I BELIEVE
theatre is not about Suspension of Belief, but about Extension of Belief. To create art is not to say Why don't you pretend that this is possible? but instead to say What if this were possible? I BELIEVE there is poetry in everything. The world may be ugly, at times, and its people capable of ugliness, but art finds the poetry to confront that ugliness and understand it, control it, realize it, redeem it I BELIEVE the maker of theatre holds the mirror up to nature. But the maker of theatre is showing you the reflection, not the thing itself. And there is always something a little off about the reflection (why is everything backwards? what about that narrow crack in the glass?) Theatre is Life Through the Looking Glass, which is the only way we can ever see Life itself if not through our own eyes. I BELIEVE that theatre is not for any one person. A play may take place astride the walls of Ancient Troy, in a cold cell of the Bastille, or Renaissance corridors lush with marble and gold, but the people in it are human, not history. They could, and should be brought to life by performers and artists of any age, any gender, any color, any height, any religion, any shape and size, any way I BELIEVE that nothing is original, and therefore everything is. None of my stories (sorry) are utterly new. You have all heard tales of the ruin of empires and of falling in and out of love and of not knowing yourself or another as you wish to but perhaps I tell the story a way that makes you want to listen. Maybe the ending is a little different. |