‘The Holy Theatre’
— Joyce Chong
There’s a particular rhythm, a breaking of images and moments into their own distinct entities that builds ‘The Holy Theatre’. The language weaves between letter, to confession, to stage direction; like holding unwavering, a mirror to self and pulling measurements, exactitudes out of one’s own life.
Smithers illustrates the Holy Theatre as a dynamic entity, as much a place as an analogy, with its own limitations, its own laws of physicality. The stage as uncertain, unsteady land. The lights turn in on you, the dark spaces full of others, full of expectation, insistence. Here, reality is reflected back at you through the gaps in the stage curtain.
I’m terrified all the time because
it’s in the director’s notes. I slow dance with broken streetlights and
our haunting
sounds like I’m stepping on your toes.