A LIFE IN THE THEATRE
But the actors. What can they show for the show? Soon-dated production photos, press clippings that describe the effects of a performance but leave one to guess at the causes, awards that say the magic is over? Perhaps there’s a videotape–but it only freezes in time and two dimensions a dynamic that changed from night to night.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
In 1977 David Mamet wrote a vivid play that plays on this inequity. Refusing to reduce the theater to a social microcosm, A Life in the Theatre delights in its quirky, vital eccentricities. Celebrating the comradeship and loneliness of actors, the evanescence of their craft, and their undramatized rites of passage, it warmly reflects the tensions of professionals who, paid to live a lie, sometimes won’t face their own truths.
Confident John is a different breed of artist. Relying on inspiration over technique, he makes up his own rules. He’s a natural in ways that Robert only vaguely remembers and palpably envies. But John nonetheless has to make the mistakes that Robert wants to save him from.
The night I saw A Life the scenes were done out of order; an already episodic plot became arbitrary, the characters’ evolution reduced to a confusing mishmash. Lines that might have carried weight were dropped, rushed, or jumped, and between the actors there was too little give-and-take.
