"Is it not delight we seek when we go to the theatre? The delight of comedy, which refreshes and uplifts us, or the delight of tragedy, which carries us deep into ourselves and throws light into corners which are normally dark? We know it as make-believe, and that the actors did it all last night, and will do it again tomorrow night. [But] it is not theatre's task to show us reality....Great theatre makes us feel and believe in passion through poetry....Alchemy in theatre...means something which has attained to such excellence, such nearness to perfection, that it offers a glory, an expansion of life and understanding, to those who have been brought into contact with it."
--Robertson Davies, Happy Alchemy: On the Pleasures of Music and the Theatre
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