Stage Right. Stage Left
March 21, 2006 The Feast Day of Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells.
When I stand on the stage facing the audience everything on my left is Stage Left. Everything on my right is Stage Right. For the audience it is the opposite. Stage Left is however still Stage Left even if it is to their right.
Down stage is toward the audience and Up stage away from them. These stage directions are left over from a time when theatre stages were raked; when you walked up stage you were going up a ramp.
In theology and politics we often talk about right and left. Conservative and Liberal. The political use of these terms comes from the seating in the French parliament; legislators who wanted to change things sat on the left side of the chamber. That is Stage Right. Hmm.
I have come to a degree of puzzlement about the common use of left and right. Are you left wing and liberal if you want to change things from the way they are? So those people who want to end the current laws about abortion and restrict that practice are left wing liberals? And those who want to keep abortion legal are conservatives?
Or do left and right in religion and politics mean something else. You are a liberal if you are in favor of abortion, against the war in Iraq, want to allow gay people to be ordained to the clergy and get married and want the government to solve all our problems no matter what the cost. Conservatives think the Bible should be our rule book and taxes should be reduced as far as possible.
How much sense does any of this make? Where are the overriding principles in these collections of ideas? How much sense does it make to approve of war and capital punishment but oppose abortion?
We humans are a wondrous mixture of emotions, ideas and physical contradictions. Standing someplace on the stage facing God, my audience all day long, I pray for his love to help me, us, as I struggle to remember my lines and my blocking.
When I stand on the stage facing the audience everything on my left is Stage Left. Everything on my right is Stage Right. For the audience it is the opposite. Stage Left is however still Stage Left even if it is to their right.
Down stage is toward the audience and Up stage away from them. These stage directions are left over from a time when theatre stages were raked; when you walked up stage you were going up a ramp.
In theology and politics we often talk about right and left. Conservative and Liberal. The political use of these terms comes from the seating in the French parliament; legislators who wanted to change things sat on the left side of the chamber. That is Stage Right. Hmm.
I have come to a degree of puzzlement about the common use of left and right. Are you left wing and liberal if you want to change things from the way they are? So those people who want to end the current laws about abortion and restrict that practice are left wing liberals? And those who want to keep abortion legal are conservatives?
Or do left and right in religion and politics mean something else. You are a liberal if you are in favor of abortion, against the war in Iraq, want to allow gay people to be ordained to the clergy and get married and want the government to solve all our problems no matter what the cost. Conservatives think the Bible should be our rule book and taxes should be reduced as far as possible.
How much sense does any of this make? Where are the overriding principles in these collections of ideas? How much sense does it make to approve of war and capital punishment but oppose abortion?
We humans are a wondrous mixture of emotions, ideas and physical contradictions. Standing someplace on the stage facing God, my audience all day long, I pray for his love to help me, us, as I struggle to remember my lines and my blocking.
posted by Thomas Van Brunt | 10:44 AM
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