theconversation.com: Indoor theatre is back. Despite audiences being inscrutable in masks, I’ve seen two packed shows and begun to believe that theatres are finally recovering after a dreadful year. But the outdoor experiments that have kept theatre’s flame alight during the pandemic shouldn’t be cast aside in the process.
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I agree that outdoor theater had a very welcome resurgence this past year that I hope sticks around. I really enjoyed going to Shakespeare in the Park during the summer in high school. I do think, however, that outdoor theater has its place and I don’t really think we should push to keep doing outdoor theater when it doesn’t make sense to like when it gets to be winter or it is not conducive to what the show is trying to achieve. I think that outdoor theater is oftentimes too expensive to do well. Sure, you could do a show outside with minimal set and no expensive instruments so inclement weather is less of a concern, but the show won’t be as good. Putting on good outdoor theater is a challenge because it requires a completely different inventory and a different set of skills from the people working on it.
I really do enjoy outdoor theatre. It is a very different experience from theatre indoors, though is unique and fun in its own way. It also presents some interesting design challenges in all departments, as being in an uncontrolled more variable setting can have a major effect on how scenery will read, how lights will be able to be placed and effectively used, if at all, and the acoustics of a place without walls. That being said, being outdoors can also give a much more natural, raw feeling to any given piece, especially if the action of the specific piece is meant to take place outdoors. With outdoor theatre, we are truly returning to the roots and origins of theatre as we know it today. The ancient Greeks were the forefathers of modern theatre and they did all of their dramatic pieces in the outdoors, in carefully designed amphitheatres. I had the opportunity to work on a couple of outdoor theatre pieces this past summer and had a lot of fun working through the challenges of working in such a new and different environment than I am used to.
COVID pushed theatre to a lot of different spaces, and one of them was the great outdoors. While theatre historically has been mostly done outdoors until about 200 years ago, it hadn’t been nearly as popular in modern times until the pandemic showed us that being outdoors was much safer than being crowded indoors like we’re used to. This article brings up the fact that outdoor theatre is much more communal, open, and accessible and should be more commonplace even as we leave this state of pandemic. This ties into the research I’ve been doing with Theatre of the Oppressed, in terms of breaking down social boundaries between audience and performer and physical boundaries between seating and stage. While the outdoors is not perfect as a technician, it opens up so many possibilities to be explored and for stories to not be perfect, just as how life isn’t perfect. When theatre is done outdoors, it incorporates the environment with the performance, immersing the audience in a story and integrating them into it. I’ve done some theatre outdoors before, but I’m excited to at some point explore it further through this lens.
When people mention outdoor theatre, a number of things come to mind, though they are largely due to personal experience. First of them is King Lear, which the high school across town back home did on the steps of their theater. I heard it was good, but it was also goddamn cold and rainy most of the time, which was a bummer for everyone and the lights. Second thing that comes to mind is the Good Person of Szechwan, which I saw on an outdoor stage. I was trying to comprehend the lighting for the show, having to transition from lighting in daylight to lighting in the dark, which I'm sure was a fun challenge for the designer. Third thing that comes to mind, similar to Good Person, is having a story that transitions from day to night. Having that built into the story is probably so powerful when you get to do it outdoors in actual twilight, and I would love to see that happen.
This article is a great reminder that there were some theatrical practices that were either reinvented or created during the pandemic that should not necessarily be forgotten now that we can safely sit in a typical theatre setting. I didn’t realize that doing theatre outside in nature wasn’t just a safety protocol but added to the experience created by the performers and the piece itself which shouldn’t be forgotten even though it is now safe to perform shows inside. Personally, I agree with this article in that doing productions outside in nature add another dimension to a piece and the experience of the audience. I also believe that a performance in any unconventional setting can really add to the storytelling taking place as it is relevant to the script. In high school, I was able to stage manage a play in a lobby rather than the theatre we had access to. This proved a new and exciting challenge for everyone involved including myself as I called the entire show using cue lights. Therefore, doing theatre in unconventional spaces does not only keep it interesting for the actors and audience members, but provides a new and exciting challenge for the technical components.
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