Re: RAT Response to Online Theater Comments Re. Cat Hebert

[vz <dexteriously@yahoo.com>]

Cat,

You're making so many interesting points that it's difficult to respond
in passing, but thanks.

I was glad to see that you are interested in a medium that is
"immersive," even if the technology isn't there yet to allow such a
deep experience.  Immersiveness is what live theatre purportedly
offers: presence, breathing the same air, etc.  Your fellow artists
(including me) will *swear* that it's possible to pull off the feat of
immersion with grace, candor, poetry, electricity, and more.  But I
don't want to dismiss your testimony, especially not these points:

--that our work, even the best of it, is largely beneath the notice of
most people

--that there is a gulf separating our claims on behalf of theatre and
the work that is actually being done out there

I don't really have a problem with either of those statements.  The
first seems true enough, the second is easy to believe on any given
night in any given theatre.  Why not take your testimony as a
challenge, I say.  Do better work.  Think about the whats and whys and,
especially, the for whoms.

A couple of questions leaped to my mind, however.  Perhaps these are
just sidetracks?:

--Is it necessary for theatre to tell a story?  Can it do something
else?  I'm thinking of dance.  I'm thinking of architecture.

--Is not one of the essential qualities of theatre the fact that it is
perishable?  It is here and now, and then it is gone.  IMHO, this is a
good thing.

Wally Z

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