Notes from Forum Theatre

One of the frequent topics of conversation that Michael Dove and I return to is how to develop theatre projects that are essential. We ponder, debate, and stew (probably more than is healthy) over how to create theatre that is not simply entertaining, or skillfully executed, or filled with marvelous theatricality, but vital to our modern perspectives, sensibilities, and needs. Why, you might wonder, is this such an interesting or worthy topic of conversation?

To determine what is “essential” in something as ephemeral and indefinable as “theatre” proves to be rather difficult given the enormous amount of variables that affect, shape, and dictate how a theatrical performance will run its course. But, without this determination “theatre” as it is will be relegated to a dying and irrelevant medium, easily over-shadowed by the far-reaching capabilities of film, the internet, and any number of mass media outlets. It is, forgive me, really the only question we as theatre artists should be asking, because without it we are squandering an enormous potential.

Admittedly I have had a relatively brief career in the professional theatre world, but still there have been projects that I have been enormously proud of (personally and altruistically), projects that I’d rather not think about, and few that I can honestly call “essential”. Essential theatre transcends the bounds of practical details and obligations, e.g. money, subscribers, season cohesion, boards, auditions, politics, jealous actors, jealous directors, competition, theatre groupies, awards, money, money, money.  Essential theatre taps into what theatre can do that no other artistic medium can achieve, and does it in such a way that an audience can’t help but be moved, validated, challenged, and exhilarated.

What am I getting at?

Essential theatre is a confluence of all the right factors: an accomplished director with a specific vision, a pertinent and dynamic play, a collection of actors enthusiastic and willing enough to surrender to a challenge, a group of designers who can a honor a vision with their own brand of creativity, an audience prepared to accept a journey and share in a collective experience, and a theatre willing to take a few risks. There are examples of this confluence every year throughout DC and the larger theatre community, but it seems to be an increasingly rare event, one that ‘The Last Days of Judas Iscariot’ captures and one that as a proponent of this “essential” concept, I want to protect, promote, and learn from.

Perhaps in a later post I can discuss why I think essential theatre happens, as I think there are a variety of factors that contribute to the previously described confluence. For now I think it worthwhile to discuss what happens when we witness this essential theatre . . . essentially, everything else slips away. For a brief moment we are left with nothing but a collection of individuals expressing ideas free from ego, free from ulterior motives, free from expectation . . . it is theatre at its most pure: the humble exchange of perspective without judgment, an explosive reminder that this is creativity examined, presented, witnessed, and evaluated all under the auspices of human beings with fragile talents and magnificent flaws.

Theatre, at its best, is a humanizing artistic medium (with more potential to be so than any other, in my humble opinion), as it is not witnessed through lenses or screens, or an interpretation of an abstracted form (i.e. painting) but an immediate and direct interaction with human expression.

When a production taps into what keeps theatre fresh, alive, and yes, essential, it is necessary, for me at least, to hold on to what made it so, for fear that theatre is becoming increasingly the medium of the slighted, the lost child of the underlings of a commercial juggernaut, rather than the medium of the connected, vibrant, and joyful proponents of bettering humanity through art.

This is just my uninformed and useless opinion, go see the play, you might not agree.

-Alexander Strain