What are the similarities between Theater and Film? They are both chock-full of actors; directors; plastic or papier-mâché props that have been made to look like metal, wood or stone; recited lines that have been memorized from a script; and (hopefully!) just a little bit of verisimilitude plus a beginning, middle and an end.
What are the differences between the two art forms? Well, for one thing Theatre is live while Film is Memorex (or should I say digital THX Next-Generation Surround Sound?). Film is usually edited from the best of multiple takes while the poor cast in Theatre is not afforded that same opportunity. The actors in a theatrical production are bound by the space-time continuum which shows no mercy to an unprepared actor. They are forced to recover from a mistake right there in front of their mother and everybody by either improvising their way back on course or by simply just pressing on and hoping that nobody in the audience (especially mother!) noticed. The budgets of films are usually (but not always, especially in the case of indie films) much, much larger than are the budgets in Theatre. Scene changes in Film are instantaneous via the magic of editing while theatrical performances are, again, bound by that merciless space-time continuum which doesn’t allow stage hands to rearrange the stage for a new scene within the blink of an eye. On the other hand, that same space-time continuum allows a theatre audience to share an intimacy that they cannot while watching a film, which is once-removed from a live audience that can only watch the results, not the actual unfolding, of a cinematic production. The live audience at a play in a theatre can watch the production unfold right before their eyes and feel like they have become a part if it by the end of a performance.
I prefer the convenience of films and their distribution methods (not to mention the cup holders!), while I usually prefer the artistic value of theatre. Even a mediocre play is usually better than the most high-budget Hollywood dreck being cranked out nowadays in the interest of Universal Studios’ or Warner Brothers’ shareholders. (Well, at least until a couple of months ago when the writers went on strike and cost the same shareholders hundreds of millions of dollars so far. Power to the Writers!) That being said, the best films are every bit as rewarding to me as the best plays. Except for one thing: did you ever notice that theatre audiences are so much more respectful than the cell-phone-using louts one usually finds at the Cinemark 16? Theatre-goers don’t ever need to be reminded, as do moviegoers, that Silence is Golden. I could stop right there and confidently rest my case, but please let me press on for a while longer. I’m just now getting warmed up.
How is the audience’s imagination effected in each? Film “spoon feeds” its audience its own imagination while Theatre forces (or should I say allows) an audiences’ imagination to work itself out. Huh? What did I just say? Let me put it another way: a film has everything laid out before our eyes. The scenery, the costumes, the transitions, even night and day (for goodness’ sake!) are spread out before us in a sumptuous, Technicolor visual feast. If a moviegoer prefers, he can leave his imagination at home and the film takes no notice that the moviegoer’s face has been rendered into a dumb, blank stare. In fact, a director might prefer it if the moviegoer did just that. If a moviegoer’s imagination sits up and takes notice during a showing of a film, that means the director didn’t do his job of setting the table properly. If the moviegoer’s imagination perks up during a film, it (the moviegoer’s imagination) is simply pointing out to the moviegoer that the director might have done a better job if only he had served this dish instead of … Theatre offers no such buffet. A theatre-goer who is worth his weight in salt demands the barest of stages so that he can turn that simple, flat, wooden cactus prop into a vast Sonoran landscape within his mind. Not everyone likes having to pay good money to get a mental workout during his “off-time” so theatre is not for everyone, mind you.
That, too, is why theatre is called a medium of language. The words recited on a stage, delivered with just the right dose of grit and dry heat, will send the theatre-goer to that Sonoran Landscape of the Mind every bit as quickly as that humble cactus prop will. The Film, on the other hand, is called a medium of image because… well, let’s take that Sonoran Desert setting. In a film, you’re probably going to see a pan of a real honest-to-goodness desert, maybe even the actual Sonoran desert. If you had left your imagination at home (or it had already died of starvation) you’d still get the desert because it would have been spoon-fed to you. That may be the very reason people prefer movies to plays: their imaginations have atrophied from disuse.
A very self-assured landscaping contractor once told me that, if I were to provide him with a grain of sand, he’d build me a beach. I wonder what he could have done with that humble wooden cactus prop? Probably nothing nearly as awe-inspiring as that vast desert landscape I could envision in my mind while watching a play in a theatre.
