The Playback Café
Everyone has a story.
By Miriam Miller
The greatest human capacity is empathy.
Empathy is an ‘entering into’ the world of
another person, taking a walk in their shoes and
seeing who they truly are. Film and theatre alike
can offer us a window into another’s world. We
can see another’s joy and suffering and elevate
the weight of our own. In greek tradition, there
were weeping rooms in the great theaters for
men to retreat to during the emotional catharsis
of a play - their empathy consumed them.
In modern times, we face a startling epidemic. Our empathy is deficient. When we pay to see a play, or bingewatch a season of Sherlock on Netflix, we glance through a tainted lens into a world unlike our own. The media
we allow to infiltrate our minds takes charge and reshapes the standards of the world around us. Our pretty
pennies buy us pretty pictures of practiced people battling their flaws with technique and precision. These
pretty people we watch or read about become our standards for a good story. If you don’t fit the image, you’re
not worth the time.
The dramatic arts no longer give us a window that is relevant. To battle this, we need a bulldozer.