Again and again, it all comes back to “together.” In drama, a production can’t hope to come off well if only one or two actors really care about what they’re doing. They may do a good job themselves, but the worth of the play won’t come across unless the cast works as an ensemble, creating something together which will glorify the cast as a group and not as individuals.
Every drama freak knows this, but what this tells him further is what ties him closer to the art. Maybe it also explains why man has always been attracted to drama, why its origin coincides with that of man, and why it has advanced alongside man, reflecting his progress, even his regression, through the centuries.
In drama, man has seen the hope and the possibility that life doesn’t have to be the way it is, that he can forget who he is and become someone else, perhaps someone better. In drama, as in his life, man has discovered the joy in creating something beautiful and even more joy in sharing it with someone else. He has realized that only by working together can we hope to make his life a “hit.”
He has seen the similarity between a play script and a book of ideals, perhaps for the Christian, the Bible. In a play script, as in the Bible, he is given his character through lines, his stage directions, and his motivations for acting — or living.
But, most important of all, he has discovered that both are virtually worthless unless they are enacted — unless he recreates the portrayed character in himself and works together with the others to make a “hit.”
There it is in a nutshell. When you come right down to it, all of us should be drama freaks — working together to create something beautiful.