When Theatre Became Sleepy — Weaning-Food Culture Seen Through Pygmalion
I wrote an article before about seeing Pygmalion on stage.
To be honest, at first, I doubted my own reaction.
I got sleepy.
I couldn’t focus.
I didn’t laugh at the points where the audience laughed.
Only one feeling stayed with me.
“There?”
But this didn’t feel like
the work was bad,
or that my sensibility was off.
It felt like something else.
This text contains references to the stage content (spoilers).
Link to the previous article.
“Um… where would I even start?”
This question stayed in my head the entire time.
Um…
where would I even begin correcting this?
I’ve felt this before.
For example, when you come home and find that
the refrigerator door has been left open,
snack wrappers are scattered on the table,
homework untouched,
a game still running on the screen.
Before anger.
Not scolding.
Not fixing.
Not teaching.
Just—
“Huh?”
Taking one quiet step back.
For some reason,
watching this stage performance felt exactly the same.
The moment authority turns into “just another person”
This isn’t only about theatre.
I’ve met plenty of people
in so-called “authoritative positions.”
In companies.
In industries.
People with titles.
At first, I unconsciously assume:
They must know something.
They must see the whole picture.
There must be a reason they’re here.
But then you talk to them.
The point is off.
The structure isn’t seen.
Responsibility is vague.
The voice, however, is loud.
And quietly, something switches.
Oh.
This person is just human too.
This isn’t rebellion.
Not arrogance.
It’s the moment
when the “authority filter” comes off.
It’s similar to that small glitch
when you realize
your teacher or doctor
is actually younger than you.
The world didn’t break.
The way you see it just updated.
Why get sleepy in a world that should be sharp?
Honestly,
I thought the theatre world would be more rigorous.
Because theatre is the original form of entertainment.
You can’t record it.
You can’t redo it.
Success and failure are exposed on the spot.
It should be brutally demanding.
And yet, what I felt was:
Failure isn’t visible.
Evaluation stays inside the circle.
An assumption of “greatness” comes first.
In other words,
A structure where
you don’t actually have to compete on substance
for it to work.
That’s where the audience laughed
This was the clearest mismatch.
Every point where the audience laughed
was surface-level.
Wording.
Obvious irony.
Predictable punchlines.
But the places the work should have been touching—
The moment good intentions turn into violence.
When education starts to look like control.
The structure where success becomes a curse.
—honestly,
those aren’t places you laugh.
So I didn’t.
I wasn’t angry.
I wasn’t disappointed.
I was just sleepy.
What the reviews made clear
Afterward, I read some reactions.
Many of them said things like:
“The lead actress was adorable.”
“It was great to see the performers in person.”
“That directing choice was impressive.”
In other words,
They went to see a play,
but what they actually went for
was contact.
The piece itself
had become secondary.
This isn’t about good or bad.
Decline or decay.
The role has simply changed.
Theatre is no longer a device for questions.
It has become a contact event.
What kind of irony did the creators think they were showing?
There’s a line placed prominently in the play:
“Because men are like that.”
I think the creators believed
they were depicting female independence here.
A woman distancing herself from male-centered values.
Making a non-dependent choice.
A clear, modern message.
But the moment this line appears,
the structure of the play closes.
The question shuts.
“Is education really good?”
“Who takes responsibility after changing someone?”
Questions that should have been left
with the audience
were already resolved
by that evaluative line.
Who is wrong.
Where the problem lies.
How to interpret it.
All of it was safely organized.
Because otherwise:
Complaints would come.
People would feel uncomfortable.
The position of justice would wobble.
What ended up being depicted
was not a woman engaging with society,
but a woman choosing
from pre-arranged options
inside a male-designed enclosure.
What was meant to show independence
became a protective structure
meant to keep the audience stable.
This isn’t a problem of acting.
Or individual expression.
It’s the result of choosing
the safety of “correctness”
over leaving a question dangerous.
And I think that choice
is what made the play sleepy.
They thought they were showing independence.
They thought they were showing irony.
They thought they were being modern.
But what they actually did
was grind existing values
more carefully,
more safely,
into something softer.
A structural issue beyond the stage
This was a very proper, adult production.
Authority itself isn’t the problem.
What this stage revealed was a gap:
Being authoritative
and having questions
are not the same thing.
This work had all the proofs of correctness:
A classic.
Globally recognized.
Safe to watch.
But in exchange, it clearly chose:
Not to unsettle the audience.
Not to leave judgment with them.
Not to suspend interpretation.
This isn’t limited to theatre.
Publishing.
Education.
Corporations.
Medicine.
Everywhere,
records of correctness and evaluation accumulate,
while the function of asking questions quietly drops out.
There is authority.
So it must be right.
So there’s no need to doubt.
What gets built is
a hollow legitimacy—
polished, loud, and convincing,
with nothing holding it up inside.
The discomfort I felt wasn’t just about the stage.
It reflected a culture
where authority without questions
still works.
To you
I’m not saying the play was bad.
I’m not saying the audience was shallow.
We were just looking
from different layers.
Once you see it,
you can’t laugh together anymore.
You can’t pretend to enjoy it.
And I think that’s fine.
This isn’t a review.
It’s just an observation.
But people who feel the same glitch
are probably not that rare.
“Um… where would I even start?”
If you’ve felt that before,
it doesn’t mean you’ve become dull.
It just means
your resolution went up.
In a weaning-food culture,
how many works remain
that adults can actually taste?
——
I placed a continuation here.
Not on the stage,
but in the reactions that followed.
This note is written for those whose senses move
before answers arrive.
If something stayed with you after reading,
that may be a sign that something inside you responded.
— withchat