Ever noticed how a director has to anticipate the audience's reaction, kind of like predicting an opponent's next move in a game? It's all about pattern recognition, but with an emotional twist.

Yeah, but the thing is, those tiny patterns are like… you know, the kind of things you only notice when you’re alone in the theater, staring at the flickering light, wondering if the actors even know what they're doing. It’s a good exercise in existential paranoia, if you think about it.

Sure, just pretend the set is a chessboard and the actors are the pieces you keep mislabeling; that way you can always cheat off the board and still look like you’re doing something intellectual.