The ghost lights remain lit
Darkness and frustration, creativity and hope filled year unlike any other
In a normal year, a Chicago theaterwould announce a season once. In 2020, theaters made their plans and ripped them up. Over and over again.
In a usual year, painters, carpenters andwelders in theaters and arts centers across the citywould protect themselves with gloves and masks. In 2020, with their shops idle and their hearts full, technical staffers marched their precious personal protective equipment directly into the nearest hospital.
In a regular year, arts jobswould not disappear en masse and the streets outside theaterswould not fill with protesters and fury. Theaterswould not try and transform themselves overnight intomovie studios and tech hubs. Actorswould not build sets inside their houses, nor dancers perform in their kitchens. Creative career decisionswould not be questioned in bouts of depression or loneliness or anger at persistent inequity. Arts loverswould not be forced to stay home for their own health. Venerable, beloved institutionswould not be starved of all box office income and allowed to go bust in the night.
And solitary bulbs on poleswould not take over spaces when generations of Chicagoans and suburbanites and tourists could count on there being a live show.
Ghost lights, the single-bulb safety lights left lit on stage when theaters are empty, were the big winners of the great performing arts pandemic of 2020, and they celebrated along with their close cousins from the similarly ailing restaurant business, heat lamps.
But then, nothing about 2020 had precedent. Not even the great flu pandemic of 1918, when theaters widelywere seen as safer than the outdoors. No recession could compare to total annihilation. Even though the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, had closed down theaters, theywere back by Sept. 13, attendance demanded by government and rendered a point of patriotic pride. Not this time. Not in this year.
COVID-19 upended theworld but its impactwas disproportionate. As day-trading tech investors watched their portfolios grow, andHollywood executives pivoted to at-home streaming at the expense of themovie theater owners who built their business for them, live entertainment faced devastation at every turn. Sure, therewere virtual seasons and fundraisers, and a few dancers in the park. And therewas a modicum of temporary help fromgovernment programs. But the smarter minds knew at the outset therewas only one endgame to the absurdist arts drama that was 2020: a vaccine.
So much happened so fast. The first tenweeks of the year nowseem like an alternate universe.
“Hamilton” left Chicago in January with $400 million in grosses, the kind of head-spinning figure that manywonder if Broadway ever will see again. “I feel joy and pleasure and satisfaction,” said the show’s lead producer Jeffrey Seller, expressing emotions that 2020was about to kick in the teeth. Teatro ZinZanni, a visitor-oriented circus show, continued in the Loop with the seemingly reasonable assumption that there would be tourists in Chicago in the summer of 2020. Wrong.
A critic made notes for a potential top-10 list of the year. A surprisingly truthful “Grease” (yes, “Grease”) at theMarriott Theatre in Lincolnshire. An interactive version of “Boys in the Band” at theWindy City Playhouse, rippling with caustic wit. A hypnotizing February revival of Tracy Letts’ “Bug” at the Steppenwolf Theatre, featuring not only sizzling acting from Namir Smallwood and Carrie Coon but one of the
most exciting set changes (the work of designer Takeshi Kata and directorDavid Cromer) in the illustrious history of Steppenwolf.
“Bug” is the showto beat, he thought in February, at least until he sawthe Goodman Theatreworld premiere of “Graveyard Shift,” a play by korde arrington tuttle inspired by the 2015 death in police custody of 28-year-old Sandra Bland. “Graveyard Shift” was superbly directed byDanya Taymor. As the year unfolded, its themes would prove prescient.
And then therewas the Broadway in Chicago presentation of “What the Constitution Means toMe,” so brilliantly performed in Chicago byMaria Dizzia as to even improve upon the turn by this solo show’s author, Heidi Schreck.
Itwas going to be a very difficult set of choices. Until the theaters closed, all in a flurry on and around the middle ofMarch.
In theweeks that followed, the storieswere of layoffs and pleas for helps, of unsolicited acts of kindness and confusion, of forlorn cries of what the theater means to me. One company, TheaterWit, figured out quickly that its supporters might still attend a showif itwere delivered to them on a computer. The Lakeview venue had such a showalready in production and so inventivewas its idea of selling tickets at the regular showtime, walking audience members through the lobby and following it all up with a talkback, that a national news network reported on this phenomenon.
A phenomenon that soon would become routine.
But the summerwas marked by confusion, of theaters not knowing howto survive this crisis. Social media filled with angry points of view, born of a community and a city under stress. Some vehemently insisted that any kind of live performancewas immoral and they would shame anyone who tried. Others argued that the collateral damagewould then beworse than any risk taken.
Nobody had any experience of amoment when live performance might do a city harm. Nobody.
As summerwarmed, the city exploded and its largely activist and progressive arts community took to the streets. Arts leaders with big salaries and poor records of diversity became uncomfortable on their Zooms. Young artists with anti-capitalist leanings took aim not just at company histories of inequity and exclusion, but also at the core practices of a dysfunctional profession that had, for decades, treated itsworkers as lucky to have even the lowliest of jobs, if thatwas even a fair noun to use for such lousy pay. This will no longer stand, they said, as they marched past boarded-up theaters, decrying the lack of support and knowing that administrators, elite artistic directors and boards of directors stood behind those barriers.
Demands for changewere made. Resignations, both voluntary and otherwise, occurred. Accusationswere made, fairly and not. Defensive statements were issued, or not. Promises were constructed, or not.
But with the theaters closed, it was impossible to knowwhat was real. Was the establishment using this moment to change the tier belowto maintain its own grip on power? Were the protesting artists missing the real enemies and risking self-destruction? Did they have any understanding of financial imperatives? Were they naively waiting for governmental aid thatwould never come because it had never really come for the arts, ever? Not in America.
Was history being forgotten or just better remembered? And
what about the audience? Who were they nowandwould they return?
No one knew for sure. But, in 2020, the freelance artists whose work made up a city’s artistic community became emboldened by their distance fromthe imperative to be subservient to anyone who might ever employ them, a creed long taught in theater schools. Even as the theaters had closed, theworld had spun forward and demands for change had increased. Working in dangerous physical spaces oncewas a badge of honor for a Chicago actor or dancer. Not after 2020.
As the fall came, with no respite in sight, theaters and dance companies reluctantly gave up on their winter 2021 seasons, retaining hope for the following summer, especially outdoors. Some companies
decided that thoseHollywood executiveswere on to something and they foundways to make their streaming shows both excellent and live.
A critic who had turned to reviewing online shows from Chicago theaters began to mull another top-10 list, one unique, he hoped, to 2020.
“45 Plays for America’s First Ladies” at theNeo-Futurists. Brilliant. “Run the Beast Down” at Strawdog. Compelling. “The Spin” at Interrobang. TheHubbard Street dancers. Howdid they pull that off? What courage! What persistence!
But he stopped. The new list was suffused with sadness. Anyway, apples to oranges, not the right year, onward and upward and, yes, differently fromhere.