“Theatre’s Mirror” by Paul Dekker

“Theatre’s Mirror”

Illusion holds a mirror up to life

Theatre is a demonstration how life reflects its illusions to appear real to man, so that an understanding may happen that all thoughts are illusory and not real and man is incapable of controlling life with ‘his’ mind. 
It takes courage to look into life as a mirror to understand that man’s mind projects an illusory world. Such a mirror which could bring about that understanding is theatre if understood properly.
Sitting relaxed in his chair, in the dark, without anybody watching him, and without himself watching himself, man as an audience in a theatre is a witnesser of the theatrical performance on stage.
As an audience man does not participate in what is happening on stage, but he is the spectator of what is performed.
Although not actively participating, man as an audience passively participates in the happening on stage, for he is present here and now.
For the duration of the drama, the spectator forgets the play to be a fiction, and gets absorbed into the drama and is lost in its happening.
But, no spectator, except an enlightened one, watches without his mind interpreting the drama. Perception is in the eye of the perceptor.
A drama play is built to tease the audience into its web of illusions. To do so the playwright uses a dramaturgic construction according to the classical Aristotle drama technique.
A dramatic plan from prologue to exodus has a pattern of entanglement: going from exposé of the dramatis personae, point of attack, rising action, crisis, and climax to falling action with resolution.
One of the major plot elements is the reversal, called peripety, a reversal in the fortunes of the protagonist who passes from happiness to misery.
The reversal is used to lead the protagonist to a catharsis, to release and to be set free from the emotional grasp of the action.
A drama play is built the same way to an audience to enable it to reach a catharsis. The audience shares the troubles of the play’s protagonist, and is set free from the emotional grasp of the action.
Aristotle called the cleaning effect of catharsis for an audience to be the pleasure of tragedy.
Unless his mind is understood absolutely to be illusory and not real, man is the prisoner of his thoughts. When man looks into a mirror no other mind other than his own can betray him, for the only mind present at that moment is his own.
A mirror does not lie. Regardless who stands in front and whatever his thoughts may be, the mirror reflects only man’s bodily appearance and not his thoughts.
Man’s thoughts are not reflected by a mirror, they can only be projected by man onto his own appearance in the mirror. Therefore, man does not see what the mirror reflects, but what his mind thinks to be reflected.
The theatre mirror instead reflects both, man’s body as well as his mind. Meaning, drama plays of all sorts can mirror all kinds of themes, plots, characters and languages. Life too reflects the same every day.
The theatre as a mirror does not lie, if theatre does lie the audience would not believe the actor. A theatre performance is accepted as a truthful lie and an actor to be a truthful liar.
Theatre as a mirror, also does not react and therefore does not judge, and it only projects its illusory truth to be seen by an audience.
Watching into its mirror, theatre allows the spectator to look at his own thoughts, for theatre exposes man to his own mind.
Man outside the theatre in life, walks around, being the actor in his own drama projected by his own mind. Man in a theatre is given the opportunity, to be an outsider watching or witnessing life happening on stage.
A regular mirror in which man looks to see himself, only mirrors half of his body, to be the front part in particular. A theatre mirror, mirrors to the audience all man’s appearances i.e. his front, his back, another man’s front and back, and also man’s and others minds.
All that appears in man’s imagination can be put into action on stage. Theatre therefore can mirror to its spectator everything the mind can imagine, as if one looks into the mirror of his own thoughts.
As a theatre audience man is given the opportunity to take a step back and be the watcher or witnesser of life happening on stage. In daily life however man as a participant gets involved in the benefits of the events happening as real.
Theatre’s mirror reflects what is recognised by an audience. Depending on who recognises what, recognition will have its own impact and work-out, so too in daily life.
Of course, the ultimate mirror to look in is the enlightened mirror of a wise one. His mirror, neither judges nor reacts, but only reflects pure light as wisdom to be recognised by anyone to whom life makes the recognition to happen.
So far only a few enlightened mirrors of the realised ones are expressed by life on man’s path to enable him to look at himself and realise his true nature.
Life’s theatre which includes all appearances of life does not judge, for life is a flow and not eventful. It is only man’s mind which judges life’s appearances, for his mind thinks life’s appearances to be real and eventful.
Life’s theatre enters man’s eyes as light. Man’s mind has an image and it has a thought of that image which it thinks is the seen. Therefore while man only receives light, he thinks that he sees.
Both, life’s mirror off stage as well as theatre’s mirror on stage, are just wonderful opportunities for man to look upon and into, to realise all appearances to be a reflection of light and sound, and therefore an illusion, to be enjoyed by illusory man with an illusory mind.

Copyright: Paul Dekker, 2012