The article reflects on the experience of live theater, particularly a performance of A Streetcar Named Desire, highlighting the visceral excitement of witnessing artists, like Paul Mescal as Stanley Kowalski, in real time. The author laments the overuse of digital devices for cultural experiences, advocating for the engagement with works that demand effort and creativity. This perspective reveals a longing for authentic experiences and serves as a reminder of the mental health benefits found in appreciating art that is crafted with passion and dedication.
If you sit close enough to the front of the theater for A Streetcar Named Desire at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, you can see Paul Mescal spit and sweat as he stalks the stage as Stanley Kowalski.
I've grown so accustomed to experiencing culture through screens that I forgot how exciting it is to be in the room where the art is happening, to witness the effort and passion and bodily exertion that go into it.
Engage with things that someone put a lot of work into. This wisdom seemed to cut through a lot of the bargaining I do with myself about how I spend my time.
I had thought my online hygiene was unimpeachable, that I'd skirted many of the mental-health hazards of social media by using it only as a source of impersonal pleasure.
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