Why Theatre is an Art From God

         

A scene from The Gods Are Not To Blame(photo credit: Snazey Brymz)

Now let us look to the other side: what does theatre has to do with art?
you walk into a theatre, the is a box office, you pay for a ticket, and sit in the dark and watch somebody playing somebody else's life. The knife is not real, the blood is not real,it is just a mixture of tomatoes paste or the like of it, the emotions are not real and the fight or quarrel in the scene was just stage managed. Yet, having known all these, will we drop our judgements and accept the illusion because of what Samuel Taylor Coleridge called the willing suspension of disbelief. Through this process societies are changed, lives are touched, fears and burdens are taken away, evil are punished, the future is forecast, jobs are created etc. These are made possible because of that creative skill which God has deposited in everyone of us, which is the power of art.

What is art?      

            Art has many diverse definitions. This is because art itself is the mother of all other  'arts' and different individuals, regarding their core area of needs, perceive it from different perspective. Thus, it cannot be limited to only a single rigid and straightjacket definition as this will not adequately give a concise demand for all standards.  Therefore, art in simple term means self-expression through visual and performing arts. In furtherance, this bring us to understanding that for any work (performance) to be considered an art, it must possess the human ability, and that is, it must be man-made, different from other natural phenomena . This goes to mean that art is an expression of man’s at work. Art is a thing that is peculiar to every society or culture, it is found in every environment whether civilized or uncivilized, literate or illiterate. It is the art of craft making through a mental process. The person expressing these mental ideas for public communication is the artist.

art work (credit: Snazey Brymz)

However, art can be defined as the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination. It is an expression because art communicates and it is an application because it can be use to pass a message. It is an art of doing something by an individual. It is also an outpouring of imagination and creativity. As Ganagana succinctly puts it, thus:

Art is the outward expression of our inner impressions. In other words, man’s inner feeling need an outer expression or else there could be some untold consequences. This gives the rise to justifying the saying that “impression without an expression results to depression. (3)

       

Theatre 

            The Theatre is a very broad term. It comes from the Greek theatron meaning “seeing place.” Today it is used to mean different thing to different field. Cohen in his book titled Theatre notes two broad areas of the word theatre which are “the hardware” and “the software” definitions.  Under the hardware definition, the word theatre can be used to describe a building where plays are put on (architecture, structure, the space for dramatic performance), to indicate where films are shown (movie theatre), a place where war and surgeries occur (the theatre of operations and the operating theatre). The software definition- the activities involved in the theatre. It is also refers to the player (and owners, managers and technicians) who perform in such a place (Cohen 7).  

            So the theatre, within the limits of this work will be a wide area of human experience that is firmly supported on the three points: the performance, the performer, and audience. This is because everything that happens in the theatre is within the conferment of the above-mentioned points. As rightly, put by Cameron and Hoffman, thus:

What is involved is a process, the interaction among the performance, performers, and audience, a form of communication…. The theatre can be said to operate as a kind of symbolic discourse.  It communicates experience symbolically” (4-8)

            This also goes to mean that theatre is communicative; it can pass a message through the work of the performers to the audience and since it is an expression of human creative skill, it is therefore, an art itself. It mirrors the society for the audience to reflect on and being so, it focuses its findings on the human existence in the society and the forces of the cosmology, then play on its findings for the society to see and be impacted.

           Though theatre is the sum total of all the human expressions experiences and should entertain us. Nevertheless, this may not always be so, because theatre serves as a reflection of the society and therefore, may include subject matter that are morally offensive and speaks on them. Brockett and Ball observe, thus:

When a performance begins to violate our sense of propriety by presenting things we believe should not be put on stage, we may be offended to be entertained but theatre is a form of art, and art is not always comfortable or comforting. It insists on its right to look at the world in unpopular ways and to challenge our ways of looking at ourselves and the standards of the culture that has shaped the way we view the world (7)

            Thus, just as the world is not totally pleasant and entertaining, theatre also serves as a symbol of the world, where it is possible to see some of this unpleasant nature of life being played out. It tells us the bitter truth that we may be afraid to hear. But it  has the capacity to trigger reflection; it can take us through our sense of hallucination and transport us to reality. It generates empathy and creates dialogue and can enable us redesign our live, it is a healing to our souls. While some will argue that science is the key to our existence, (this may be debatable though) but the truth is: God created science for our discovery but He gave us the power to create art and we all shall give accounts of what we do with the power delegated  to us.