Somewhere, Somehow

Abstract

It is a cliché common to all clichés that, in becoming thus, some element of truth is exercised. As an aesthetic medium that relies on the repeated for both style and substance, it is little wonder that in both the critique and practice of theatre, cliché abounds. There is no theatrical cliché quite so well worn, I would suggest, as the old saw in which a performance oft repeated, but now stale, should be given ‘once more, with feeling’. What rings true is not simply that some spark of feeling serves to energise that which is ‘never for the first time’, but that that repetition is so often a process of its recovery. This is exemplified in theatre’s own moves from place to place — from studio to stage, and from town to town on tour. How to feel here as one previously did there is a pressing question to which ‘once more, with feeling’ is less an answer than it is an imperative.