2020. A year of self-reflection.
It is no secret this year has been tough for everyone on every level and has devastated the world economy, people’s mental health, and has taken with it many many precious lives. It has been hard for the poor, and for the rich, it terrified the most courageous and/or stupid people, it has sent some into denial, and others into neurosis. The lockdowns have taken some of our basic rights and freedoms, as well as some of our ability for spontaneity, and it will be the years to come that will reveal the full impact this precedent has had on us.
Of course, it has affected theatre. Everyone is talking about the horrible financial loss the COVID has had on the theatre industry, the jobs lost, the social ads telling us to change careers. But I am an optimist. So now, when the year is almost up, and, hopefully, the new one liberates is from the constraints of self-isolation and constant fear, I want to talk about the incredible hope and inspiration the people, especially artists in theatre, have given me.
When the theatres first shut down this spring, and everyone’s plans went up in flames, many people adapted. The Shows Must Go On, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s YouTube account started doing weekend showings of all our favourite musicals. I remember gathering before the TV and messaging my sister and friends on whatsapp as we were watching Jesus Christ Superstar apart, but together all the same. Suddenly, all kinds of theatres went online, with their pre-recorded shows. Others tried experimenting with online performances, a friend from St Petersburg, in collaboration with a Ukrainian theatre Mizanthrope have done a series of Zoom performances in a format of one-on-one absurdist pseudo-psychiatric sessions with an audience member, another Ukrainian contemporary dance artist, Aleksander Manshilin, invented online theatre platforms that would project a performer onto your keyboard, which is currently in development.
Still, as summer came, more theatres were talking about possible bankruptcy. Yet despite the gloominess of these news, the depressing articles being written, I did not see people closing up shop.
It is a truth that keeps proving itself to me this year over and over and over again: people find a way. People find strength. People find hope. Funding was found or lobbied, and sure, it’s still not enough, it will never be enough, but we are not going under just yet. And we never will because we will always fight. If theatre were to go under, it would have disappeared the moment film was invented.
That’s something else we discovered this year: theatre is its own form, and despite everything, it will prevail. For we have experimented, we have tried to do shows online, to adapt somehow, but none of it really fills the gap. The gap, which is the desire of people to go out, meet others, sit in a dark room, and experience a live performance collectively, in real time.
While theatres have for the most part been closed in the UK, I have visited Ukraine, where they re-opened in September, business as usual (almost), and the thing is – people came. Despite all the fears, people filled out the theatre, people applauded, people brought flowers to the actors, they laughed and cried, because theatre is essential for life. It is something that, like life, cannot be experienced alone. Like in life, every single participant, from actors, to sound and lighting techs to audience members, impacts each other with their energy, their mood, their inspiration, creating a completely unique blend of experience.
Theatre has had an incredibly tough year. It has taken once again, to re-evaluation of its principles and necessities. And it rediscovered itself.
The years ahead will be different. But, as we know, different is not necessarily a bad thing.