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| Gillian Anderson in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Young Vic in 2016 |
I miss theatre.
I miss a lot of things but theatre was a weekly fixture in
my life.
I write plays and I review plays and even if I wasn’t
reviewing, watching theatre was always an opportunity to learn more about how
theatre worked. And to be entertained.
The experience of theatre is ephemeral. A play changes every
night. It’s living and breathing. And once it’s gone, it’s gone.
And then it turned out the existence of theatre is ephemeral,
too. And within a week in March, my thoughts turned from “should I be sitting
in a large audience” to “wow, theatres are all closed, I wonder how long this will
last”.
At the start of the pandemic, I made a pretty conscious
decision that I would take time away from playwriting. The world had changed so
suddenly and so had my daily life and trying to find the passion and energy for
creativity seemed like too much of an extra burden. Fuck all this talk of
Shakespeare writing King Lear during the plague, I’d be kind to myself
and put projects on hold.
Collaborators understood. They were all going through their
own reckonings with how to survive without work or with streaming or home
school.
I thought, though, I would keep reviewing. I might try to
find ways to connect the TV series I binged with the theatre that was missing
from my life. If I had reviewed Succession, for example, I would have
talked about the writers’ room being filled by playwrights.
And very soon, there was talk of streaming theatre. I’d
definitely, absolutely, watch lots of streaming theatre and write about those
productions.
That never happened, either.
I didn’t even watch as much streaming theatre as I thought.
Some of it I downloaded to watch later. Some I missed because I had a bad week
or because you had to watch that stream at a particular day or time, otherwise,
like actual theatre, it would disappear, never to be seen again.
Theatres were trying different things to try to survive the
shutdown. Some cancelled months ahead. Some took an axe to the rest of their
year. Some rushed new work online and some, with healthy archives like the
National Theatre in London, started to put older productions on YouTube for the
world to see.
And none of it was like being in a theatre. But some of it
was able to give me things I missed.
The National Theatre has been screening films in cinemas for
years, so they had a lot of good quality, professionally produced product that
was designed for non-theatre audiences. These aren’t just archival recordings so
that people doing research can study theatrical technique, these were already
prepared to be seen on the screen.
The first production they streamed was One Man, Two Guv’nors
which I had seen on Broadway in 2014, but their first month’s roster was more
interesting. I only really got excited when they announced they were streaming
the Young Vic’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Benedict
Andrews, starring Gillian Anderson.
In the weeks leading up to this, though, I had watched
readings via Zoom and live performances of new work and anticipated new content
from local creators and overseas artists, while also spending a lot of time in
Zoom meetings and watching Q&As via Zoom and catching up with friends that
way, as well. So live theatre was already blurring in with every day elements
of my life.
The screen time was getting too much. And a lot of the
content that was rushed out was poor or suffered from technical difficulties.
The only thing a lot of these experiments captured about theatre was the live
nature and you had to be in front of your screen at a certain time. Both of
these things had their downsides.
The National Theatre broadcasts were limited to a week only,
but otherwise they are beautifully shot and they captured a live performance from
many years earlier. So, it’s appointment viewing, but you could watch at any
time during that week or find ways to save for later. This was much more
appealing than Zoom readings at particular times, some of which tried so hard
to find windows that would suit audiences in New York, London and Sydney all at
once.
I was more and more impressed with newly-created streaming
theatre content in June than I was in the early days of April. By then the
technical difficulties hadn’t entirely disappeared, but some of the limitations
had been overcome. While most embraced the direct-to-camera style, some played
with the Zoom box structure and sometimes the occasional camera movement helped
enormously.
I was glad the Malthouse Theatre commissioned new works from
three playwrights for their Lockdown Monologues and took their time with
writing and producing the works, the third and final instalment streaming only
last Friday night. I thought the series got stronger as it went on, as well,
and in some ways this might be a good ongoing feature in the Malthouse’s arsenal.
Though I would hope that there are additional opportunities to watch if you can’t
sit down at the premiere time.
The three-night monologue festival, Dear Australia, from
Playwriting Australia is still online, though from the advertising I really
thought it would disappear once it was streamed for the first time. I’ve only
seen the first night so far and I’m glad I’ll be able to watch the rest
sometime soon, because it showcases the work on new writing from fifty playwrights
and fifty performers. As with any night of monologues, it was hit and miss but
some of it was devastatingly dramatic and others were hilariously funny.
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| Toby Schmidt in Thom Pain (based on nothing) streamed last week from the Old Fitz in Sydney |
Red Line Productions in Sydney started out with readings and
then, last week, they streamed a season of Thom Pain (Based on Nothing) by Will
Eno, starring Toby Schmidt. It was performed five times over the week, so the audience
had a chance to pick a night and it was it was always live snd there were nine
cameras in the Old Fitz Theatre to capture Toby’s performance. It lasted an
hour and, was a complex, complicated piece of non-linear narrative that was
beautifully shot with a layered, captivating performance at the centre.
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is one
of my favourite plays, though I’ve only read it, seen a reading and watched the
feature film version starring Vivien Leigh. I’ve never seen it on stage. The
Young Vic production modernised it in some ways, but never really threw off the
shackles of the period it was written in and originally set. And it was fully
designed for the theatre experience, with the whole set on a revolve that
starts spinning as soon as Blanche enters the play.
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| The stage for A Streetcard Name Desire |
It’s impossible for cameras to capture the feeling of being
a few metres away from performers or feeling claustrophobic in a small space or
how it must have felt to watch Blanche and the rest of the characters spinning
out of control in front of an audience at the Young Vic. It’s hard to know if a
fixed camera might have helped in some ways, but then when you’re in a theatre,
you can choose to look where you want – and a fixed camera is a more limited
point of view.
What it absolutely did capture and preserve was Gillian
Anderson’s astonishing performance. And that made this recording absolutely
worth watching, even as I sat there thinking about what I was missing out on. Then,
after the play ended, as the credits rolled (which is entirely non-theatrical),
I watched as the audience started to exit the theatre, while some stayed in
their seats and talked to fellow theatre-goers, unable to leave the space
without first trying to process what they’d just seen. I know that feeling well
and it made me miss post-show discussions very much.
Somewhere, in amongst all of this streaming theatre that other
people made, a short play of mine was streamed live from London a couple of
weeks ago and I got up at the ongodly hour of 5am to watch it live, because I
wanted that experience – and there was a post-show drinks/catch-up on Zoom with
folks in London and America and Europe and me in Melbourne celebrating a job
well done.
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| Rachel Nott in Like A House on Fire from 2016 |
Encompass Productions had produced my short Like A House
on Fire in 2016 at one of their house shows and wanted to bring it back
because it was so popular. It streamed as part of their Bare E-ssential series
with three other short plays and the full show is still online for people to
catch up with. And it was an odd experience, having only ever seen it performed
live where the comedy is supported by generous audience laughter. Watching it online, and alone, it was stripped of that. But I’m reliably informed by other
people that they laughed a lot.
And then, after all these months, and just as some countries
are opening up and my state is slowly getting locked down again, Disney+ released
the most anticipated piece of streaming theatre of the whole pandemic, Hamilton.
I am lucky to have seen Hamilton on stage twice
already, once in San Francisco in 2017 and once in London in 2019. The first
time was overwhelming; having loved the cast recording for a few years, I wasn’t
quite prepared for the show to live up to its hype and, in some ways, surpass
it. You can’t really be prepared for the choreography to lift the words and the
story to a greater level than you thought possible. And as with all live
theatre, seeing those words sung live adds a whole new dimension that a
perfectly polished cast recording can never capture.
I never saw the original Broadway cast, of course, so the
fact a performance in June 2016 had been captured was always enticing. When
Disney announced, last year, they had acquired the theatrical rights to screen
it in cinemas in October 2021, I was already counting down – while also excited
for the prospect of the stage show to premiere in Sydney in March 2021.
All of Broadway is filmed for archival purposes, but these
will never be released and none are filmed to the level of the National Theatre
broadcasts or – above and beyond – like this film of Hamilton is. The
show was filmed four times, twice in front of an audience and twice without.
The times without allowed cameras on stage to get impressive close-ups of these
actors giving the performances of their careers. Tony-nominated and Tony-award
winning performances on Disney+ forever.
With multiple performances on film, it allowed director Thomas
Kail (original stage director and now director of this filmed version) to make
choices, find the right angles, and edit the footage together to try to
recreate some of the feeling of being in the theatre, even knowing there are
limits to the medium of stage-on-film.
It’s a remarkable achievement technically but it’s also
extraordinary how widely available it now is and how many people are being exposed
to musical theatre and Hamilton for the first time. After living through
the original raves at the Public Theatre in 2015 and the continuing phenomenon
as it transferred to Broadway and started breaking box office records, it’s
amazing to watch now as a whole new audience finds the show. Some are theatre
nerds who couldn’t get to see the show, due to cost or location. Some are
occasional theatre-goers who have heard of it, but don’t know the cast
recording backward.
And some are people who have rarely been to the theatre in
their lives and only really know Hamilton exists because it now streams
on one of the biggest content platforms in the world. It’s a real joy to watch
YouTube reviews from people who normally review film and television, who are
desperate for new things to cover, deciding to try Hamilton and it blows
them all away.
When streaming theatre began to bubble up in April, as some
theatres tried to use it as a fundraising effort, I wondered if perhaps access
to theatre online might boost future theatre box office. If people get to
sample theatre online for free – or a donation – maybe they will want to check
out live theatre, whenever that can happen again.
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| Claire Foy and Matt Smith in Lungs streamed from the Old Vic |
And, for theatres in the future, streaming theatre might be
a way to supplement their income, if their bricks and mortar spaces have to have
reduced capacities. Companies are now experimenting with paywalls, so you have
to buy a ticket to see a streamed performance. Not surprisingly, the Old Vic’s two-week
streaming season of Lungs starring Matt Smith and Claire Foy sold out quickly
– added performances were released and added “seats” became available during
the run.
There’s no way of knowing when theatres will return. The
Australian and UK governments – both conservative with little interest in
saving the arts – have thrown lifelines that may prop up institutions but
mostly won’t help freelance or independent practitioners. So hopefully the
theatres themselves last long enough to re-open.
But when they do, I suspect streaming theatre won’t ever
disappear. Who knows what it will look like yet? Perhaps shows will go online
once their live dates have passed. Perhaps half the audience will always be at
home, pants-off and in front of the television.
This is the birth of a new age of Streaming/Theatre. It’s
not quite theatre, but it’s definitely another way to experience it now and in
the future. Until I can – and feel comfortable to – walk into a theatre foyer
again, I’m glad we have this outlet. Theatre has lasted two-and-a-half thousand
years so far. The Elizabethan stage was closed because of the plague. I’m not
ready to give on up on live theatre any time soon, but it’s exciting that we
have this new form that artists can play with and experiment with and turn into
something extraordinary. Even without the budget of Hamilton and the
backing of Disney+.
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| Hamilton in 2016 now streaming on Disney+ |
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