Tim Robbins

I know that as a child, when I saw something transformative, something that blew my mind, I can still remember those plays.

That's the power that theater has.

It can actually transform a consciousness.

Well, in many ways, the lockdown was illuminating to me

Things that I had held sacred or had held as truths were challenged during that time.

And what it made me do was it made me question myself and question what my beliefs are.

And I think that's a very healthy thing.

As a writer, I need to do that all the time.

As an actor, I have to do that.

So drama is about finding the complexities and the conflicts that we all have within ourselves.

I think that's the way to approach these discussions about society at large.

When you're dealing with them in a play or in a movie, you have to give respect to the other side.

So just a reminder that in Greek theater, which was kind of the start of what we think of as Western theater, the purpose of these plays that they did, both comedies and dramas,

were to involve the citizenry in a dialogue with the gods.

So the citizenry in those plays were represented by the chorus.

And the chorus would have a big dilemma.

And the dilemma usually had something to do with something that had happened recently in Athens or in Greece.

And what we were seeing on stage was a way for the society to

look at what had just happened and be able to explore that, ask questions about it, and see the story told through the dialogue between the chorus and the gods.

And I felt the subject matter of those plays, recent wars that had taken a lot of lives, plagues, different conflicts within the societies,