National Post (National Edition)
All the world’s a stage – online
In 1984, George Orwell’s iconic 1949 novel about a future totalitarian dystopia, everyone had a “telescreen.” It couldn’t be turned off, so people were forced to watch Big Brother’s propaganda continuously. Worse, the telescreen could spy on them. The image was so powerful and disturbing, many early readers were afraid to buy the recently invented televisions that had inspired it.
Our 2020 telescreens — computers — are only partially Orwellian. We are indeed spied upon by Big Algorithm, and sometimes punished on social media for Thought Crimes, but in this pandemic dystopia, it is Contact Crime that will land you in real trouble with the state. Unlike telescreens, however, our computers are a cherished portal into pleasurable entertainment escape from the drumbeat of bad news, partisan politics, loneliness and anxiety.
These are devastating times for people in the entertainment industry, hit by the lockdown with brutal force. Most entertainers lead precariously insecure lives at the best of times, supplementing acting gigs with jobs in the hospitality trade. The ban on gatherings that affects restaurants and all performance spaces came as a double whammy in New York, the U.S. epicentre for both live entertainment and coronavirus suffering.
Broadway may be dark, but the show is still going on. The blessing of video streaming is bringing “live” theatre to audiences, so much and so varied you’d be hardpressed to discover it all on your own. Fortunately, Adam Feldman, a theatre critic for Time Out New York, sidelined from his regular work for the duration, has addressed and solved that problem for you.
Feldman is running a daily blog at timeout.com, in which he does a daily roundup of the best entertainment content available online, from filmed performances of the Metropolitan Opera to England’s National Theatre productions to a twicedaily program (2 and 8 p.m., normal theatre show times) called Stars in the House, where SiriusXM host Seth Rudetsky and his husband, producer James Wesley, interview theatre stars between songs.
A few days ago, for example, you could have watched a 2 p.m. reading — a one-off — of The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, a 2000 hit play, read by Andrea Martin, Charles Busch and Richard Kind, who are quarantined in different countries. No director or rehearsal. But brilliantly synced from their separate locations.
Checking out the blog on April 6, I found a cornucopia of options: a video of Mozart’s 1775 comic opera, The Secret Gardener, originally staged in 2017; a video of Shakespeare’s Globe’s Hamlet, one of 34 Shakespearean plays to be rolled out by this company every Monday night at 6 p.m. through June; to honour playwright Terry McNally, who died last month of coronavirus complications, an 8 p.m. reading of his 1991 play, Lips Together, Teeth Apart (donations benefit the AIDS COVID-19 Emergency Assistance Fund); by Crowdcast (a Zoom-type app), Mondays in the Club with Lance (Horne), songwriter, pianist and performer, “who hosts his own wild night of piano-bar singing, storytelling and dancing at the East Village nightlife hub Club Cumming,” where visitors can sing along from home and make requests (donations to the non-profit Orchard Project); show tunes at Marie’s Crisis Virtual Piano Bar (where Adam Feldman can sometimes be found singing on Open Mic nights); and the National Yiddish Theatre doing sketch comedy on “Kovid.” Twice last week the Pulitzerand Tony-winning play, The Heidi Chronicles, was read by the whole original cast.
There are different availability models. The Met Opera has a 24-hour window. Andrew Lloyd Webber gives you 48 hours. The Metropolitan Opera shows a different archived performance every evening at 7:30 p.m.; April 6 was Aida. And as a bonus, London’s National Theatre is dipping into its treasure trove of past productions to show one a week, available for a week — I have seen a number of these filmed National Theatre performances in theatres; the production values are to die for — and kicking them off is the 2011 farce, One Man, Two Guvnors, the show that made James Corden a major star.
There’s lots more. Feldman is working 14-hour days amassing this material, so you can choose a week’s fabulous entertainment in 14 minutes. He annotates everything succinctly, a great help in finding what you fancy.
Some of what is offered is pay-per-view, but most of it is free, although donations, which may go to the individual artist, or charities like the Actors Fund and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, are strongly encouraged.
In this dystopian historical moment, it’s a pleasure but also a duty to support artistic expression. Give your regards to — and show your regard for — Broadway, with your attendance at performances, and by your generosity. It’s not charity. Because the entertainment bang you get for your buck is — how shall I say? — oh yes: tripleplusgood.