Having watched lots of theater recently, I am becoming more aware about the interesting relationship between good theater and likability. In particular, the need for characters to be somewhat unlikable.
One of the things that draws us to good characters in good theater is the question of the ways in which we don’t like them, and why. We can sympathize with them, but the whole enterprise fails if we just think of them as swell people.
This is because the driving engine of good theater is the underlying question: “What is wrong with this person?” The audience is being asked to do the work of figuring out the nature of the trauma that each dynamic character is working through.
There needs to be a convincing portrayal of sickness before there can be wellness. There needs to be a mystery so solve, an injury to heal.
In short, we need to understand why we are being asked to go on this journey. If we find ourselves, in just the right way, not liking the characters up on stage, then we might very well be in for a great evening of theater.