Why I Love Theatre

In the play The Elephant Man, the horribly disfigured John Merrick spends much of his time painstakingly working on a model of St. Phillip's Church with his one good arm and hand.  The model serves as a central symbol in the play -- as Merrick builds this "imitation of an imitation" of grace, so too does he rebuild the way he is perceived by others as he strives for, and increasingly achieves, a more normal, complete life and more human connections.  In a climactic scene late in Act II, Frederick Treves, the surgeon who has taken Merrick in and become his friend, becomes passionate when confronted by Merrick about a great wrong he has done because of his belief in "rules" -- a wrong which truncated both a beautiful relationship between Merrick and Mrs. Kendal as well as Merrick's personal growth and emotional fulfillment.  As currently staged on Broadway, as the two men argue, at one point they are separated only by Merrick's nearly-completed model on the desk between them.  The tension inherent in the text becomes all the greater through the great power Treves has at that moment to destroy the model just as he had the emotional moment between Merrick and Mrs. Kendal shortly before.

This particular audience at the performance I attended was the most silent, attentive audience I have ever seen at a Broadway show.  If there were the customary candy-unwrapping, phone-checking, impatient, whispering, disrespectful audience members who seem to only attend for the bragging rights of having seen a movie star in a play and treat the theatre as if it were their living room, they were nowhere to be found in my section of the house, which sat in rapt, silent attention.  And yet, as Treves lifted his hands off the edges of the desk and floated them inches above the model, I heard gasps around me.  As the actor's voice rose and the hands trembled, threatening ever so gently to come down on that model and perhaps dash it to pieces, an older, distinguished-looking gentleman in front of me involuntarily let out a hoarse "No!" and immediately covered his mouth, apparently shocked by the protest that had escaped from him.

And that is why I love theatre.  In movies and television, sure, people yell at the screen to tell our heroes not to close that door without looking behind it, not to go into that toolshed, not to reject that lover… but no one gasps or yells at a screen because a character's hands are inches above a cardboard model while he's in a passionate state.  That emotional tie between the characters and the audience, the electric spark between living breathing human beings that makes Hitchcock-worthy suspense out of a piece of cardboard and causes a loss of emotional control in an audience member who most likely would never think of speaking out at either a stage or a screen… that is why theatre is magic.