Core Post - Sabrina Sonner

When Dyer quoted Lawrence Shaffer in illustrating the sort of “outside in” acting common on stage, it reminded me of the different strengths I perceive in the media of theatre and cinema. Dyer quotes Shaffer writing, “In the finest character acting… the audience is still vaguely aware that strings are being pulled, that the actor has concocted special traits for his role” (Dyer 141). This awareness that actors are onstage acting (rather than viewing them entirely as their character) related to that which I perceive to be the ultimate goals of an ideal theatrical experience. The most moving experiences I have seeing theatre are those in which I am ultimately still aware on some level that I am in a theater with other people. With cinema, on the other hand, some of the best films I’ve seen are the ones that suck me completely into their worlds. Seeing Fun Home first on Broadway and then at the Ahmanson Theater would not have had the same resonance with me had I not been aware that other people were sitting in a theater with me enjoying and relating to the incredibly queer story. Watching Black Panther last weekend would not have been nearly as powerful if I were not on some level drawn into the world of Wakanda. It’s not to say that the two are mutually exclusive; I was drawn in by the performances in Fun Home and the reactions of the audience opening weekend to seeing Black Panther at the Cinemark in Baldwin Hills definitely enhanced my experience. But the communal experiences I have in theatre and the immersion into the story that I have in cinema seem to me necessary qualities in to their respective media, while enjoyable but ultimately ancillary qualities in the other.