Amateur Hour, or Notes From a Hack Playwright

In “Amateur Hour, or Notes From a Hack Playwright,” Paul Menzer calls theatre “the art of social proximity, not social distancing,” then reminds us that “it’s always closing time at the theatre,” that “theatre is in love with loss.” Describing himself as an amateur playwright, he reminds us that the words “amateur” and “amorous” both “describe a condition of the heart,” and moves from here to Shakespeare’s Pyramus and Thisbe, the most elevated the expression of love . . . presented by a group of blue-collar workers.” Our current crisis for the theatre may be “a chance once more to overcome social distance, to get close to those special things all of us non-geniuses love.”