable of. It makes me think that maybe I'm capable of the same thing.

The performance I saw today helped to remind me why I'm doing this with my life. Remarkable theatre always reminds me of how passionately I feel about it.

Theatre can change the world.

I once heard a saying: "Theatre is life. Film is art. Television is furniture." I believe that live theatre is the most powerful of these art-forms. You can't change the channel. You can't fast forward. You can't throw popcorn at the screen. It's there. It's real. It's right in front of you. The audience is as much a part of the experience as the actors are, and that's a connection that is unlike anything else. The audience suspends their collective disbelief, and they witness the performed events firsthand. It's an incredible sort of phenomenon that people are willing to expand themselves for the theatre in the first place. And because it's not easy to tune it out or escape from it, the effects can be felt more intensely.

Years ago, I was in a production of a stage version of Anne of Green Gables (which, for the record, wasn't particularly well-written). It was a community theatre production with a limited budget and a cast of enthusiastic local actors.

The story, if you're unfamiliar with the books, is about a precocious, redhead orphan girl named Anne, who is taken in by an elderly brother and sister after a misunderstanding. She's perhaps the brightest girl in school, in constant competition with a boy who teases her for her freckles and red braids. She experiences the world as a more romantic and enchanting place than other people, and her dramatics often get her into trouble. It's not political. It's not avant-garde. It's not meant to be a powerhouse of a play. The novels are heart-warming, and someone decided to create the play more for nostalgia and entertainment value than anything else. And that's fine by me.

While I was working on that production, a couple of troops of girl scouts came backstage before attending the performances. They could earn some sort of theatre badge for it, I guess. And I was asked to tell them all about acting, costumes, make-up, rehearsals, and everything else that might enrich the theatre-going experience. The girls were full of questions and seemed fascinated by everything I said.

And I realized that it didn't matter that this show wasn't written as some sort of worldly commentary. If one of those little girls watched the play and felt a little more okay with her freckles, then that was more than enough of a reason to keep doing it. If one girl came to the show and felt a little braver about raising her hand in class... If she realized that it was okay for girls to be smart... Or if a child knew it was okay to be an orphan... Or okay to look a little different from everyone else... Or to think of the world as a beautiful place filled with poetry... This show -- this poorly-written, unprofessional, tiny little show -- could change that child's life.

That makes all the effort worthwhile.

It's like that with every play. If one person who feels really lousy can go to a farce and forget their problems for a little while... If a family that rarely gives each other the time of day can see a play together and have something to discuss as a family at dinner the next night... If one ladder-climbing professional can see Macbeth and realize that power isn't everything... Theatre can definitely change lives. Who's to say that it can't change the world?

So everything that I learn that I can use to make a show better, I'll learn. Because if the show is a little bit better, then maybe it can touch someone a little bit more.

That's why I'm at graduate school getting my MFA in Acting. If fixing the way I say "s" sounds makes the story a little clearer, then I'll do it. If making my walk more neutral in daily life means that I can put more into physical characterizations, then I'll do it. If learning to use psychological gestures and molding qualities can bring out things in me that I need help tapping into, I'll do it. And I'll work as hard as I possibly can to get there, because I know how important this is.

Theatre is not my hobby. Theatre is my calling. Theatre is my vocation. Theatre is my life.

While I was an undergraduate student, I ran into a guy whom I'd done drama with in high school. I told him that I'd recently become a theatre major, and I felt a little guilty about it. I was worried that it was selfish, and I didn't think it was important enough. He looked me square in the eyes, more earnest than I had ever seen him before, and said, "It IS important." I wondered aloud if I should be doing something more altruistic, like becoming a doctor and trying to heal people's bodies. He responded with, "Angela, you're going to heal their souls."

I've given variations on this speech more times than I can remember. And during every incarnation, I remind myself of why it is that I love theatre so much. I remember why I do what I do.

True Story:
Several years ago, a woman went up to Mother Theresa. Mother Theresa looked at her and asked, "what's wrong?" The woman broke down, saying that she worked in theatre in New York, and that she felt like she wasn't doing enough with her life. She said that she wanted to go to Calcutta and help the poor. Mother Theresa looked at her and said, "There are many famines. In my country, there is a famine of the body. In your country, there is a famine of the spirit. And that is what you must feed. You must remain."

So that's why I'm an actor.

I do theatre because I love it more than I can say.
I do theatre because I don't know if I could ever be truly happy doing anything else.
I do theatre to heal people's souls.
I do theatre to relieve the famine of the spirit.
I do theatre because it's my way of changing the world.



May you find your own little way to change the world.

~A~