That isn’t the choice. You only need maybe 20-50 hours of theory and anyone learning music will accumulate at least a few thousand hours of playtime if they stick with it. The order in which you do those matters a lot though. It differs depending on the age you start playing. Most adults should learn theory early, but not before they’ve done enough beginner to be able to practice theory as they learn it.

(Obviously you can study music more than 50 hours. I’m just talking about the applied theory most expert musicians know.)