Spoiler alert: there is a scene in the movie Hamnet which I found transformative. The entire first half of the movie is intimate, small groups, people in dialogue, alternating between the forest, where most of the villagers are afraid to linger; and the darkened interiors of a common home, where a few family members hash out their relationships with each other. When their child dies of the plague; mother, child, sister, and grandmother form a circle barely a yard across. Then, the mother travels to Stratford to see the play that her husband, Will, has been working on. He wasn’t home when tragedy struck. She feels very much alone and abandoned in her grief.
Then she joins the crowd pushing through the door of the theater. Inside, she looks up. The stage faces three or four tiers of balconies, each one crowded with people. They reach to the sky. An audience stands to see a play named after her dead son. I gasped. The scene follows her gaze up and up.
In short order, she goes from being alone to being in community. From being defenseless against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, to being empowered by this fellowship of strangers. This is what live theater is. This is what the church of Jesus Christ is called to be.