Post #10

As theatre evolves to create more room for empathy, in this age of cynicism and narcissism, and apathy, I think the next step theatre must take in order to create new dialogue, initiate chance, and hopefully combat age-old issues of oppressors vs. oppressed is to create a culture of compassion. I think if our culture has compassion on people, it will removes our focus from ourselves and initiate change out of love and empathy.

I think that theatre is a great vehicle to drive social chance and create a buzz about issues. It gets people thinking and can bring up hard pressing issues in a non-threatening environment (for the most part). Although, I think there is a greater answer to major issues in society. I think that love is the answer. More specifically, I think that Jesus's love is the answer. In class this week we talked a lot about "religion and politics" and the tension that they bring up. In this prompt, I was asked is there ever a point where theatre stops being the answer and if so, what is... and that is what I truly believe. When I mentioned having compassion, it isn't compassion that comes with selfish agendas or any unpure motives. It is a compassion that comes from Jesus and the way He lived His life and what we learn from the Bible. I think if people had a "relationship" with Jesus rather than striving to do "good works" as a part of "religion", then people would want to be more like Jesus not to work their way to heaven, but to have an abundant life on earth and share Jesus's love with everyone they know. And loving people and having compassion would bring peace to the chaos, freedom to the oppressed, and light to this dark world.

I think that theatre can be a forum for social chance. For me, acting/theatre is a way to express myself and a way of entertainment. I think that theatre can be extremely thought provoking and create emotions in people that move them to action. I think Invisible Theatre can be effective, especially the way it was done by the experiment in class. Their experiment evoked emotions in me and during their argument I picked who I agreed with and who I disagreed with. It made me think of what I would do in that situation and had me thinking about the issues they were bringing up. Invisible theatre makes it less as a performance and more as a real life conversation. The one experience I have with invisible theatre was did make me more involved in the issue.