The door opens onto a stone passage. A white bird flies up from the water pooled on the ground. Distant bells ring old songs. He is tired. He feels the world slow and accelerate at once. A large beast shuffles across the crest of the hill. Could it be a woolly mammoth? He sees only its silhouette. He sits down in the dust. He wishes to speak with the gods. They seem far away.
A primary beauty of making theater is community. In a society designed to isolate, we need each other to make theater.
The community is often temporary, but it is real. It is sustenance we need.
The community we forge mounting a play requires exposing our individual vulnerability, encountering risk and engaging in mutual support.
In the absence of trust and safety between theater makers, the community and thus, the play, shatters.
It is as something sacred between theater makers: missteps and gaffes, moments of frailty and weakness, even failed experiments must not result in shaming and attacking. On the contrary: When one of us falls, we all pick her/him/them up.
The harm a theater maker(s) suffers when shamed or abandoned by a collaborator(s) during the process is profound and can affect their capacity to enter again into theater communities.
Making theater is the fruit of apprenticeship and of learning from those who came before us over millennia. Much of this apprenticeship consists of learning the primary lesson of mutual care and support - even as it runs counter to the ethic of hyper-individualism and ego-driven behavior found elsewhere in society.
A primary beauty of making theater is community. In a society designed to isolate, we need each other to make theater.
