A Simple Reality Test

The next time you go to the theater, ask yourself this question:

Am I watching people live in a place and a time or am I watching actors moving around a stage reciting lines?

The theater should be an almost excruciating intimate experience. The audience should become completely engaged in the the excitement of observing without being observed. We are flies on the wall of an unfolding human drama.

As William Hazlitt wrote:

The theater is but a representation of life with the boring parts cut out.

The theater has the potential to provide the one entertainment experience that the public cannot otherwise get: To bear witness to real human conflict as imagined by the playwright, at the moment of its happening.

So ask yourself this question:

Why am I watching a false representation of life when I a true representation of life is so much more interesting?