An Ode to the Stage

There are certain things in life that belong to one place, one set of people, one mind. These things are regarded sacred by some and misunderstood by others. I am part of the first group. Theatre is life. And if theatre is life, then I certainly got a breath of fresh air this evening.

I had forgotten what it was like to walk into a house and sit in the audience because I never used to reside on that side of the stage. I was always on the stage, inside the picture, taking people by the hand and leading them from their cares and worries into a new world if only for moments.

Memories flooded back as I sat there eagerly waiting for life to spring up inside the proscenium. The smell of the theatre begged me to find my way backstage and start putting on make-up and don a costume. The sound of the orchestra warming up reminded me of the day my company first rehearsed West Side Story with a full orchestra and how the lush music coming from the pit brought tears to my eyes through its simple beauty. That stage... the very one where I had fought witches, where I had followed Aslan, where I had been part of the gang rivalry in NYC... I longed to be there again... or to even be in the wings running the fly system, listening to the stage manager banter back and forth about useless things on the headset all the way through the show.

It was Guys and Dolls I attended tonight, and my mind was full of West Side Story flashbacks... This NYC skyline differed so from the one I had acted before. It was fantastical and whimsical whereas the skyline the Jets and Sharks fought before was harsh and realistic. The music was happy, comical. There was nothing to be happy about in the musical I was in. The curtain call was full of smiling cast members. This sight brought back to me one of my favorite West Side Story memories. Our curtain call was unlike any I had ever heard of before. At the end, when the lights came up, the cast stood there, without bows or smiles or movement. We just looked out at the audience, to standing ovations every night, and we haunted them with the sincerity of the story we had told. It haunted me too.

Applause, standing ovations, the energy between audience member and actor... all of these things strictly belong to theatre. There is no energy between a video camera and a screen. It makes no sense to applaud when a movie is finished, for no one responsible for its creation is there to hear it. Ah, theatre on the other hand, theatre is a living entity. Audiences can suck the energy right out of an entire cast or they can exhilarate them in such a way that they perform as never before.

An actor walks through a door and becomes someone else for the night. We are given the opportunity to be things we could never be in real life, to do impossible things. The anticipation of stealing the hearts of people sitting in the darkness somewhere in the other side of the orchestra pit is a singular feeling.

An audience member is given a peak into that person's life for a while and a reprieve from his or her own life. We are given the opportunity to learn from the mistakes and choices of others. The anticipation of that curtain that hangs between us and a story of those we love is a singular feeling.

I miss this other life, this chance to take a break and enter an alternate reality.

When next will you allow yourself to be ushered from this world to another?