Member-only story
The Theater-Goers’ Pact
We aren’t just an invisible applause machine
Yes, the world is collapsing and I’m going to the theater. Correction: I went to the theater and I’ll go again. A saving grace of living in one of the great madhouses of the 21st century is theater. The saving grace of theater is that it’s so much more than mere entertainment.
This is not to denigrate entertainment.
I love a good movie and have been known to even enjoy the occasional Hollywood mainstream product (I’m looking at you, “Knives Out”). Although nothing Hollywood can come up with will ever touch the hem of “Orlando”, sorry, not sorry.
However — and this won’t be much of a shocker to anyone who loves theater — no film can come close to doing what really well-crafted, bravely acted, and creatively staged theater does. Interestingly, the most powerful theater I’ve experienced hasn’t been any of the big Broadway productions I’ve had the delight of experiencing. And I love me some Broadway theater, btw.
(Except for “Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark”. That sucked. Change my mind)
That said, nothing I’ve seen on the Great White Way has ever even approached that indelible moment when the furious Queen in Fiasco Theater’s long-ago production of…
