Suspension of Disbelief

{Note: This is the opinion of a teenager who's attempting to be less biased in her blog posts. Agree or disagree, comment below and tell me why. Also, there will be no GIFs this time.}

Sometimes, I wonder if certain people are qualified to judge a competition. Do these people really know everything there is to know? In fact, do they know anything at all? If so, what makes their opinion matter more than everyone else's? For example, what is Nicki Minaj, a rapper with limited singing ability, doing as a judge on a singing competition? She's not a producer like Randy Jackson or Simon Cowell who can offer them a recording deal. What can the contestants, as singers, hope to gain from her besides unrelated performing advice?
Anyway, I digress.

I think I should keep the real reason why I'm writing this article confidential. Just know that there are some many things that I'm not happy about.

This is regarding the theatre, and those who supposedly "judge" it. I will be referencing a drama that I co-wrote with some members of my school drama team, called "The Box of Heart".

At Short+Sweet, I learnt that the principle of theatre is the suspension of disbelief, and that the theatre is a shared act of imagination between those watching and those doing, the audience and the actors respectively. While writing a script for a play, I had to think in stage, I had to think about what makes it a play and not a movie, and why it had to be performed on stage, not in front of a camera. Also, the character had to want something and do something to get it.
In The Box of Heart, a toy ballerina and toy soldier (no, it's not the Nutcracker) desire to become human. The ballerina because she wanted to dance in front of a real audience, the soldier because he wanted to help protect his country. They set off on a journey to find the Pandaro* Box, which contained a heart. Along the way, they began to feel different emotions and learnt what makes a human, human. So characters who want and do, check!

On stage, you have to speak loudly and clearly with perfect pronunciation. Or else the audience will not understand what you're saying, lose their focus, get distracted, and ignore you completely. Check! My actresses worked hard and their pronunciation was a vast improvement compared to previous years and to be frank, they had the best pronunciation that day.

But the big question remains: What makes a play, a play?

One of the given guidelines was "minimise use of props". Check! We only focused on the essentials and forgoed forwent did without the background scenery. In fact, we had the least props. After all, if we act as though we were in a dark forest, and we act it right, can't we trust the audience to be smart enough to figure it out we are? After all, we also have sound effects going on in the background. Unlike other schools, who besides even more props and sound effects, had backgrounds. One even had a projector with a screen!
We often forget that the audience is smarter than we think. I think we have forgotten that we don't need backgrounds, effects, scenery and sometimes a single prop to create a good play. After all, it's not like we're putting on a full-scale production on Broadway. Sometimes, even Broadway shows have no or little use for props. I know that most of the time, certain props are essential. For example in a cafe, you might need tables, chairs. But do you really need to have the counter, the kitchen and the windows too? No!
To be something or somewhere, we don't need proof that we are.

Do we really need to show the audience the sky to let them know we are flying? No, all we need is to ask them to suspend their disbelief and let their imagination take flight. All we need is the belief that we are more than what can be seen. All we need is to believe.

So now, I ask you, whether or not you are the writer/director/producer, the actor, the judge, or the audience, to suspend your disbelief and just believe in the magic that unfolds before your very eyes. For that, is the stage, that is the theatre.


*Pandaro: We were thinking of a name to call the box. Eventually, we gave up and someone just typed in "Pandora". (We were writing the script on the laptop.) Well, she made an error and it showed up on the screen as "Pandaro". Hence, the Pandaro Box was born.