The Uses of Imagination

When we were children my sister and I pretended all the time.  We didn't let the fact that we were living in a small house in a small town hamper us in anyway.  With a few discarded clothes from the "dress up clothes basket" and a few simple household items to aid us, we could be anywhere at any time doing anything. 

We could be French aristocrats in the days of the Revolution, dodging the guillotine with the help of the Scarlet Pimpernel.  We could be flappers solving mysteries in 1920s New York.  We could be members of Robin Hood's merry band.  We could be much more mundane things too (grocery store clerks, waitresses, bus drivers).

My mother says that we were a joy to watch.  (She always tried to observe us discreetly, lest we become self-conscious).  She says that we seemed to believe so completely in the reality of what we were pretending that our belief was infectious - she could always tell exactly what we were supposed to be  (antebellum Southern belles, say) even though we were really just  little girls with old bathrobes tied around our waists.

So why do I mention all this childhood play?

Because I think it applies to my present task.  I am getting ready to direct a play.  The play is an adaptation of a classic adventure story.  It contains scenes set in Victorian London, the Indian jungle, and the American West - just to name a few of our many fabulous locations.  All of these locations will have to be conjured up on a single set (albeit a beautiful one, designed by a marvelous man) and a tiny budget.

So what am I going to do?  I've given the matter a lot of thought and I've decided to behave like my nine year old self.  I'm going to use the shear force of my imagination and demand that others join me in my belief.

It won't be just my imagination alone, of course.  And that's the fun part.  I have wonderful actors who pretend much better than I ever did as a child.  They pretend for a living.  They belong to a union of professional pretenders.  If they stand on a table and declare that they are on the deck of  a sailing ship in the middle of a gale, odds are the audience will believe them.

Whenever you do this sort of thing, you always have to fight the fear that it is just going to look silly.  "He's not a daring adventurer," someone might say.  "He's just a guy standing on a table."  It takes courage to pretend.  But when it works - when the actors and the audience come to an agreement to believe the unbelievable together - it works like crazy.  It is also an intensely theatrical experience - something entirely different from the beautiful, spectacular, naturalistic effects one can see at the movies.  (Fond of those though I am). 

So that's what I'm working on at the moment.  I'm fighting the demon whispering "that looks silly" and trying to listen to the angel saying, "let's pretend." 

That and cutting my sound effects.  And trying to build the theatre's website.  Without knowing what I'm doing. 

I must admit, I'm having fun.