Komaba Times Issue 9

Words fail.
Whenever I see a play, I can’t help but feel the urge to write something about it.
Be it a general comment on the production and elements of it, or rumination
on themes and ideas that the play touches, there is always this spontaneity for
“joining the conversation” or “being part of the story.” Little by little, I’ve also
grown accustomed to flaunting my saggy bag of SAT words. “Blisteringly valiant!”
“Incandescent and scintillating!” The form calls for it, I reckon. It is as if
I’ve mastered the art of writing for pull quotes you would find on mailers of
upcoming productions. Yet, more often than not, there are feelings for which
I can’t find words or have no clue where I can begin to describe. Even the almighty
Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary can’t give me a hint. Gradually,
I find myself being led to the word “ineffable.” “Ineffably beautiful,” “ineffably
moving,” “ineffably brilliant” and so forth. It paints a picture of the initial reaction
but acknowledge how abstruse the inner workings are.
Lazy writer, I know. Still, I can’t help but marvel at the ineffable beauty of “ineffable.”
By definition, it describes something too great, too powerful, too beautiful
to be described. In a sense, it is a literal symbol trying to decipher the
indecipherable, beat the unbeatable. Yet like Sisyphus, who pushed the rock
unabated every time it rolled down, the word never surrenders. It refuses to
give in to the impossibility of the task.
Trying to search for the answer to what makes me once and again go back to
the theater as if it’s a daily pilgrimage is indeed a Sisyphean task. The searching
always leads me to the five or ten minutes when, after the performers took their
bow and the curtain dropped, I stand alone in front of the theater, discomposed
or amazed with a heady mixture of jumbled thoughts and feelings occupying
my consciousness, not ready to return to reality. I tried to see it through
Aristotle’s eyes. Although it focuses on tragedies, in his notion of catharsis, the
play first arouses emotions and then cleanses them, from which one’s soul is
uplifted.
Yet I feel there’s something more profound than emotions. Many times I feel
my life is forever changed by my theater-going experience. I saw the final performance
of the recent Broadway revival of The Color Purple before I departed
for Ghana, setting my foot on the African continent for the first time. I was,
and still am, haunted by the show. This one line touched my soul — “it’s like
black seeing black for the first time.” There’s something so pure, so honest about
our humanity in these simple words. It might be the storytelling, the stagecraft,
the live performance, or the dedication from the stage and the audience, but I
had a religious experience that day, an experience that continues to inspire me
to be faithful and true to myself and people around me.
continued p. 35
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