When I’m watching really good theater — or, well, less pretentiously, when I’m watching really engaging theater — I stop breathing. I’m not sure whether I forget to breathe, or make a subconscious decision not to breathe because breathing makes me feel like I’m punching holes in the fourth wall, but anyway I start feeling lightheaded and that’s when I remember to start breathing again. Or if there’s a joke, because then I have to breathe in order to laugh. Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia is very funny, and in the first scene I was laughing so much my stomach hurt, but…
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