Aristotle once said in his most significant book, Poetics, that drama serves to trigger people’s emotions, most importantly pity and fear. This process is called catharsis, and if the audience experiences the cathartic effect of one play, surely, the playwright succeeded in swaying his audience’s soul.
Waltzing back to the ancient time, theatre was treated like a rare jewel, precious. What is theatre for people nowadays? Some lack knowledge about drama and theatre overall, and some treat theatre like an aesthetic. However, do you know that Greek and Roman people thousands of years ago utilised theatre for a religious purpose? Their desperation and wonder introduced the theatre we know today. Theatre back then held significant value. Each play is meant to depict a different but similar ending– the feeling of catharsis for both audiences and actors. It was the closest they could get to their God, albeit not having an organised religion.
Hence, World Theatre Day is worth celebrating in remembrance of how fragile and pure humanity is under the thick, unbreakable layer of ignorance, individualism, and ideologies. Undeniably, theatre and play are still breathing in today’s age, but they take a huge turn in comparison with theatre from the past. If the origin of theatre was for religious purposes and searching for the meaning of life on a more intricate level, theatre nowadays fancies covering a more open and explicit view of life, which sometimes highlights the darker side of life rather than the brighter side of the coin.
Having learned drama from the Western world, I have encountered a list of plays from the past until the recent one, and yet, the only one that intrigues me most is the famous play by one of the famous playwrights from the Renaissance period, Christopher Marlowe, entitled Doctor Faustus. This play remains alive until now and shows how greatly Doctor Faustus affected its audiences. It is the story of Faustus, a doctor who craves knowledge like no other, like a buffet that needs to be consumed before others can take it. Set in the Renaissance period, the play encapsulates Faustus' thirst for knowledge, which makes him decide to taint his heart with the darkest paint, making a pact with the devil to gain knowledge of magic.
How Doctor Faustus left an impression on me? Simply put, this play aims to elucidate to its audience the importance of preventing ourselves from our greed and arrogance against God, as it takes us to nothing but the downfall of our lives. Pretty simple, right? But the words, feelings, and emotions played in Doctor Faustus move people’s hearts to the extent that they ponder over the end knot of the play. Thus, proving the power the theatre and a play have on society.
People are prone to forget that we are only a shell of bones with chaotic flies inside called emotions. It was easy to discard the way our soul was yearning for something more than exterior happiness and pleasure, thus keeping our core hollow and void like a flower without colours. The Ancient Greeks and Romans knew that their souls were searching for something like faith, and they actually projected their needs through drama, and they succeeded. Theatre is something more than just fiction on stage, words without meaning, or entertainment to cackle over. It’s something that tickles one’s mind and touches one’s soul. It’s something worth pondering and reminiscing over, questioning the depth of our existence and the value of humanity that gradually loses its colour and loses its grip on people. Consequently, theatre is more than just an aesthetic. Go out and search for one, buy the ticket, and enjoy the whole wave of emotions theatre has in store for you.
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