Every week on the Trinity Rep blog we have a quick note, thought, idea, or message from our Arthur P. Solmon and Sally E. Lapides Artistic Director, Curt Columbus. Join us each week for the newest post in “To my friends, from Curt.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about evanescence this week, how the work that we make in the theater is so fleeting, so transitory. I was in Chicago at the beginning of the week, for the memorial service of a great actor and a great mentor of mine. She was truly one of the most remarkable stage creatures I have ever seen, able to expand herself to fill any venue, to embody any character. She passed away in May at the age of 60.
But in talking about her work onstage, in a room full of people who had seen that work over the years, I was struck by how our being together brought her work back to life in our minds. It was so vivid, so present tense when we talked about performances we had seen of hers, that I felt the same feelings all over again, even 30 years later.
So perhaps this is the great gift of the theater. It is surely not its physical permanence, but instead its evanescence. It fades quickly, but it lingers in the spirit, it lights in the mind, it rests in the soul. When you go to see a great play, it stays with you for your whole life.
I look forward to seeing everyone in the theater now that our season has opened, so that you can share the truly great theater we have onstage right now. I know both shows will stay with you for a long time to come.
