What country, friends, is this? Catharsis

A blog from APT's Managing Director, Carrie Van Hallgren, as she experiences her inaugural summer at APT.

CATHARSIS. "A release or cleansing through drama." Aristotle writes of it in his Poetics. As a former instructor in a college theatre department, I certainly used the term in my classroom and quizzed my students on it. But I confess that I never truly experienced it myself. Until this summer when I experienced it twice.

Now, I've had countless memorable experiences at the theater. I've been moved by many a Greek drama or a Shakespearean tragedy, fascinated by the villains and by the undoing of the leaders, saddened by the loss of life. But until this summer, I've never experienced anything I would describe as a "cleansing through drama," a drama - as director John Langs has described it - that burns me "down to the wick."

Catharsis first came courtesy of Colleen Madden's Emilia in the final 15 minutes of Langs' remarkable production of Othello. When that petite woman bellowed, from the depths of her soul "'Twill out, 'twill out!" and proceeded to unfurl, to her audience on stage and in the seats, the depths of her husband's villainy, the injustice of Desdemona's death, the treachery we'd witnessed but were powerless to prevent, my soul hollered too. My release came in the form of tears at that moment, tears streaming down my face. While there was no relief for the characters in Shakespeare's play there was a strange relief for me. Someone had spoken the truth. Finally. I staggered to the lobby, devastated, but understanding for the first time the pleasure that comes with that catharsis. I was cleansed. I was changed.

[Recently, a friend wrote me that APT's Othello 'knocked her naked.' It seems a perfect description.]

The polar opposite of the catharsis brought on by the tragedy ofOthellois the cathartic experience, unexpected but no less powerful, of the kiss between Darcy and Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice. The action of the entire play builds to that moment, the audience is tense with the anticipation. Will it happen? Will they be together? We think we know the story but can we be sure that it will really work out that way this time? One night, in the final scene of the play, when we were waiting, stomachs fluttering, for the kiss, someone in the audience groaned in anticipation. We all erupted in laughter. Because we, all of us, were stifling our own groans, holding our hearts in our chests just waiting to let them fly. And then, the release, and they do.

The climax of Othello burned me to the wick, but the climax of Pride and Prejudice sent my heart soaring up into the starry night.

That our theatre on the Hill can contain those two experiences, one the height of joy, the other the depth of pain, is miraculous to me.