Introduction: During these challenging times, I will be sharing a range of ideas, dreams, essays and mostly-true tales stemming from the six decades (so far) of this wonderful career in the theater. I hope you enjoy.
– Joe Keefe
The Art of the Thrill
“Life is on the wire. The rest is just waiting.” Karl Wallenda
Theater exists because of the powerful human need to be thrilled, awed, stunned, awakened. These moments of excitement in theater connect us to our deepest human emotions. The dramatic reversal of fortune, good versus evil, love and hate – these are moments onstage that reflect real events in our lives. We become involved with the characters onstage, each on their own high wire, and we hope for them; we hate for them; we revel in their struggles because we all strive for good or great things in our own lives.
One of the climactic moments in Little Shop of Horrors occurs when Seymour (the nerd with a heart of gold) realizes that Audrey ll (the giant carnivorous shrub) is demanding much, much more than Seymour can give. This is a delicate, awkward, bizarre, thrilling and life-altering moment when Seymour will be tested beyond his limits. While the circumstances are unusual, to say the least, we’ve all been tested in some similar way. As we root for Seymour, we’re also rooting for ourselves.
Theater artists craft these sorts of thrills for a living. Our calling is to bring you up to the wire, onto the trapeze, to the edge of the high dive, so we can all experience what living really means. Theater artists are thrill-makers and thrill-seekers at the same time. The soaring hope, a fateful choice, love gone wrong and right and wrong again – these are thrills we’ve all had and they return to us when we’re taken up high or down low in the shared experience of a great stage moment.
I was a senior in high school when the first national tour of A Chorus Line came to Chicago. I’d been acting professionally for about a decade already and viewed theater as my lifelong profession. ACL had been on Broadway for 18 months and my theater gang had already burned through several original cast albums. We lined up for tickets to the second-night performance at the old Shubert Theatre.
No matter that I’d already done more than a few shows, this show was stunning, shattering, thrilling beyond comprehension. It confirmed every choice, it affirmed every idea I had about the creation of performing art. In a word, I was once again thrilled and determined that my life would be creating more of these thrills. As we approach the precious moments when we will be able to gather again, I look forward to many, many more of those necessary, wonderful, life-affirming thrills.
Stay warm and well. We’ll see you soon.
– Joe Keefe
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