Acts of Faith

Americans are going to the theater more this recession season, both in New York and regionally. Broadway’s box office pulse is the healthiest in ten years. The season’s fare will not wholly account for it; when we go to the theater more it isn’t always all for art’s sake.

This season we seem to be granting the theater a special persuasiveness. We seem eager to believe, eager to be taken in, ready to grant whatever will make the evening’s game go round, willing (beyond Coleridge’s sense) to suspend our disbeliefs and lay claim to possibilities. We may be putting behind us the long season of our self-reproach, exercising faith out of its desuetude. Or we may be waiting out the economic storm. Whatever the case, one has the sense that in those small acts of faith behind and in front of the curtain we seek and find transition.

GW

About the Author

Gary Jay Williams

Featured Tags

Americans are going to the theater more this recession season, both in New York and regionally. Broadway’s box office pulse is the healthiest in ten years. The season’s fare will not wholly account for it; when we go to the theater more it isn’t always all for art’s sake.

This season we seem to be granting the theater a special persuasiveness. We seem eager to believe, eager to be taken in, ready to grant whatever will make the evening’s game go round, willing (beyond Coleridge’s sense) to suspend our disbeliefs and lay claim to possibilities. We may be putting behind us the long season of our self-reproach, exercising faith out of its desuetude. Or we may be waiting out the economic storm. Whatever the case, one has the sense that in those small acts of faith behind and in front of the curtain we seek and find transition.