Drama is rather perplexing, and I’m not sure how to describe it.

Simple enough is the pit, which isn’t always the theatre’s lowest surface, but still below the stage regardless. Some see its existence as derogatory to the theatre itself, a pitiful notion indeed. Without the pit, half the theatre would be devoid of footing. The galleries host the chinless fellows – a noxious species bellowing at what’s beneath their great balconies. Their numbers aren’t quite considerable, nor do they multiply fast, however each and every one of them is a sizeable (both figuratively and literally) being to be reckoned with. Outside the theatre’s walls linger a stray crowd of individuals, with some there due to a lack of purpose, and the rest there for a greater one. Excluding themselves from the building and its ruckus has become a norm for the strays. Though, at times, they may choose to enter, they never stay long.

Apologies for ranting on, that wasn’t the perplexing part. Where things really get quite confusing is, in fact, the stage, littered with its props and thespians, putting on their marvelous spectacle for us.

Why must they enact tragedy after tragedy, with hamartias and conflicts that never once existed for them in the first place? What script do they follow? I see no script writer nor director up there. Their contorted expressions, the very sinews of their flesh twisted in pain…what for? Their tears look so real, I genuinely wonder if it’s for themselves. For the false visage of pain they were so unwillingly self-bequeathed with, or are they really in pain? There really is no script, and the only ones to appease never think past “this looks good to me and for me.” At the end of the day, those who really want to look at you, don’t want to feel any pain from you at all.

So why do the thespians do this? The scripts are all in their hands, yet all they choose to write is tragedy after tragedy, their entire lives an endless stream of self-engineered pain.

I’m not quite sure what I’m talking about either, just some thoughts of curiosity I chose to put into words.

But as Shakespeare once said, all the world’s a stage.

Writer – Daniel Kang
Editor – Olivia Sang
Artist – Marianna Wang

–September 2024–