Magic

When I was young, I was obsessed with magic, completely and utterly. I read Harry Potter and believed every word of it (yes, I waited for my acceptance letter to Hogwarts), I watched movies like Matilda and absorbed the whole idea of special powers, and I made fairy houses in my backyard. I believed that dust was made from fairies who had died because people didn't believe in them, and I dreamt of finding magic wands.

Magic was a huge and very real thing to me. I never wanted to give up any belief in magic, and I still don't want to give it up despite being nearly out of my teenage years (gosh!). And while I don't wait for fairies to come to my door anymore, or expect, one day, to close the door with my mind, I realise I haven't actually given up magic, and that's because of two things: 1. My writing. and 2. Theatre.

When it comes to my writing, I can create everything and anything I've ever believed in. I can have a world that lives and breathes magic and in a way I can live through that. And the power of that magic is that maybe one day, other children will learn to believe in magic through that. The ability to create something completely new and completely from your own imagination is magic in itself. It's a thrilling experience and it's one that I feel lucky to be able to live.

But this week my focus has really been on theatre. And boy what a week it's been! Not only did we (meaning Schming and I) get a chance to work on our show with some incredibly talented people, but we were given the opportunity to show it and get some truly constructive feedback. We learnt so much about the show, about where it can go and what it needs. But I also learnt a lot about the magic of theatre, especially in musicals. The fact that our most well received moments are the one's that are less naturalistic goes to show that everyone loves a bit of magic, in the sense that they want something that isn't completely real. In a musical, you can go quite wild with that and the audience will follow along completely, because they want to be entranced by the magic on stage. Take The Lion King for example. The audience can see the people behind the puppets, they know they're not real animals, but still it completely takes their breath away to see an elephant walking down the aisle. You don't need to tell them it's not a real elephant, of course they know that. But being swept up in the moment and magic of the theatre gives everyone an incredible ability - the ability to imagine. The audience fills in the blanks, they make these creatures seem real, more so than the puppeteers do. And I think that's amazing.

Similarly, there is a play on Broadway at the moment called the War Horse. They use puppets as well for the horses and it's the same story. It's not realistic in the sense that they look like puppets, and you can see the people within the puppets, but the audience simply doesn't care. They make it a real horse.

Now I think that's magic, don't you?