The Narrator of dreams

erhaps you’ve noticed that not many stage plays have narrators. No, the curtain goes up and the drama begins. Whereas, in “real life,” many people are looking for a narrator to tell a story, their story, and they want to attach themselves to this narrator in some way. He’s the guy, he’s the one with the knowledge, he knows how it’s all going to turn out, and by the sound of his voice, it’s going to come to good ending. Finally, all will be well.
You wouldn’t want that kind of narrator in a theater, because he would blow the ending before the play even began. You want to see actors at work. You want the whole business to unfold in front of you, with all its twists and turns.

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Most people can’t see how reality is theater because, in their lives, they’re looking for a narrator who’ll short circuit the whole dramatic process and deliver the goods to them, the nice ending, the tying up of loose ends.

The narrator provides an authoritative story line, and no matter how crazy or absurd it is, no matter how painful, people want to track with it because, if they do, “it’ll all turn out fine.”

Remember that old Zen saying? “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” If you make somebody into a narrator, get rid of him. Go another way. Doesn’t matter how wise the narrator is, if you’ve MADE him into a narrator, even if he wasn’t trying to be that, even if that was the furthest thing from his mind, if you made him into the teller of the story line, walk away. Go somewhere else.

Then you have a chance of creating some good theater for yourself.

JON RAPPOPORT www.nomorefakenews.com