Although I hesitate to say so for fear of being perceived as claiming any true "knowledge" on the subject, I do love music.  Or at least I love the music that I love.  And one of the great things of the music that I love the most is the theatricality of the music and the musicians that I love the most. 

The music that I love most these days is certainly some of the most theatrical that I know.  And what is so "theatrical" about it?  It seems to convey a place, a person, a setting, a dynamic event in a way that transcends the pedestrian by tapping into the universal.  And what are examples of this "theatricality"?

1.) The Long Winters.

These guys are from Seattle, a great home for theatricality (from my highly biased opinion) in itself, and its members have been involved in theater in various capacities, but it is moments like this that truly set the stage for something transcendently theatrical:

Now I don’t feel she feels the same way about me She wonders if I’ll ever be Who she dreamed I’d be But she never says I love you Til I say I love you Like we’re exchanging hostages From "Nora"

And again, I know that I am biased on many levels, not the least of the which is that I associate this lyric with the Matisse painting ("Conversation") that is notorious for illustrating a Stringberg-like moment of the man and woman in a palpably stale emotional stalemate.

 

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