From the Director

Dear Friends,

Like so many theatre people, our involvement in this craft comes from a hunger for the truth. It gnaws in a way that is unrelenting and it is the voice that will permit no rest. It is the finger that pokes us in the eye when we look in the wrong direction and it is the whisper that calls us to listen outside of what we know. You may have your own peculiar relationship with the truth and know its voice in other ways.

Elements Theatre Company takes this relationship with the truth into conversation and education. We find that truth has a way of emerging in thoughts and discussions that come when we are most agitated or urgent in the need to express ourselves. Yasmina Reza gives us fertile ground for discussion in her play, God of Carnage.

How do humans become more human and what is live theatre’s role in this evolution process? Reza neither answers this question nor any question. Instead with a surgeon’s skill she gives us well cut characters who in the mirror of this story remove one mask after another until they are revealed in need and nakedness. Reza (by some considered to be a moralist) reveals the problem and does not seek within the context of the play to resolve it, leaving us to wonder…

This leads us to another voice in the theatre that has some personal significance. Stella Adler talks of the power of live theatre in this way, “The word theatre comes from the Greeks. It means the seeing place. It is the place people come to see the truth about life and social situations. The theatre is a spiritual and social X-ray of its time. The theatre was created to tell people the truth about life…”

This week of Arts in Conversation is about seeing and hearing. It is for us a delightful chance to meet many of you, to talk shop, to look to a future where the arts and truth continue to heal and bring communities closer together.

We wish you all the best,

Sr. Danielle Dwyer on behalf of all of Elements Theatre Company