I don’t understand theater.
I’m a performer, on occasion, and I don’t understand the
appeal of theater, musical or otherwise. I don’t know why people watch it and I
don’t get why people feel compelled to do it.
I perform rock and roll and stand up, two kinds of
performance that I like to call “wholly real”, where while I may be
exaggerating a bit, it is 100% a real me representing me in a space that is
also real in that it is only what it is. A dirty bar floor or a couple of
pylons portray a dirty bar floor or a couple of pylons. Any danger or emotion
displayed is real danger or emotion. If I smash my head into a cymbal it
actually hurts and gives a good shiny (though tinny) sound and visual that I
assume is entertaining. If I tell a joke and it bombs, my face gets real red
and that’s part of the show now.
Traditional theater (and I make the distinction because
there are exceptions like Sleep No More and Haunted Houses) has a “manufactured
reality”. There’s a set, and make up, and characters and ACTING, all made to
create a reality that isn’t actually there. When an audience watches “Show
Boat” they’re not actually watching a drama occurring on a boat in the ocean.
It’s the job of the cast and crew to make them believe that.
The problem is I never do. I’m always fully aware of the
space the stage creates and the 4th wall between the audience and
performers. “But Taylor!” you cry and you drill your teeth into a beetroot. “You’ve
just never seen a high quality play or musical, you can’t write off an entire
branch of performance”. But I have, you beautiful crimson toothed monster.
I’ve seen a few plays on Broadway, one of which was “Priscilla,
Queen of the Desert” often toted as the gayest musical. Despite the obvious
talent and effort put into the production I was always painfully aware that it
was fake. I knew that if someone wandered on stage during a musical number, no
matter how smooth the performers react, there is an obvious error in the plan.
If someone wanders on stage during stand up set there is no
error, they’ll probably become a fluid part of the performance as material. And
if they get on stage during a rock show they might get knocked back into the
crowd. All natural ways for performers to react, and it never breaks a wall,
because there is no wall, though Roger Waters may disagree.
Part of this might seem like a more improvisational style of
performing in stand up and music. But I don’t think that’s it. All are (can be)
well-rehearsed, air tight, hit-your-beats spectacles.
There are also over choreographed music and comedy artists I
dislike. That’s partially why I left my acapella group. It felt very
mechanical, and while we getting technically better I felt like I was losing
touch with the music and the audience. That’s not at slight at C Flat Run, just
different preferences. I am an admittedly sloppy singer.
There’s a connection I find more easily between the
audiences too, when rocking out. It goes back to the “realness” of performance
(and I know real is subjective blah blah blah, go back to your goo vat Neo).
But from my point of view as a rock singer, I can see and sing and talk to the
audience and they react and there is an interaction that’s unique and a
function of me being me in that space at that time with the audience being them
in that same place.
“But Taylor!” I hear you cry as you joyously crack open a
kumquat. “You’ve never really been a part of a theater performance so what
right do you have to judge from that angle?” Well you poorly-informed
herbivore, I have been in one minor musical, cast as Carlisle Cullen in a
student written and directed production of Twilight. I’ll just let that
sentence sit for a sec.
And while I may not have been the best actor, or really
anything close to passable, I did stand on that side of the stage, and it helped
to shape my views.
TV and movies also create a “manufactured reality”. But they
avoid the problems I have with theater with an impenetrable screen. And also
usually having much more elaborate sets and resources allocated to a perfect
takes and perspectives and in general a much more manufactured reality. I think that’s why I can engage and
enjoy those media. Maybe theater just sits in an uncanny valley of real and
unreal.
I bring this up because I want to be wrong. I have to be
missing something right? I feel like I’m just not grasping onto something so
many of my performative peers love. So what is it? I feel like I’m missing
super obvious, like I just need some salt to go with this soup.
