Building Fences

Well, the title seems a lot more deep and meaningful than I'm sure I can capture in this message, but the aim of a writer is to translate those feelings, shared or singular, that others deem indescribable, incomparable, or something you just wouldn't understand.

I'll be honest. I wasn't all that excited about going to see Fences. Call me shallow or cold if you will, but I don't really like inspirational or deep things. I don't mean in general, but I don't like things that are so obviously geared toward moving you that the story is inundated by the writer's will to inspire you. I also don't like to cry. According to popular culture, crying is directly related to inspiration. I don't know. There must be some secret formula that producers have in their secret handbooks of all things theatrically secretive that shows the relationship between buckets of tears and amount of soul shattering internal revolution. The point is, I don't like the whole soggy bag of snot and tears so I do my best to avoid it. Hence, my aversion to potentially serious and/or moving plays.

This fact becomes even more ridiculous once I describe to you one of the main reasons I love theatre. I love theatre's capacity to make you feel. I'll bet a dollar half of us have never been seventeen years old in the 1960's, but that doesn't matter. Theatre will put you there, in the moment, right with the characters. If done right, everything outside of the world the actors and technicians have created for you, simply disappears. You may be nineteen years old and don;t give a flying flip about who's dating who and all the weaksauce romance sold like candy on modern day television. But in a theater, you call fall in love with Cyrano just as Roxane does. You may be the most stoic person you know, but watching someone die on stage can put it as close to you as if you were watching your own family die.

So, the mixture of not enjoying the mixture of feelings and going to a place that has the magic of giving life to a story and making you feel, whether you want to or not, is liable to make a person a little less than happy. Fortunately for me, academic compensation is enough to motivate me to get over myself.

My train of though has started doing tour jetes over in a corner somewhere. I'll have to complete this when the performance is over. Until then, go grab some popcorn and sulk about your state in life. Or, you know, you could just eat it. :)