“[theater] is old, [theater] is new, [theater] is all, [theater] is you.”

what the Beatles really meant when they sang "Because"

   I played a character once in an Irish tragedy that involved the death of my brother and the dissolvement of my family. In that play, I cried. I sobbed onstage, and I watched the body of “my brother” being carried in on a wooden board, still dripping water from where he had been dragged out of the sea. My hands trembled as I held a scrap of what used to be his jacket, and my tears soaked into the saltwater already dampening the cloth.

   It may be easy to think of it all as a story or a fantasy or the abstraction of some bored playwright’s mind; but theater is so much more than that. My portrayal of Cathleen wouldn’t have been exactly like another actress’s, or even identical if I were to act this again. It would be the same script and the same characters, but never the same show.

   Theater is a unique art form in the aspect that it is incredibly adaptable. Times change, and people change, and meanings change; a Shakespeare play written over 400 years ago can be performed the same way it would have been in his day, or it can be transformed. Words can be modified, songs can be added, or characters can be omitted- and, night to night, the show is still never going to be exactly identical either. Theater is serpentine, constantly shifting and moving and shedding old skins in favor of a newer and stronger existence.  

   When we saw Much Ado About Nothing, I already knew the story; I knew the characters and their motives and their meanings. You go into a theater, though- especially Shakespeare’s Globe-never quite sure what you’re going to get. And, had I gone another night, I would have seen the same story again- but it wouldn’t really have been the exact same story. Actors are real people, and the characters they play become real people as well. The Globe is a particularly interesting and intimate space for this very reason. The amount of interaction that goes on between the actors and the audience, especially the groundlings, allows for an incredibly communal and emotional experience, with endless room for adaptation.

    Did Shakespeare intend his play to be reenacted, centuries later, in the way that we saw it at the Globe? I think yes. Old Will designed the Globe to be a space for everyone, from all walks of life. He wrote his plays to be adapted and picked apart and made into movies like She’s the Man or 10 Things I Hate About You. Shakespeare knew theater and loved theater and knew that theater changes and people change theater.

   That’s not to say that Shakespeare’s (or any other authors’, for that matter) written works aren’t powerful in their own aspect. Reading a written work, rather than seeing a stage performance, allows the readers to envision their own creative view of the story. That’s an important part of art and of personal exploration; and maybe in theater you lose that creativity of the individual reader. Yet on the stage there is a physical, audible, emotive manifestation that is experiential for everybody involved. As an actor, half of what I love is the push and pull that I get from an audience; and when I’m a viewer, instead, what I love is seeing how an actor takes a character and makes it their own. Instead of an individual re-imagining of a story, theater creates a group space for adaptation and invention and live art.

   And, just like any other art form, theater speaks differently to each individual. Personally, I prefer musicals to plays, and both to operas. I appreciate all three, but my preference is a musical; contrastingly, I have friends who can’t stand musicals and a play is the only theater production they can stomach. So, what is being performed on the stage is still individually adapted for each person; they bring their own biases, emotions, life experiences, and education. They imagine the characters’ hidden motives and choose their favorites. They agree with one character’s actions, but shame another’s. This story, up on stage- which has already been adapted by the company performing it- is further adapted within the minds of each viewer.

            When we saw a production of Jane Eyre- a re-imagining of the classic Charlotte Bronte novel- I was pretty surprised. It was an incredibly unique and inventive performance, and provided a completely different feel and experience than just reading the novel would. Because of this, some members of our study abroad honestly hated it; others thought it was their favorite production so far. Similarly, our visit to Matilda the musical evoked similar contrasting reactions. This adaptation, from a Roald Dahl children’s book, was funny and emotional and exciting to watch. Just like with Jane Eyre, seeing it gave a completely different experience than one would have reading the book; and, also just like Jane Eyre, some loved it and some couldn’t stand the show.

Theater doesn’t end with what the script says, or even what is performed on stage; it continues into the mind of each individual audience member and continues to be changed and morphed. There is something magical, almost transcendent, about being in a theater where each person is experiencing the same story performed in the same way- be they the actors, the audience, the backstage crew-, but feels their own emotions and reactions. It’s interactive, it’s enlightening, it’s humbling.

    Theater is emotive, and communal, and something that will last through the ages. It provides a way to bring people together and create a story that means something to each of them, and will mean a different thing every time to every person. It is a way to interpret words and make ink changeable; it is a mode of expression, and it is always in transition; it’s as close to real life as art can get.

            When I- Becca- saw Skyler carried in on a board, it wasn’t really me, and it wasn’t really Skyler. It was Cathleen, and Bartley. We fit these characters to ourselves and made them personal. We adapted the story to be powerful and emotional for both ourselves as the actors and for our audience watching, and those audiences didn’t see 21^st century students on stage; they saw a small family, torn apart and stricken with grief. 21^st century students wouldn’t have made those audience members cry; rather, the personal experiences that they brought to the theater connected them to our Irish story of loss and heartache. On stage, we transformed the story; in their hearts and minds, they transformed it as well.

Much Ado About Nothing, the Globe

Jane Eyre, the National Theatre

Matilda, Cambridge Theatre