The Art of Transportation

1/27/13

Back in my days of theater, Heather, we talked about the feeling of transportation. This meant that despite the nature of set or theater building the audience truly felt as if they were where ever the story took place. This is the one advantage of live theater over film is that the live version has an impact that can only be transfused in the present and living manner.

In the world of storytelling this translates some to the personalization of the story. There were times that I have talked about the experiences of soldiers in Vietnam and been asked if I had served there myself. I’m only thirty years too young for that, but I spoke as if I had been there and seen what they had experienced.

If you wish to take a romantic look at this idea then I connected with the energy of the veterans and translated their lives into my own taking with me the feeling they felt. If I ever have children it is through this story telling that they will come to know the generations before me because my family has already said that they have no wish to see any offspring that I may have. … Yes, that is the kind of thing my family says.

Sadly, in theater we see a good number of narcissists who think that what they do is good because they do it, and the art of transportation is something very much lost in the modern theater. Still there was a time that story telling had a magic to it and that translated and was felt. There was a time when a good story teller could make his living in the art of this craft. The oral tradition took folk on real adventures once and these adventures may have been good for the soul.