Why Closure Is Boooorinnnggggggg
Closure is for sitcoms. Questions are for theatre.
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Something my therapist said to me once: why do you need closure? What’s so important about it? You don’t want closure, you just want it to continue.
And that’s the thing.
Closure is satisfying. It’s clean, it’s beautiful, it’s finite. But this is real life. People rarely get closure — think death, break ups, <a third negative thing>.
So why should our characters?
Theatre is about tension. Not resolution.
It’s about leaving the audience with a feeling they don’t know what to do with. It’s about keeping the lights on in their brain after the curtain falls.
Closure in many ways is about control. It’s a need we need to satisfy to make us feel like we’ve accomplished something. As an audience, you’re solving your character’s needs and wants.
But sometimes, people leave without answers. Sometimes, love doesn’t come full circle. Sometimes, you change. And that’s it — a human truth. No layers, no depth, no reason.
And isn’t that more interesting? More honest?
It leaves room for the audience to step into the spotlight and go “if that were me, what would I do” — cue the post-show conversations that happen in alleyways, in pubs, in mamaks.
That’s when you know that your play has made an impact that people want to know the REAL ending because they are now invested in the story, in your characters, in your world.
So, I’m not here to write endings tied up in a moral lesson. I’m here to write unresolved yearnings. I want my audience to walk out uncomfortable. Curious. Maybe even a little haunted, kidding, A LOT haunted.
Because closure might be neat. But ambiguity? That’s where the memorability lives.
Do you think definite closure is important? Let’s discuss!