What I love about theatre, Part 2

100 things I love about theatre. The sequel to Part 1 of a year ago.

1. It is incredibly hard.
2. It's absorbing.
3. It's easy.
4. It's fun.
5. It's home.
6. Everything matters.
7. It is kinesthetic. Bodies moving in space. Colliding.
8. The body cannot lie.
9. Seeking truth transforms the actor. Witnessing this search transforms the spectator.
10. It requires a large open high-ceilinged wood space.
11. Everything is human scale.
12. It is humble.
13. It is an invocation.
14. It must, like bread, be made from scratch each time.
15. It demands enormous human relationship.
16. It sings.
17. It kills.
18. It never sleeps.
19. It has a ghostlight. Ghosts.
20. It is superstitious.
21. It is nourishes the weary.
22. It is a paradox of all truths at once, unresolved.
23. It is a practice of organic growth, of Nature.
24. It is the consummate lab of the human.
25. It is a guitar, an accordion, and a puppet.
26. It is too big to comprehend.
27. It makes objects resonant. Three tulips. A yellow chair.
28. It is a life-consuming/life-renewing ritual. Theatre is shamanic.
29. Theatre is dangerous.
30. Theatre is a baby -- open mouth, open eyes, open heart.
31. It transmits the myths. Once upon a time, in Italy, there were two families.
32. It reconnects me to my tender heart.
33. It cleanses.
34. It heals.
35. It transcends.
34. It sweats.
35. Theatre is intimate.
36. It is mysterious. It makes no guarantees.
37. It demands my most beautiful, and most high.
38. It speaks with the tongues of poets.
39. It wreaks integrity.
40. It is a parable of the home, family, the gods.
41. It is a kitchen.
42. It is a space for every person in it.
43. It is a forge for desire, emotion, action.
44. It is supple. It makes me supple.
45. It is bathrooms and mirrors, nicer for the ladies.
46. It is a set shop, a prop shop, a paint shop, a costume shop.
47. It is a dragon in the shed, horses overhead, fur coats in the freezer.
48. It is small offices, computers, a library, and a flux of money.
49. It is people who can do anything, dressed in black.
50. It is a lobby and a ticket office.
51. Theatre is a Way of practice and devotion.
52. It is where the spiritual and mortal meet.
53. It requires & creates community.
54. It makes me laugh.
55. It is subtle. If you would be subtle, observe the Way of water.
56. It is astoundingly, tantalizingly, inherently unpredictable.
57. It kisses.
58. It climaxes.
59. It does not spare.
60. It is ash from your mother's urn, after you thought she was buried.
61. It is 14 poles hung with instruments, a miasma of blue-green light.
62. It is the ragged wool coat of the Vladivostok actor with the stone from Seattle in his pocket.
63. It is 11 iron swords stuck in the stage, quivering.
64. It is three voices soaring, their bodies in agonized tableau.
65. It is rain falling on Othello's bed.
66. It is the blue light backstage in which silent actors stand.
67. It is Harlequin's leather cat-monkey mask, ruby gleaming.
68. It is the floor panel removed to reveal a steaming turquoise pool of water.
69. It is Ondine with bare breasts, singing to the mermaids.
70. It is two wood benches of spectators who are worried about money, watching a mother at an old wood table drinking orange juice, worrying about money.
71. It is often, very often, bad.
72. Theatre is the November wind.
73. Theatre is the old cedar stump with the huckleberry bush.
74. Theatre is the day everything changed.
75. Theatre is the day I changed.
76. Theatre is two tramps and a tree.
77. Theatre is a secret.
78. Theatre is an ache.
79. It is the plain made plain.
80. Theatre is my father smoking, hammering sets, yelling I can't hear you. It is my mother, Rachel, hurry, Judy Dench is on. It is my brother, And then what happened? It is me, You're a king and your colors are red and gold. I'm a king and my colors are silver and green.
81. Theatre is Chekhov, writing over and over of humans with secret passions, of doctors who had killed a patient and loved trees.
82. It is hot coffee at intermission and thank god for that.
83. It is blue seats and rustle.
84. Hot tea for the actors, hot tang for the singers.
85. It is the end of rehearsal, locking the theatre, eager to leave.
86. It is praying in the shower after a well-lived day.
87. Theatre is a farm.
88. Theatre is a monastery.
89. Theatre is a wicked admonishment, pagan glee.
90. It is always political.
91. Theatre is a bloodbank, says Leonid.
92. It is a relief from the sky, and a relief to return to the sky.
93. It is a job.
94. It is sore feet and twisted knees and still having to make the rehearsal schedule and find someone to help with costumes.
95. It is the heart of life, but not the all of life.
96. Sometimes I don't want to go.
97. It is the stillness in which prayer can occur.
98. It is Thai green curry at rehearsal lunch.
99. It is the trees and river outside the theatre.
100. It is the unanswerable question.

And yet theatre alone is not quite enough anymore. One day Grotowski walked out of theatre and into India. When he returned, it was 8 months later and he was 80 pounds thinner.

He had never left his Path.