Thousand Words

What if too much of too much theater is too verbal?

I’ve been known to say — as if I coined the concept; I most assuredly did not — that the bedrock of theatrical expression is the movement of bodies of space.

But the predominant method remains dialogue dialogue dialogue. 

Which is grand! 

But ambiguously-narrativized dance shows like Larsen C make me wonder if theater has become too reliant on the spoken word, at the expense of visual storytelling. 

Obviously these means of expression are not mutually exclusive, and productions put great care into staging all of the words…but scant few use purely visual storytelling as their primary — but not exclusive — means. 

Why! Stage pictures! Tableaus! That’s the good stuff!


Another aspect of Larsen C that theater should copy:

The decision to bring up the house lights during the curtain call, so that the performers can actually see our adulation.

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