mystery and make believe

i saw twelfth night last week. the production got pretty good reviews even if the players didn't. however, despite not getting splashed by water or spittle, i enjoyed the evening tremendously. not a small part of that enjoyment was down to the fact that i don't really follow shakespearian dialogue that well, so a lot of what went on went on somewhere over my head. but because of this, i really enjoyed it. i liked being part of something that was beyond me, that wasn't dumbed down for my tv generation. it made me feel like a kid again, watching my elders and betters being my elders and betters. it made me hope that one day i might get to a place where i could understand and follow shakespeare (maybe). it reminded me that the world is a place full of things to wonder at (as opposed to mourn for).

then there is the subject of a cheese sandwich worth $28,000 - a complete mystery to me.

finally, let phillip pullman have the last word on the theatre:

"Where the theatre scores over the cinema is in the power of metaphor and its engagement with the audience's own imagination.

We have to pretend, and furthermore all of us have to pretend together. With video and DVD the experience of film is often, these days, not so much a joint experience in a big public space as a private experience in a small one. We have to go [to the theatre], and share it with others. And once there, we have to agree to sit in the dark and be quiet at the same time and all imagine together.

[T]he thing that the theatre does best and most potently is to tell stories in a way that partakes of magic, of ritual, of enchantment. [W]hen everything is working well, something mysterious happens between an audience and a play that isn't just the sum of the component parts. [S]omething happens, and everything is transformed. We could use a scientific term like emergence for this process, or we could use an older word and call it sorcery; but whatever we call it, there's no point in trying to explain it to those who insist on a functional justification for everything, those who can only see value in an activity if it brings in money from tourists, or helps children with their GCSEs. They'll never understand. You have to find some other sort of language if you want to convince them."