On my artistic credo 3: Illusion and reality

As the last instalment of a series of posts in which I've tried to explore my own goals and presuppositions as a to-be writer, let me add the thought that retrospectively, the majority of my writings appear to revolve around the question of illusion when contrasted to reality.

As someone who was raised in an environment that operated in a predominantly scientific world-view, I was frightened, and then fascinated by people who created a personal, illusory world in which they lived and acted. Such a personal illusion, when it is all-encompassing and is sufficiently different from the "reality" as the rest of us interpret it, is simply called madness--but even if the case is not that extreme, personal illusions can make communication impossible simply because the parties belong to two totally different worlds. I treat beliefs, myths, and religions as such illusions.

Many of my works stem from the conflict which occurs when outside reality tries to penetrate this personal illusion or dream-world. As I believe that such illusions are created in order to veil a memory or an emotion, their procreators will fight to retain them and remain inside--in fact, they who decide to enter a dream-world can no longer exist outside it. Either the protagonists are destroyed by reality, or they prevail, and their illusions swallow those who tried to pry them open.

This, second outcome needs no one to fall, collapse, die, or be destroyed, and still it shows a loss. It is tragic, and, in a sense, fatalistic: it thrives on our hidden dread of the impossibility of impartial, logical thinking. It speaks of our immanent insanity, ultimate isolatedness, and the 1939s yet to come.

On my theatrical credo 2: On the unities, emplotment, and the theatre of language
On the sitcom and the theatre: On stage-ness and the musical
On my theatrical credo: On realism and stage-ness