This post might just be the most important post that I have ever posted or will ever post. It is my theatrical manifesto. Deadlines are flowing out (like endless rain into a paper cup) yet I don't think I can suppress this much longer. Having now fully decided that my professional career will be related to theatre, I feel a deep need to write the manifesto of my beliefs.
The first point is concerning what those of adult age are probably thinking about this so far. Writing a theatrical manifesto at seventeen? Well, that is precisely the point. I am fully aware that I have not had the theatrical or even life experience to have a solid empirically-based declaration of what my theatre should be like. But... so what? After a subtle reminder, I came to the conclusion that most of the highly praised and influential theatre practitioners and actors in the world have one thing in common: truth. To limit this to theatre is foolish, for all art forms are ways to seek truth through different means. Another foolish thing to do would be to define how this truth is to be found or even what this truth actually is. Is the Method the ultimate path for the pursuit of truthfulness in a part? Of course not. Stock characterization? Brechtian method? Meisnerian method? No, no, no.
For along time I thought I was getting the wrong answers when I was really asking the wrong questions. Truth? What could be more truthful, more immaculately uncorrupted than the theatrical opinions of a seventeen year old? Still untouched by the pretentious curse that comes with this trade, not yet smudged by the gaudiness of the bright lights of the West Wend and Broadway. No. The importance of this post is related to the fact that it is being written by me, for me. For and directly to future me. The version of myself that will be tempted by the old traditional Shakespeare and the anarchic anti-establishement no-method method that will surely mutate into some strange form in the future. Sebas, do whatever you want to do. You and I are aware of what we think is right and what we think is important. Seventeen, twenty-three, fifty-four... God knows what we'll be doing then. For now, my RI is calling. Catch you later.
