Theatres: an opportunity for reinvention?
The lights are set to come back up in English theatres this weekend, said James Pickford in the FT. For the first time in five months, people will be able to see a live indoor performance. But it won’t be the usual theatre-going experience. Social distancing restrictions will still apply, so venues will need to keep performers apart, and ensure that audience members are seated at a suitable distance from each other. An industry body estimates that Covid restrictions will only enable venues to sell up to 30% of seats – far below the 65% required by most productions to break even.
The outlook for the industry is grim, said Charlotte Lytton in The Daily Telegraph. “How many plays lend themselves to dialogue spoken across a two-metre void? How many fans of live art, of which the mood and moment are everything, want to sit in a half-empty room in midAugust?” There have been 5,000 theatre job losses since lockdown began, and, without more help, our country’s cultural institutions will suffer lasting damage. Ministers have promised a £1.57bn aid package for museums, theatres and music venues, said Lyn Gardner on The Stage, but this won’t go far. Venues would normally be looking forward to the lucrative pantomime season. The loss of that revenue will hit hard. “Once theatre buildings shut, they may never reopen.”
Theatre has survived everything from Puritanism to Netflix, said the playwright James Graham in the FT, and it can survive this. To do so, though, it must focus on the local. Rather than spending scant resources on “preserving buildings in aspic until the climate settles”, let’s concentrate on reviving regional theatre, and use the aid package to make up for the cost of performing work to quarter-full houses. The important thing is to get “actors acting, directors directing, set designers designing, writers writing, ushers ushering”. Nottingham Playhouse is pushing ahead with its socially distanced Christmas show. If indoor performances are banned, it plans to do something outdoors instead, using live music and interactivity. If other venues show the same resourcefulness, and local authorities play ball, this crisis could help the theatre reinvent itself.