The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the term theatre as “a building or area for dramatic performances”, and even if we look at the etymology and go all the way back to the ancient Greek word θέατρον (théatron) we would find that the meaning is still “a place of public performance”. After all, that’s what a theatre is: a vast room with a stage, a backstage and seats for an audience. Nonetheless, there is a whole world beyond this term, a hidden world. How do we enter it you might ask? Well, it is actually quite simple: all we have to do is enter any theatre, the one closest to you. Maybe not all of us have ever attended a theatrical performance, but I am assuming the majority has had the opportunity either on a school field trip or with their parents. Whether you actually liked it or not is of no particular relevance, you are not obliged to enjoy it, although I can assure you that we humans have taken this art into deep liking along the course of history. Think about all the great Greek comedies and tragedies in Athens, Medieval legends or big names like William Shakespeare or our Goldoni... I’m not going to go into the specifics of a very long theatrical timeline, I’m just going to take a huge step into the present day, around spring 2018. Back then I was living in Grosseto, a city in Tuscany, and my mom had taken me to see my first proper play (I'm using the term proper because all the performances I had previously seen fell under the “end of the year school play” category). She took me to see “The Miser” by the renowned French playwright Molière. To be perfectly candid I don’t remember much, so even though it was my first ever play, I cannot use it as an origin story after which I decided to pursue acting. Coincidentally though, 2018 was the same year when for the first time I was the one in front of an audience. In a nutshell, my first-year middle school class had been chosen to represent our school in a contest and our professor had picked me to play the main role. At the time I was going through a rollercoaster of emotion being both thrilled and extremely anxious of getting stage fright, but looking back on the role I wouldn’t have been that elated. I was the damsel in distress. Literally. The instructions were very clear: “You must act frightened up until the last minute, that’s when the prince will come and save you”. I am going to spare you the details of the questionable performance that we put up in the end, then again it was a school production. The fact that we came in second to last is not important because what stuck with me the most was the feeling I got as I stepped onto the stage (we will also ignore the fact that during the performance I fell from said stage). I remember having so much fun and that being up there in front of all those people was not scary at all, I was relaxed and confident. And I loved it. That summer I transferred back here to Friuli, and decided to join a local theatre company and began taking lessons. I was surprised to find out that acting is so much more intriguing than I thought: I expected to be handed a script, memorize it, and act it out. It turned out to be the exact opposite because even though we had started working on a play from the beginning of the year, the first time I actually saw the script was three weeks before opening night. This is because in the previous months I had worked on things that I did not even know needed working on. I improved my stage presence, my technique and my diction most of all. Looking back, I do not think that in the beginning I realized how much taking theatre classes was actually helping me in my day-to-day life: talking in front of people started becoming something I would look forward to instead of avoiding, and my bashfulness disappeared in the majority of situations.
Even if we look at the bigger picture, acting is in our nature. I do not mean that we are all natural born actors and actresses in line to receive their Oscars. It is obvious though that when we tell stories they almost become part of our daily lives: every behavior we assume is a performance on the stage of life. In fact, it is on different stages all around the world that, throughout history, the most breathtaking love stories came to life, the saddest words were spoken, and they are still able to arouse the same emotions they did the first time they were ever said out loud. Theatre is like entering the screen of your television. How many times have we heard someone say “The book was so much better than the movie!”? With theatre it is the same thing because it requires a much more active participation from the audience, who needs to be able to imagine and interpret what is being performed before their eyes. That is, to me, the magic of theatre: our imagination is infinite and sometimes we travel more in our head than we do in the real world, and plays are one way to do that.
"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women
merely players. They have their exits and their
entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.”
William Shakespeare
Lant Anna 2A LSI