BroadwayGirlNYC: Existential Viewing

 

I had the most incredibly existential experience at the theatre last week - twice, in fact - when I saw parts one and two of the Signature Theatre's gorgeous staging of "Angels in America". 

It wasn't my own existence I was pondering; it was the existence of this play, this universe into which I became transported, and how I could view it as an inside and an outsider at exactly the same time.

Of course, this wasn't the first time a play had moved me to the point of getting lost within its world.  But something about this experience was different; I think because I was able to view the mechanics of the play, while simultaneously feeling completely immersed in it - as if these were real people and they were my friends, my colleagues, even my antagonists in real life. 

I was agog.  How could I become so enthralled with this world, while actually seeing the workings that proved that it wasn't real?  How could I invest so heavily that my breath caught, I laughed aloud unselfconsciously, and shed fat, wet tears... when I could see with my own eyes that what was before me was simply a creation?

I watched the stagehands.  I could see the actors break character during blackouts, then exit stage left.  The scenery was mostly (gorgeous) projections, and I could look up and locate their electrical source.  Plus I'd seen several of the actors in previous productions as completely different characters.  Yet I had no trouble living there with them in what resonated as a real park, a real hospital, a real street corner, even inside the hallucinations of the beautifully flawed main characters.

Has it taken me all these years of being a "fan" to really understand what it is that defines an incredible theatre piece?! 

My ability to suspend disbelief - all of our ability to do so - is a gift from nature and the Universe for which I'm suddenly beyond grateful.  I never remember being so intensely appreciative of the duality of watching theatre; it seems that before the Angels experience, I watched either as a student of theatrical craft OR an passive member of the scene, but not both. 

Paper, wood, words, light, and the brilliant bodies who translate all that into so much more than the sum of its parts.  Theatrical Alchemy!!  A miracle: that a known falsehood, a fiction by definition, can move me and make me feel more alive than what I often experience in real life. 

And how did I get so lucky to be able to spend my life in this forum, surrounded by these plays, to get to see them in all of their different forms so often?  I vow to never lose my gratitude, and never forget the magic of a perfect production that brings the real and the fiction into its own murky and beautiful Threshold of Revelation.