Why I Love Live Theater

From time to time I’ll meet someone who has never seen a play performed in a theater – not little church productions, community theater or a regional theater production, let alone a Broadway play. This is something I cannot understand. I cut my teeth on Shakespeare at five years old, when I saw my first production of Romeo and Juliet. Sure, it started long after my 7:00 bedtime, and yes, I did fall asleep through a good portion of it, but I do remember watching my father play Capulet, Juliet’s father, in full Shakespearean garb. Not long after, he played Claudius (Hamlet’s uncle) in Hamlet. It is a little disconcerting to see your own father play the bad guy when you are still at an age when he can do absolutely nothing wrong. (Fortunately I was old enough to understand that this was all pretend.)

By then, I’d been bitten by the world of the theater – this magical land where you can be transported to a new time and a new place through the help of great acting, great staging and a little bit of imagination. You walk into a theater with all of your baggage: the cares of the world, the worries of the day. But you walk out (it is hoped) having seen a work of art that has changed your perception of the world and the people in it. That’s what all artists and performers wish to do, either on a small scale or a large one. Or, as Shakespeare wrote:

...To hold as 'twere the
mirror up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own
image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.
(Hamlet; Act 3, Scene 2)

But that’s only one aspect of it, the idea of theater as art. Because you can go to a good movie or read a good book and achieve the same effect. Live theater also brings things the other two cannot – the element of the unexpected, the freshness of the shared experience and the newness of each performance. You can rehearse dozens of times, plan for many possible outcomes, but you can never anticipate every aspect of a live performance. The main reason for this is that one thing is changing at every performance – the audience. No two audiences are alike. Each group of people will react differently, laugh in slightly new ways at unexpected places in the script, and bring their own set of problems into the theater.

My favorite example of this is the time I saw Stones in His Pockets at the Utah Shakespearean Festival in the summer of 2005, starring David Ivers and Brian Vaughn and directed by the great J.R. Sullivan. The two actors play all of the roles – several dozen each, both male and female. There are minimal costume changes, few props and almost no set decorations. The play derives its energy and pace entirely on the skills of the two actors and their ability to suck you into the plot, time and location. Even in the hands of skilled and talented actors such as Ivers and Vaughn, this is not an easy thing to do.

Mid-way into this particular performance, a woman at the front of the theater had an asthma attack and began to wheeze loudly, falling to the floor at the front of the stage and interrupting the performance. The actors stopped and everyone else was silent for a few moments as we were pulled away from the play’s action. Was this part of the play? Obviously not as the actors had stopped and were staring at the woman, slightly dumbstruck. Ivers, who noticeably had dropped character in seconds, observed what was happening and then took charge. “Can we get the house lights please?” The house lights came up almost immediately. Then, “Is there a doctor in the house?” He said the words to elicit help for the woman, but also to cut the tension somewhat. Nervous laughter tittered through the packed house as a couple of people sprinted to the front to help the woman. Several moments later, Ivers turned to his co-star Vaughn, and asked him to get some water for the woman, which he did. The audience members, as if by some silent decree or mutual understanding, stayed very quiet, remained in their seats, and waited for the woman’s medical crisis to resolve. Several minutes later, the attack was over and the woman returned to her seat.

During the ensuing minutes, Ivers and Vaughn walked off stage, then returned and engaged in muffled conversation. It was obvious they didn’t know what to do. How do you restart the action in the middle of a play where there are no scene breaks? Where the action flows imperceptibly from one vignette to the next as the actors inhabit many different personae? They were already many minutes into the second half and it would be odd to begin the second act all over again. Finally, Ivers spoke to the audience again. “We’re trying to figure out where to start,” he said to more laughter.

Then the stage manager broke in – the voice of God over the loudspeaker. “Let’s begin with so-and-so’s entrance.” The two actors nodded. I thought: “So-and-so’s entrance? No one enters the stage in this play – how are they going to do that?” In seconds the house lights came down again and the only focus was on the two actors on stage who were momentarily pausing and returning to the action. Then the figurative curtain lifted and they were again in character, picking up the action with the “entrance” of one character into the action already happening on stage.

It was a bit surreal, but an amazing glimpse into the actors’ process and a way to see them as real people, not just characters on a stage. It gave me a new level of appreciation for two actors who already had my respect for their immense talent. More on this tomorrow.

Picture: Brian Vaughn and David Ivers (L-R) in Stones in His Pockets, Utah Shakespearean Festival, 2005