“There’s a feeling I sometimes get at the theatre, and almost only at the theatre, that I am addicted to – and which probably accounts for my lifelong patronage, as both amateur and professional playgoer.

It’s a mixture of pleasure and surprise that manifests itself along my upper spine – but “tingling” doesn’t do it justice. It’s got a depth to it, as if umami were a physical sensation. It is accompanied by a fleeting sense of understanding, of something small or something big about being human, and it is what tips a diverting piece of entertainment over the line into an experience of capital-A art for me.

I got this feeling a few times last fall at Toronto’s Crow’s Theatre while watching a mysterious chamber musical called Ghost Quartet.

[...] As it turns out, I don’t even have to take a bunny hop to see Ghost Quartet once more. That Crow’s Theatre production, originally co-produced with Eclipse Theatre Company, has now been adapted into a concert film by its director, Marie Farsi.”