Know Drama, for No Drama; Life lesson from my theatre days.

I often remember my good old theatre days, well years actually. I have given more than 11 years purely to stage, nothing else at all. It helped me understand the depths of expressing emotions. And it also gave me a platform to explore other aspects like music, lighting, and costume.

While I was deeply engrossed with developing the art of expressions I read a lot of books by different playwrights. And I still remember this quote by a Romanian-French playwright Eugene Ionesco,

"Drama lies in extreme exaggeration of the feelings, an exaggeration that dislocates flat everyday reality."

It took me a lot of time to realize that drama helped me "dislocate from my flat everyday reality", and kept me sane. And it was possible only because I was involved in exaggerated emotions of my characters. Because its easier to understand a character's emotions that your own. (joke's on me though).

So I remember, one fine day I was rehearsing my play where I was doing this character of a girl whose lover was killed in a war and she is waiting for him to come back unknown of his demise. My director was not very satisfied with my act but I thought I was doing fine. Before I was leaving he called me and asked me to read the script and relate it with my life. Honestly, I wanted to laugh, no lover of mine has ever went to a war!

I went back home and re-read the script some 5 times, and still I was not able to understand my character's pain.

Then I closed my eye, and thought on behalf of my character,

"How does it feel to wait? Wait for someone who will never come back?"

And this reminded of my ex lover who left me without giving any reason, who just vanished. For whom I might just hopelessly wait, but deep down I know he will never come back.

Its not always the physical death that keeps our love hanging, but the death of emotions will leave us with a never ending pain.

As came this thought so did tears in my eyes. I knew what my character felt. I had the same void in my heart. My eyes were as hollow as hers and my chest had the same throbbing pain. I was ONE with my character. I was her.

This changed my perception forever. It certainly enhanced my acting skills but more than that it helped me evolve a little as a human. It helped me understand the layers of emotions. But my journey had just begun. This journey was not to the sky but to the roots of my emotions.

Theatre has been a medium for me to be more conscious about human emotions, and human psychology. And because of the Drama I did on stage I gradually realized, it keeps me away from real life Drama, because stage gave me a new insight towards human emotions.