Raise the Curtain: Live Theatre has Returned!
As Harpy’s resident theatre critic, it’ll come as no surprise that I’ve struggled dramatically from a lack of cultural excursions over the past year. Lockdowns came and went, there were glimpses of hope and loopholes for beer gardens, but still no theatre.
Online streaming services made a valiant effort to fill the void. Hamilton arrived on Disney+. The National Theatre treated us to 16 weeks and 15 million views of their ‘At Home’ series. Independent theatre companies, like Creation Theatre, even embraced the challenge of crafting new productions, set within the confines of Zoom…
I watched new shows, rewatched classics from theatrical trips past, and thoroughly enjoyed a pseudo-Shakespearean evening with The Merry Wives of Whatsapp… yet still I felt an unfulfilled yearning.
With a spotlight at the end of the tunnel, and the promise of live theatre productions taking place as early as next week, I’ve been ruminating on what it really is that I’ve missed and exactly what I can’t wait to return to.
What makes theatre so magical?
For much of lockdown #1, I lived alone and revelled in the ‘At Home’ series from the National Theatre. I tried my best to give each production the respect it deserved: lights off, no phone, no distraction, no breaks until the interval. (Theatre etiquette is like religion in this household.) But it just wasn’t the same…
In fact, I found that having a theatre in your own home brought with it a strange new sense of guilt.
In real life, if I didn’t manage to get tickets for a sought-after show with a short run, I’d think “oh, that’s a shame, never mind”. Yet, when Thursday rolled around and NT at Home changed their broadcast, I’d often find I’d missed the previous play. Suddenly there was no end to the guilt trips and flagellation that I'd unleash upon myself. ‘What on earth were you doing that was more important? You had all week to watch that and failed. Furlough is wasted on you.’
Unlike watching a film, recorded theatre productions carry a gravitas. I felt burdened by the weight of them, but still they lacked a distinct sense of theatricality. So what is it that imbues theatre with such importance?
I come from a rather theatrical family troupe and have been brought up to appreciate and adore any live performance. But that alone can’t be the gnawing factor that differentiates live from on-screen productions.
Is it the knowledge that what you see in the theatre is slightly different to what everyone else will see? The angle of your seat, where you choose to look, the unexpected alterations to the script.
I recognise that presenting theatre on-screen marks a great leap towards accessibility. Recorded plays and live streams democratise a production; they break through barriers of geography, give everyone the best seat in the house, and generally just spread the joy. So do I shamefully miss a sense of elitism and selectivity? Surely not.
Perhaps it’s that I can’t get to grips with having my gaze directed. Watching on screen, we are told where to look and what to look at by the camera angles and selective zoom. I may be alone, but I love to watch those performers who aren’t speaking - those in the background who have got their big break playing a tree.
In 2016, back in the “allowed outside” era, The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw asked whether theatre was actually better in the cinema. In an attempt to seek proof, he watched a single production in both formats, running from theatre to cinema during the interval. In doing so, he too remarked, on the forced interpretation that comes with unexpected overhead camera shots. But what really leapt out from his experiment is the sense of togetherness that comes with theatre:
“In the cinema, the audience are absent until the end, when the sharp clatter of applause comes as a surprise.”
Yet, in the theatre - though we sit in the dark - we do so intimately, as a collective.
Though I’ve been fairly reserved about reuniting with the outside world, maybe it’s exactly that that I crave. As trite as it may be, is the sense of theatre as a shared experience the simple factor that’s been lacking? Do we miss what my fellow Harpy dubbed ‘a kind of collective hallucination’ in watching a plot unfold?
Luckily we needn’t wait long now to find out...
Heading home to Hope Mill
As the world began to reopen (the first time!) I found myself ranting endlessly on the discrepancy between average wages for footballers and average theatre salaries. The rush to bring back sports over all else - whilst creatives were relegated to forgotten shadows - drove me up the wall for several months. But, as the arts have adapted to find outdoor spaces, online spaces, and rehearsal spaces for the eventual green light, I have finally found zen (ish…).
And now, with the latest lockdown measures slowly peeling away, there’s hope on the horizon!
One of the first in the country, Manchester’s iconic (and aptly named) Hope Mill Theatre opens its doors once again on Tuesday 25th of May. (Which just so happens to be my birthday - coincidence? Or a gift from the theatrical gods?)
Breaking the embargo are the all-female team behind HER productions, with their latest show: ‘Meet Me at Dawn’.
Meet Me at Dawn plays at Hope Mill Theatre from May 25-29th
Billed as the story of two women on a distant shore, dazed and searching for a path home, I can’t help but feel a kinship with the characters. When theatres closed - along with reams of other locations - I was lost; finally, I’m heading home!
‘Meet Me at Dawn’ promises to be “a modern fable exploring the triumph of everyday love, the mystery of grief, and the temptation to become lost in a fantasy future that will never be".
Naturally, given the hybrid lives that we have all become accustomed to, this production will also be live-streamed… but for a lucky few, indoor attendance is up for grabs!
In case it wasn’t screamingly apparent already, I cannot wait to sit within the confines of my perspex barriers, as part of a collective audience once again. And, if sitting in a real theatre sparks an epiphany in me, spotlighting, unequivocally, the single thing that makes theatre so bloody brilliant, I’ll let you know…
‘Meet Me at Dawn’ plays from May 25th – 29th, after seven (LONG) months of closure. Visit the Hope Mill Theatre website for information and tickets.
