GO TO VID TAPE
Play has to shun stage — but it still lives
New Yorkers can’t go to the theater, but there’s a theater show that can come to them.
Starting Monday, a videotaped performance of Rattlestick Playwrights Theater’s “The Siblings Play” will be available online to both firsttime buyers and anyone who bought tickets prior to the show’s cancellation due to the coronavirus outbreak that forced the closure of all city shows.
Ren Dara Santiago’s Harlem-set drama, about a teenage girl and her two brothers who must raise themselves in their parents’ absence, was set to open Off-Off-Broadway at Rattlestick’s Waverly Place venue in Greenwich Village before the shutdown.
Luckily, Rattlestick artistic director Daniella Topol (inset) had already planned to videotape the play for archival purposes.
“Knowing what was happening, I chose the earliest possible day [to videotape], which was March 14,” Topol said. That turned out to be the final performance.
The opportunity to see the show via a password-protected link for just $15 was the result of a deal between Rattlestick, Actors Equity and the other theatrical unions.
“They were so helpful and flexible,” Topol said.
But there are limitations — Rattlestick cannot sell more on-demand tickets than the 99-seat theater could hold per night and the streaming must end April 5. She doesn’t believe the unions would agree to extending the run, which live shows can do, but it certainly beats the alternative.
“We’re in uncharted territory,” said Topol, adding that she’s even allowing critics to review this version. “This is the work now,” she explained.
Watching a taped play on a computer screen isn’t the ideal medium for what’s meant to be enjoyed as a live performance, but “The Siblings Play” had a three-camera setup that, along with the intimacy of the small theater space, created a surprisingly effective rendering, Santiago said.
“The sound is more forward, but otherwise if you hadn’t seen it live you wouldn’t know the difference,” said the playwright, a self-described Fila-Rican from Yonkers and Harlem who was thrilled her work was recorded so her family outside of New York — and her community, which she believes feels alienated from the theatergoing experience — could see it.
“I hope this makes people realize the theater can be their space, too,” Santiago said.
“Theater, more than film and television, is about community,” she said. “We are all trying to figure out ways to stay connected and theater can be one of them.”