The Enigma of Curiosity in the Modern World: Theater as an Awakening

The Digital World Has No Answers for Our Feelings

We live surrounded by information and instant answers. It takes only a few seconds to find an answer to almost any question. But having many answers at our fingertips does not make us curious.

In my work with young people, I see it often: they move quickly between videos, messages, and other content, but can struggle when a question does not offer an immediate solution. They are immersed in an environment that suggests what to watch, anticipates what they might want, and leaves less and less room for waiting.

I am referring mainly to young people, whom I work with most often, but this difficulty does not belong to them alone. It affects all of us.

Curiosity begins with an absence—with something we do not know, do not understand, or cannot yet express. If every empty space is immediately filled by an external stimulus, it becomes harder to stop and ask ourselves: “What do I want to know? What genuinely interests me? What am I looking for?”

The immediacy of the internet can train us to consume content rather than question it. The search for other people’s approval can also take the place of self-discovery.

It is difficult to understand what might make us happy if we cannot recognize what we want.

The Stage: A Workshop for Questions

A theater workshop interrupts this pattern. It sets a task but does not provide a ready-made answer. It places participants in front of a space, an object, a relationship, or an incomplete situation and asks them to act.

Every scene begins with questions. Who is this character? What do they want? What are they hiding? What prevents them from getting what they want? How do they respond when someone else does something unexpected?

Improvisation also begins with uncertainty: no one knows exactly what will happen. Participants must observe, listen, choose, and accept that what they bring to the scene will be transformed by what others do.

As participants search for these answers, they inevitably encounter themselves as well: their habits, resistance, fears, desires, and ways of relating to others.

This is not about turning the workshop into psychological analysis. It is about recognizing what is happening within ourselves and using it to choose an action, shape a voice, and build a stage presence and a relationship onstage.

Onstage, choosing from ready-made options is not enough. You have to take a position and create something.

The Workshop Leader’s Role: Not to Provide All the Answers

Students are not simply there to carry out instructions.

Directing every detail can produce an orderly scene, perhaps even one that is pleasant to watch. But if students do nothing more than reproduce the instructions they have been given, they are learning to follow directions, not to create.

A student may perform an action correctly and achieve an apparent result. But if they do not understand what they are doing, what they want to communicate, and what relationship they are building with others, the work remains on the surface.

This is why the workshop leader’s expertise is essential. Having a repertoire of exercises is not enough. The leader must know why to propose a particular exercise, to whom, at what point, and for what purpose.

The same exercise can open up a path or produce nothing at all. The workshop leader must observe the group’s response, recognize what is happening, and adapt the process when necessary.

They must also know how to ask precise questions: “Where are you going?”, “What are you trying to achieve?”, “Who are you speaking to?”, “What changed after the other person acted?”

Their task is not to elicit the answer they already have in mind, but to create the conditions in which students can find an answer of their own and test it concretely in the scene.

Four Theater Practices That Cultivate Curiosity

• The question “What if…?” What would happen if this chair became a boat? If the character were hiding something? If the scene took place without words? The question opens up possibilities and forces us to move beyond the first available solution.

• Listening and observing. In theater, we must notice a breath, a pause, a shift in posture, or a change in the distance between two people. Attention to detail allows us to see what a quick reading of the situation would miss.

• Building characters and worlds. Giving life to a believable character requires more than inventing a name. We must ask what they want, what they fear, where they come from, and which relationships have shaped them. Imagining is not enough; we have to investigate.

• Creating with simple materials. A sheet of paper, a balloon, or a chair can support an extended creative process and even an entire performance. When we stop using an object only in the usual way, we have to transform it. Working with only a few elements forces us to search for ideas rather than rely on ready-made effects.

These practices develop the habit of asking questions, tolerating not knowing immediately, and looking for more than one possible path.

This attitude does not remain confined to the stage. Those who learn to investigate an action, relationship, or character also acquire useful tools for questioning the messages, images, and models they encounter every day.

Curiosity is not about knowing many things. It begins when we realize that something is missing and decide to look for it.

In a world that offers answers before we have even formulated the questions, theater gives us back the time and space to search.

It does not tell young people what they should want. It creates the conditions in which they can discover it for themselves.