Make It Real (But What Is Real?)

“The way we perceive what we call ‘real’ speech in drama is constantly changing: the mirror held up to nature is a lens whose focal length changes with time. In the theatre the search for documentary truth is the logical extension of an art form that seeks to present slices of life while always reminding the spectator (unlike film) that what they are watching is a simulation of life, a metaphor for it, not the real thing. The desire to make that experience of simulated reality more “real”, more like life as it is rather than how it’s supposed to be, is the motor of modern theatre.”