I am the first to admit: I adore musical theatre. I’m a bit of a geek that way, I guess, but that’s just how it goes. I saw “Into the Woods” yesterday, at Theatre Aquarius, where I was in Bugsy Malone and Footloose and my kid sister was in Les Mis. Our director from before did this show too and wow, it was amazing. It was just…wow…Visually and musically astounding.
What was even better than the show, though, was the reception. Not because of the fresh fruit and Veggie trays or the free pop and cheap booze. Definitely not because of the over-playing of the Spice Girls. It was, as youÂ’ve likely guessed, because of the people.
I don’t know what it is about theatre boys—okay, yes I do. Theatre boys (and girls, to a lesser degree) are not hampered by stupid and useless societal boundaries. They’re not worried with what’s ‘acceptable’. I swear, I got more heartfelt hugs and kisses last night then I will in the rest of this year combined. I was told I am gorgeous and had kisses blown at me from across the room. The best of it is, none of it was put on or exaggerated or filled with that stupid what-does-this-mean bull that chokes the rest of society and makes genuine affection between non-significant-others tabooed. People who used to date or be lovers or have crushes on each other can hug and kiss and enjoy themselves with no expectations. I have never heard two non-theatre heterosexual guys say that they love each other and not be jesting. In a theatre setting, no one cares, except to say “aww, that’s so sweet,”. No true theatre boy would ever think twice about hugging a male friend, or saying I love you to someone he loves. The atmosphere theatre creates is amazing.
So I’m on about cloud eight at the moment. I would be on cloud nine, but my extreme happiness has been somewhat dampened by the fact that the rest of the world isn’t like theatre (for the most part). For now though, I feel gorgeous and loved and cared about and lucky as hell that I have such wonderful people in my life. Yay!”
Pass the butter?
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Theatre peoples (boys and girls) are the most expressive, I have found. We NEED them in society. What you’ve said above is true. They see the beauty of someone’s face, body, movement, talent, and tell them so without consideration of the consequences because there are none that are bad, usually. I’ve not yet met and discussed with anyone who has not been floored or painfully envious of the theatre person’s sincere charm and genuine affection for so many things. Artisans, the lot of them.
WWWWWHHHHEEEEEEE!
The key to all of this, though, is that there have to be good people around to admire and say you love, if you want to admire someone, or say you love them. It’s all well and good to be expressive in this way, but if your theatre group were not amongst their own kind but out with the rest of society, they would find they didn’t have so much to compliment. See, they aren’t just honest and open; they also seem to be generally better people. I would love to have the opportunity to be like them, but when I’m confronted with a crowd of humans, I generally feel little more than contempt and hatred. Being an emotionally attuned, sensitive individual would do nothing more than see me crying a lot, and getting into frequent fist fights.
Ah, but they wouldn’t tell people who they didn’t love that they loved them. That’s the thing. These people function perfectly well in the rest of society, and they’re amazingly sweet to those they care about, and perfectly decent to everyone else. A theatre guy will hug someone goodbye who he’s just met, but not if he doesn’t like them.