The Theatre

Waiting outside, a crowd of people, eagerly anticipating what is to come. Confusion, anxiety, excitement as we work out that the longest queue is ours. The sky is darkening as the night gets ready to come to life.
         The queue moves quickly, and at last we are inside, amid the chatter and bustle as people rush to their seats. Stand up, sit down, now the row is full and we can rest easy at last, knowing we are here and ready.
         The theatre hums. Programmes flutter, bags rustle, feet shuffle and we can’t stop muttering in anticipation. The magic has already begun. We study the set, pointing out familiar references, wondering at how it will be used, rejoicing in the unexpected.
         The conductor lifts his arms and up strikes the band, as the house lights dim like the sky outside. The moment we await has arrived. The overture plays, with its tantalising promise of what is to come. The curtain lifts. Dancers appear in fantastical swirling costumes, centre stage or high up the margins, and soon song breaks out. The show has now truly begun.
         I sit back and drink it all in. I am so close to the action, I see every twitch of an eyebrow, every half-smile, every puff of saliva caught in the lights. I hear the band, but barely take it in, lost in the words, the action, the passion. This show is not something I watch, but something I live. I am there.
         How is it that something make-believe, something deftly but almost simply created on a stage, can become so real? How do actors and backdrops transport me to another world? It is a truly wonderful thing.
         I feel every moment. I sit, eyes wide, smiling unconsciously, breathing, singing, living with the characters. I gaze in wonder. Those people are more real to me in that moment than all the desert of faces around me. I am lost in awe.
         There are tears in my eyes. Tears for the bitter-sweet words of a song. Tears for a friend lost, or a moment of grief. Tears for the knowledge that those words could be meant for me. Tears of joy and amazement at the whole fantastic spectacle.
         I ride the show, every rise and fall, up and down, crescendo and diminuendo, swimming through it all. Utterly absorbed. And when, all too soon, though it has been a lifetime, we come to the end, I am still riding the tide of elation. I stand with the rest, cheering, applauding, wanting the moment to last forever.
         As we leave, the awesome feeling fades, and I know it was only for the one night, though I want to drag it out and keep reliving the dream. But soon it is a jumble, and distant as a dream. The real world returns in all its monotony, greyness and struggle to blot out the joy and peace of that dream. All that remains is the memory that this night was something truly special. That for this night I inhabited a glorious world of colour and dancing and music and magic. That is the gift of the theatre.