Wednesday, November 11, 2020
Waiting in the wings: how a second lockdown halted theatre's comeback
Theatre | The Guardian: Two of this autumn’s most anticipated UK theatre shows opened last Wednesday – and promptly closed that night. A revival of the classic musical Rent at Manchester’s Hope Mill and a sequel to the hit play Death of England at the National Theatre in London were scuppered by the introduction of a second lockdown in England on 5 November. Their sold-out runs ended after a handful of previews and a press night.
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When I first opened this article, I actually laughed out loud at the small little subtitle that said “culture in peril.” The most dangerous thing people could be choosing to do is to reopen very COVID prone environments and spread this virus. We really need to be waiting for a vaccine and while that sucks monetarily for all theaters internationally, it’s much safer than the alternative of getting sick. I have been following the choice to reopen in the United Kingdom quite closely, mostly out of curiosity. The extremely quick runs of these productions have been a good learning experience for these English theater companies… or at least that is how this article is framing the situation. I think that giving theaters the opportunity to be able to comply with COVID guidelines is important, however, I don’t think many smaller institutions in the United States could actually afford to comply with all the regulations and restrictions.
This is really fascinating to me because I know that the Royal Ballet in London somehow got permission to stay open during London’s second lockdown. I suppose this may be because the Royal Ballet agreed to not perform with any live audiences and will livestream their upcoming performance tomorrow night to people who have bought tickets online. I believe that their agreement during the lockdown also meant that they were allowed to do only one performance of their mixed program instead of going forward with their originally scheduled three. I wonder if it was because the Royal Ballet is only permitting certain dancers to dance with one another if they either live together or have created pods, and most of the shows on the West End have actor’s that are unable to do this. I suppose that would make sense since an entire ballet performance could just be a pas de deux while a musical has so many more characters, and more characters means more opportunities to spread the virus. It’s such a shame that the West End isn’t able to livestream like the Royal Ballet is able to.
When I saw that theatre in London was starting to reopen, I was first excited, but then very confused. Are they really that far along in Covid recovery that they can start opening live productions again? This certainly answers my question. As disappointing as it is, I can't say that I'm surprised. Even if cases have declined past those in the U.S. there, an abundance of caution still needs to be taken. It did make me happy to hear, though, that the government is supporting cultural organizations right now. Hopefully once Biden in inaugurated, we'll see more support for the arts on our side of the pond. I am afraid that shows like Company that got shut down before I got to see them will reopen after a vaccine is released, but it is really hard to know if they'll be able to with all of the money theaters have been losing. It's already so hard for Broadway shows to stay open once ticket sales start dropping, and Broadway being closed for a full year is worrying me.
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