You know you’ve witnessed good theater when you get sucked into the drama so deeply that you forget that its all just theater. Some theatrical forms are energetic and emotionally demanding. Others, like Japanese Noh and Kabuki theater are more stylized and deliberately paced, requiring the audience to pay strict attention to nuance and to understand the symbols and conventions that provide a framework for the performance.
To observers of Debt Ceiling Theater currently enjoying a run in Washington DC, it should be clear that there are several different dramatic forms at work. First, you have your pure American Western, imagined by its Tea Party players to be True Grit, but really the more basic form of High Noon at the OK Corral as it is played for tourists at Tombstone. Others think they have a part in Atlas Shrugged, having not gotten the memo about how that movie failed and is closed. But by far the most fascinating dramatic forms in play are Kabuki and ‘No,’ with skilled actors on both sides. The Kabuki Master, and most consummate practitioner of the dramatic arts, is President Obama.
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