Passion
A heightened participation in life. Passion provides the support that guards against what is often referred to as "over-playing." Passion is not the same as emotionality. Emotions are only the cheap and easy route to passion. Indeed, passion can be be emotionally neutral, as with Neutral Mask. Passion is an essential component of theatrical style.
There are equivalencies and close associations to be found between the following oft used terms. It is important to understand why they refer to much the same thing.
- Passion
- Stylization
- Madness
- Non-psychological/non-naturalistic Levels of Play - (Niveaux de Jeu)
- Dimension of the Mask
- Heightened Presence
- Expansion
- Dynamic Resonance
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.
The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman’s lime.
The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather’s wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.
And I am dumb to tell the lover’s tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm
Jonathan Paul Cook © 2010