Whispers

The most disconcerting thing that happened to me in my months at the Odin Teatret, was that the gods, who had whispered ceaselessly in my ear for six years, fell silent.

"Maybe what I thought were the gods was really just my internal sense of ethics," I told myself. "And now that I'm in a theatre where all those ethics are being followed, there's nothing to say."

But, like John Nash's invisible companions in A Beautiful Mind, I missed them nonetheless.

It has been a grey year without the gods. But somehow, this last week or two, they have begun to whisper again. Not in the clear intimate way they used to. But in nudges, in softenings of the metal membrane between worlds; in impulses toward art.

There is hope.

Andrew McMasters, artistic director of Jet City Improv, was talking about the research they'd done on Shakespeare's forms, to put together their "Lost Folio" improvised Shakespeare show.

"There are actually four forms," he said. "Tragedy, Comedy, History, and Romance." He went on to discuss the differences between Comedy and Romance, then said:

"People in a Romance always think they are in a Tragedy. People in a Tragedy think everything's normal. They don't know they are in a Tragedy."

That sentence exploded inside me. I ALWAYS think I'm in a Tragedy. Therefore -- I must be in a Romance!

Again -- hope!