My experience at the Constans Theatre THe Divine: A Play for sarah bernhardt

~This is a photo of me (Jennifer Le), standing outside the theater before the play~

The Spatial Experience:

My view of the stage

Cloaked with shades of darkness, the theatre’s dim lighting created a slightly mysterious ambiance that was peaceful but also sparked the curiosity within me. I did not have any expectations for how the play was going to make me feel and so the spacious and cold environment of the auditorium guided me to feel a heightened awareness of my surroundings. I sat on the edge of the aisle and was internally elated that I could stretch out my legs into the aisle, which I did. However, a stream of anxiety flowed through me when during the play, the actors ran around the auditorium for a scene and a group of them had decided to run down my aisle with my legs out (fortunately, they had hopped over my legs) but essentially that was my seat location’s influence on my experience. As the audience quieted and the lights dimmed, I felt a bit worried that the quiet and dark environment would cause me to fall asleep but fortunately the vociferous expressions of the actors were engaging so that did not happen. Place acts as an element of finding the good life, it essentially builds the foundation for where someone will start in finding the good life. Since everyone has different experiences, they all find themselves in varying places and basically establishes the starting point to an individual’s journey of finding the good life.

The Social Experience:

This is a photo of my friends Julia and Hannah before entering the theater.

I had walked over to the Constans Theatre with my friends Hannah and Julia and when I entered the auditorium had ran into some friends from high school named Vicki and Shannon. When I was getting ready for the performance, I had read the summary on the play to get an understanding of what I could expect. Although, I still didn’t have a solid idea of what to expect, I could still gauge the setting of the play. Attending with friends bettered my experience because it expanded and developed my opinion on the play because their opinions made me consider elements of the play I hadn’t thought about before. Sharing these experiences about the play with my friends demonstrated the role of shared experiences in the Good Life as it prompted me to diversify my thinking with the intellect of my peers. The role of shared experiences was further developed in the talk back session at the end of the performance with the actors. Although people were hesitate to ask questions in the beginning (which did slightly upset an actor), the perspective of the actors brought more ideas to consider.

The Cultural and Intellectual Experience

I read this pamphlet before the play started to see if there was anymore knowledge to gain

As Sarah Bernhardt states “Theatre reveals turpitude and excesses”, this expression depicts how the performance created a new way of understanding of culture as this play possesses dark themes. An issue central to the theme include rape as some of the students were molested by the priest. Before attending the performance, I was aware of the social concerns of rape as being a college student the university tries their best to educate their students on this issue. The performance didn’t really change my view as I felt that I was already informed on the matter but it did bring light to another situation of the issue. Essentially, it provided me with another scenario of the issue being presented and in that sense contributed to the development of my view.

The Emotional Experience

Post-play photo. A reflection on the play was further discussed after leaving.

The Divine: A play for Sarah Bernhardt brings forth themes that prompt controversial and socially uncomfortable conversations for people and by doing so, it helps people purge their opinions and thoughts on said controversial topics through the discussion of this play. The “coming clean” aspect comes into play as the differing views that may arise through discussion would open people to new ideas that they could employ to understand what it means to be human.

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