Blog: Critical Condition, February 4, 2012

February 4, 2012
Love From Afar
by Gaëtan L. Charlebois

I am confined to quarters. My SO (significant other) has just had surgery, is immobilized and I am not only nursemaid but also cook, housekeeper, errand-runner, washerwoman, dog-walker and anything else that needs to be done. As a result (and because I have to be in bed at ten sharp so I can be up for the fucking dog), I am seeing no theatre and I miss it.

Even the bad theatre. Miss it.

Even the pretentious theatre. Miss it.


I miss writing about live theatre, talking about it, rolling it around in my head to come up with new ideas - new, even, from the ideas I had about the very same play just the night before. It is, like the opera now playing the COC (and which I wish profoundly I could see), Love From Afar.

I am so lucky, then, to get reviews and articles from all over the country. Jim Murchison's passion for theatre shines through his review of Cyrano (which he loved) and Creation (not so much). It reminds me of the days when he and I were room-mates (over 30 years ago) and we would talk theatre almost all day long until we broke for our guilty-pleasure, Emergency!, late, late into the night. (Sorry Jim, it had to come out sometime!) Axel Van Chee's review of the previously mentioned Love From Afar and Tosca, and Richard Burnett's of Il Trovatore make me feel like I am there and even their reviews get me thinking about what I think and believe about the very art of opera itself. (And have me blasting music into my head with my iPod.) When Antoni Cimolino shares his work on Enron or Kelly Thornton hers on Penelopiad, I am there and rolling theatre ideas about again.

The dozens of reviews we're getting from our young reviewers in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City give me the life-force I need to drag my fat ass out of bed at the crack of dawn and walk the dog (instead of simply throwing him off the balcony and claiming to my SO it was an accident). It is during times like these - when you are housebound and feeling pathetically isolated - that you understand that theatre is not just about going to plays - it is also about talking about them, sharing ideas and, in this way, it is especially about creating a community for yourself.

Aren't we all glad we know about this thing?