The audience and the individual

George Hunka posted a response to my previous posts below here.

Seems to me that George and I have found what would be our primarily difference of interest (not truly opinion); his seems to be in the process and mine in the audience.

It is very easy for us to speak of the powerful experience we have when working through these pretend world we like to create. Just as its important for an accountant to work clearly and thoroughly through interest rates before turning in a final report; we must rehearse and rehash and reshape ourselves before turning ourselves over to an audience. Even if that audience is only one person large.

Foreman may say his plays could be theatrically effective with no one there to see them. I would be curious what exactly his version of "theatrically effective" could possibly be. In fact, occasionally while watching as show of his, I still wonder.

I believe that we are in service of our audience, and honestly, very little else. I think art may be done for its own sake; I just don't choose to work in that way myself. I certainly have written things that make people uneasy, sad, angry, confused... I'm not there to please the audience. But I am there for the express purpose of communicating with them.

I could put a sheet over my head and act out Hamlet in my bedroom in my boxer shorts. It's only Theatre when I set up two small chairs in my room and let people watch.