We’ve talked about opera. Now, let’s talk about that “lesser” Art. The one the nobility ignore. The common man’s opera.
Let’s talk about theater.
Filthy. Uncouth. The crowd screaming at the actors, throwing biscuits and fruit. A mob, not an audience. And high above this mob, high above the rotten straw and the spilled beer, are the cloaked boxes where hooded men and women watch. And smile.
No self-respecting man or woman of the Senate would ever be caught dead in a theater.
The theater is the common man’s opera, but ven nobility have discovered a Truth about theater. It is where actors embrace what the ven call “the recalcitrant heart.” Plays are written by authors, but the actors are not expected to memorize the lines. Instead, they learn the part well enough to bring the true emotion of the character to the stage. Summoning the spirit of the character. Letting him enter you. Letting him speak for you. Letting him guide your hand, your tongue, your heart.
Often, the character cannot keep with the script. His own desires, his own passions. They guide him. Not the passions or desires of another. Actors on the stage know this and embrace it like a dagger through the chest. They allow the character to take over, to take the lead. Some ven claim to see a different person when an actor takes the stage. Possessed by the character, he is a different person.
Dangerous magic. Peasant magic. Not the forbidden sorcery. Something different all together.
This is the holy rule of the theater. Allowing the character to take the stage.
No set number of plots or characters. No rules. But the audience is always watching. The audience is unforgiving. They came to see that magic. Possession. And they can tell when an actor has it and when an actor does not.
Ithuna. “Faker.”
Cabbages and biscuits.
In the theater, the audience cheers, the audience cries. They boo and jeer. They grow deadly silent. Waiting.
When the ven go to the opera, they know what to expect. No-one knows what to expect in the theater. Anything could happen. Love. Revenge. Murder.
And an actor cannot be held responsible for what his character may do.
Love. Revenge. Murder.
The theater.