Theatre: 1 Year On Pause

 And one yr later... I still miss theatre. Despite the elitism, expense, inconvenience, uncomfortable seats, elbow scrapes, I still miss the slogging and dragging. I miss the rituals and rites. I miss the lights dimming on an audience. I miss shutting off my phone with a group of people for a set amount of time and surrendering to whatever happens. I even miss the ridiculous ringtones, beeps, chirps at inappropriate moments. I miss the old man next to me at the Skirball Center who couldn't make his phone alarm turn off. I miss how that too became apart of the evening and how I remember it more than the performance. I miss the wordless wide-eyed exchanges with audience members after something absurd or accidental or unfortunate happened. That wide-eyed look that said 'we both just saw that' or 'W.T.F?!?' or 'I hate humans' or 'the nerve?!?' I miss the woman who unwrapped the loudest aluminum foil wrap on a meatball sub and then proceeded to eat THE WHOLE GODDAMN SANDWICH in the middle of a quiet one-person show. 12 inches of hot, steaming, marinara-drenched bread and meat. I miss that this meatball sub became apart of his show and my experience became apart of the sandwich and the very eating of the sandwich was a theatrical act of defiance from a member who may have been exacting some revenge on the actor or the playwright or theatre itself...and this too became apart of the legend of that evening. 

I miss it. I hate that I miss the brat. Still, I miss it. It's utterly childish that I miss it. And yet I miss the arcane, frustrating,  problematic theatre. It's so insane. I have been granted enormous kindnesses and opportunities in lieu of live theatre. And still I miss the problem of theatre. I miss that people were trying to fix the problem. I miss the utopian attempts of artists throwing themselves into the dark hell mouth with almost no hope of reward. The warriors and dreamers who were determined to fix it, reform it, transform it, de-colonize it, and who were often broken by it. 

I hope this doesn't come across as too sentimental or too bitter. Most nights theatre was awful. Yet, some nights it was less awful. Occasionally there were times when it was tolerable. Infrequently it was sublime. 

Goddamn. God Bless. God. 

 Make it Make Sense.

Theatre. Come back better. But also don't change. But also please fucking change. But also stay true...whatever the fuck that means. Stay true to oneself? Stay true to one experience? Stay true to something inexplicable and ancient and necessary. Or just stay. Come back and stay. You're awful. Stay.