Originally published in the Summer Issue 2020.
Theatre. Online. [Pause.]
The pandemic circumstances left many artists wondering about ‘what is theatre?’ ‘Is this the death of theatre?’, ‘what is the difference between theatre and film when theatre is strictly brought into the online realm?’, ‘what is the societal role of theatre?’, ‘is theatre meeting its duty?’
A few days or weeks after lockdown started in Ireland, theatre-makers began to explore different online apps, such as Zoom, Instagram, YouTube to present performances. For example, The Abbey Theatre produced Dear Ireland, a programme in which writers and performers portrayed what it is to live in Lockdown Ireland, in a room with a camera. Other theatre companies have been leading workshops, theatre panels, and making archived productions open to public access, for example, PAN PAN, Dead Centre, Smashing Times and others have been quite active in sharing their own theatrical contribution to the current times.
As the reader may find, there are both complications and possible solutions to some philosophical arguments with regards to what constitutes a theatrical performance. First, the questions such as, ‘what does theatre become when it embraces online framings?’ Perhaps theatre-makers do not have the same technology as filmmakers in this scenario. How is theatre framed? One of the possible arguments to cover this question is the idea of performer-audience relationship. Theatre goers and students know that there is a phenomenological difference when experiencing a performance in a particular time and space—the conventional theatre institution for example, or site-specific performances. It is obvious that the physical connection or relationship between audience members and performers is completely lost during lockdown. However, there is still a mutual aspect that most online performances offer: time. The idea of time here is to demonstrate that when an online performance is live there is still a sense that everything is happening ‘right here, right now’. And that is, after all, one of the differences that I have thought of and the virtual space being somewhat ‘specific’ in itself. An example of a theatre company that is constantly performing live in different time zones is GlassMask Theatre—Rex Ryan and Stephen Jones have performed HOWIE THE ROOKIE live in the Sydney, and Dublin time zones (among others). Perhaps the ‘liveness’ of an event offers a different commitment to both performer and spectator: the performer has a higher risk of failure, the spectator does not have the control of time, pauses, etc.
An advantage of (online) theatre is accessibility. Most online performances that I have seen so far were free to attend. So there is a favorable aspect in which theatre/performances and cultural acquisition became somewhat democratic as more people are able to attend and gain cultural knowledge in contrast to quite inaccessible tickets/locations—the notion of classification of art and its audience members by Pierre Bourdieu is, perhaps, blurred under these conditions. Again, nothing is to be generalized in this short article considering, for instance, that not everyone has the means to pay for the internet or to have technological devices. Many theatre houses around the world are also availing archived performances for free, such as The Garnier Opera House in Paris.
Is theatre going to expand in online framing once the world is free? Are audience members accepting online performances as ‘theatre’ as an exception, and would it still be (online) theatre if we were not in pandemic scenarios? Theatre is striving to survive, but is there going to be a hybridization of theatre-film?
As Sarah Jane Scaife (Professor of Drama, Trinity College Dublin) mentioned during the Smashing Times panel recently, maybe the future of theatre will be site-specific.
Maybe theatre will go back to its origins, in a way, and go back to streets, the open space. Open. To all.
[Pause. No curtains.]
