Poor

"Only grown-up men are scared of women."

-- Kurt von Trapp, The Sound of Music

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High school theatre is the best kind of poor theatre. And I mean "poor" in the way Grotowski meant it.

When you strip theatre (that magnificent beast) down to its essentials, you strip yourself. The director strips his demands, the actor his comfort, the audience its fickle pains. You have lights, you have watchers, and you have action. All else melts, crumbles, pops, falls over, or frankly, looks fake. The less you build, the less you tear down. The less you tear down, the more stuff lasts.

Maybe that's the reason the world is not better than it is. The Japanese, after all, believe a thing cannot be called beautiful unless it is sure to end.