“The interesting thing about acting is using all your own stuff and having some kind of personal catharsis while you're working.” This quote comes from Melanie Lynskey, who has been a prolific actor for many many years. She has had the good fortune of getting to do this magical thing, in which she is able to allow other people to have a cathartic experience. This to me feels like a privilege, and the amazing thing is that in return she gets to have her own catharsis. She has the honor of getting to have a cathartic experience in her real life on a regular basis, which is not something that many people get to feel in their lives. Catharsis has been around for as long as theatre has existed, and was officially defined by Aristotle. Aristotle wrote The Poetics in 335 BCE and in them he stated the elements that he believed made great theatre. He wrote that the ultimate goal of theatre is for the audience to have some sort of catharsis in the end. This to me is one of the few things that still rings extremely true from The Poetics, which with the advent of …show more content…
They are the people who come to see movies and theatre, because that’s where they can release everything that has been building up all day, all week, all month. They are the people who let theatre and film exists, because if these people didn’t buy tickets, the performing arts wouldn’t exist. These people allow me to do work that I absolutely love doing, and as a fringe benefit I get to watch amazing actors do amazing work everyday. When you watch scene so many times and you see the work improve and become so much more real the catharsis that comes out of it is just so much more great. I feel like the fact that for me theatre is a hands on experience, building the sets, finding costumes, running line, makes the catharsis even more grand and more real. I am helping to create the catharsis that I am feeling, and that is something truly