 Home |
In the United States, we are experiencing a Culture War between movies and live theatres. It has become a crisis for the existence of live theatre, and, as I shall explain, for the health of our collective psyche.
It’s not that way in other countries. As my wife, Laura-Lea, and I have experienced in several countries in Europe, the theatres are active, vibrant, full of new ideas, and often full of people. When Laura-Lea and I visited Croatia and Serbia (both in one trip, during the war!) a few years ago, the live theatres were packed, standing-room-only for seven shows a week, while the movie theatres were half-full and small to begin with. In these countries people leave the movies mute and separate into the night. After the theatre, people stay out late at coffee shops talking about their experiences, animated by what had happened on stage.
In the United States, audiences for true live theatre are dwindling, while more movie theatres are built to handle the traffic. So, why not give up and go to the movies? Some of us have this sense that this ancient art of live theatre has a different function, one that our neighbors have forgotten, as we see the long lines to get into movie theatres, and the absence of lines to get into live theatres.
Many live theatres have also given up, in the sense that they have become increasingly mechanized, with extraordinary special effects and now, a microphone on all the actors.
This situation is regrettable and dangerous.
The human being is more than a hundred pounds of clay – a Life Principle has animated this clay, and made it move. Not only move, but perceive. Not only perceive, but think. Not only think, but feel. Our senses are the doorways into the physical world, and serve us well in both movie theatres and live theatre. But we have more senses than the basic five. We have the sense that can perceive warmth in a conversation, that can perceive the light of truth in a person’s speaking, that can feel power in the presence of strong people and strong words. In several traditions, these extensions of our senses are called the "etheric" senses, the senses of our "life body". Beyond that, we have what many have called the astral body, or the feeling body, which extends out from us, to feel a presence in the next room, to sense where a lost object is, to hear more deeply another’s tale of woe and redemption. These are the senses that sense the unseen, which makes life as rich as it is – these are the senses that give our life meaning, for our struggles must be felt fully to be understood and moved through.
The Greeks understood this in their design of theatres. I have visited several of these semicircular amphitheatres. They wrap around the stage area, more than a half-circle, often 245°. A small sound made in the center of the acting space, even a shoe rubbing against the grit on the ground, roars back at you, because the space was designed to reflect back to the actors and hold their energy. With this kind of embrace of their "life bodies," the good actors could expand their warmth, and feeling – their etheric and astral bodies – to fill the entire space. They did not only move to "look right" visually -- all that’s necessary for television. The actors felt it through and through, and their feeling body extended out to the furthest spectators, who then felt it themselves. Then an audience member could feel through the actor into the inside of Medea’s grief and madness, into the inside of Oedipus’ struggle, into the inside of Aristophanes’ comedies. The Greeks used theatre for healing because you would be washed over, as it were, in your feeling body by the feelings of the actors.
This does not happen with movies. Rather, the images and sound stimulate our physical senses, we react in a way against the actor, rather than experiencing their emotions in ourselves. Do you see the difference? The impact of movies and TV are in reaction, not in actual experience. The actuality of movies and TV is a skittering image going across a paper-thin screen.
With a live actor, you can enter into their world, and experience with them the great stories – the upsets, the joys, the transcendence. A good actor will do more than project to you – a good actor will surround you with the feelings brought about by the piece. That’s his or her job – to create the entire atmosphere of the room and theatre into one that can move mountains.
So, in a way, one can ask: Would you watch a TV show or movie of the rides at an amusement park such as Elitch’s or Disney World? Or does that seem absurd to you? As with the rides at Elitch’s or Disney World, true performance art must be experienced live.
Now, frankly, we must admit that many actors, reared on a generation of microphones, TV, and movies, have lost their ability to project their etheric and astral bodies as they used to. However, some troupes, including The New Troubadours, work with the building of these abilities in rehearsals. The possibility of exercising this faculty does not exist for TV/movies.
I could speak more about this and refer you to Chapter 10 of a new book, Signs in the Heavens: A Message for Our Time (by Willie Bento, Robert Schiappacasse, and myself) which goes much more deeply into the power of true images and false images. As they say, "the eyes are windows of the soul" -- people think it doesn’t matter what they let in, but it does very much matter.
THESE ISSUES ARE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT FOR OUR TIME! This struggle goes far beyond whether I choose to go to a play or a movie with my weekend evening. The implications move out much further than that -- for in this choice, we decide if we wish to become passive stimulated sensing organs, having our buttons pushed as reactive machines, or if we wish to develop our soul through participation in and relationship to true living energy. That is the potential power of live theatre!
(c) 2000 David Tresemer, all rights reserved, 303-449-0367, POBox 2180, Boulder, CO 80306
© 2004-8 All Seasons Chalice
ascpr@TheStarHouse.org