Theatres

Ever since I first stepped into The Swan theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, in January of 1999, I have understood the true importance of the Theatre Space. For those of you who have been there, you will understand what I'm saying. That space just breathes theatre. It just sits silently, wrapped in the orangy brick walls that have surrounded thousands of the great actors of the last century. It was originally built in 1879, a Victorian Gothic building with walls of brick and stone, and seats and balconies of wood. It was burned to the ground in a 1926 fire, leaving only the horseshoe-shaped brick wall standing. An Elizabethan-style theatre was rebuilt within these walls, and reopened in 1986. It is built mostly of wood and stone, and has the organic feel of standing in an ancient forest. It is, hands-down, my favorite performance space on earth.

But there have been many that have been intensely important parts of my life. In June, Nick and I had the great fortune to revisit Calvin's campus with our dear friends, Jessie and Karl, and visit the spaces that had served as the backdrop to the first few days of our friendship. Why is it that the memory of spaces portrays them as bigger than they actually are? We hadn't physically grown in the three years since graduation, but they felt intimate and smaller than before...and how on earth had we produced so many exciting, if not monumental, productions in these spaces?!

The Gezon was a tough space, a thrust proscenium...always a challenge for everyone involved- the designers, actors, and directors. But it was a good space, a friendly one... The lab - the everchanging lab theatre. A true black box- and not many people have had the freedom to work with a blank slate such as the lab theatre...you don't know what you're missing until you let your imagination run wild in that space.

But theatres feel almost haunted...sacred, in a way. I can understand why people of many different faiths are attracted to theatre. In a quiet, empty theatre, it almost feels as if you're worshipping. Most liken it to the space itself being haunted; I think it makes them feel better about that feeling that you're being watched...as if justifying it with a ghost will make it easier to understand. Some go so far as to set out a ghost light (which has plenty of safety reasons to back up its existence...it surely doesn't need a misplaced spirit to necessitate one). Instead of jumping to the fairly complicated conclusion that each and every theatre in the world must play host to a tragic ghost, maybe the hundreds of passionate, emotive, intense thespians that passed over its boards have each left a little behind. They have imprinted themselves onto the space during their lives instead of afterwards.

Then these imprints influence us in the space...they are what make it sacred. And anyone who has had the great fortune to stand upon a theatre stage alone, with a quiet auditorium, will understand the feeling of finding that space in its most unnatural of states. That, alone, will create a feeling of hushed intensity.

Sometimes, an empty theatre is the best place to hear God. It feels as if the space itself is in a constant state of readiness...and in that state of hushed intensity, where you've bared your soul to crowds of hundreds, now are able to open up and bare your soul to a crowd of one.

One might think that this "sacred theatre experience" is a difficult thing to explain to a person 1. Not ever having experienced Theatre and/or 2. Not ever having experienced God. But it's not, really...most people, having stood in an empty theatre, has felt something intense and real that may be easily "explained" by a haunting, but more likely by the knowledge of those that came before you, and will come after, and the intense nakedness that each of them feels on that stage. Many of us will recognize that experience in our own lives, not just in an empty theatre, that there is Something out there that knows each part of us intimately...it simply is more pronounced in one of these "sacred" spaces.