THEATRE PERSISTS
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Jennifer Goff & Julia Moriarty
Publicity Shot for If/Then
When the US outbreak of COVID 19 in the spring of 2020 forced a shutdown of pretty much all public life, let alone performance, both Jen and Julia were in the middle of directing a production. Jen was about 2/3 of the way into The Addams Family: A New Musical with her students at Centre College, while Julia was just days away from opening If/Then with The Barn Players.
I (Jen) have, perhaps, never felt theatre’s ephemerality more acutely than I did as I sat looking out at my students the day that the college announced that they were all being sent home, breaking the news we all knew was coming that the show, this time, would not go on. Speaking through tears, I invoked a word I learned from Sarah Ruhl’s The Melancholy Play : Saudade. Saudade is a Portuguese word that speaks of a sort of nostalgia for a thing that never really was. Even if we were able to continue work on the show in the fall (oh, how optimistic we all were in those early pandemic days!), some of our students would have graduated, some of our students would be studying abroad, and still others simply wouldn’t have the time. The play as we had rehearsed it with these people at this time would never be. But the fact that this show never truly existed did not eliminate the feeling of loss. In what turned out to be the last crowded classroom I would inhabit in 2020, we stood together and we mourned.
I (Jen) have, perhaps, never felt theatre’s ephemerality more acutely than I did as I sat looking out at my students the day that the college announced that they were all being sent home, breaking the news we all knew was coming that the show, this time, would not go on. Speaking through tears, I invoked a word I learned from Sarah Ruhl’s The Melancholy Play : Saudade. Saudade is a Portuguese word that speaks of a sort of nostalgia for a thing that never really was. Even if we were able to continue work on the show in the fall (oh, how optimistic we all were in those early pandemic days!), some of our students would have graduated, some of our students would be studying abroad, and still others simply wouldn’t have the time. The play as we had rehearsed it with these people at this time would never be. But the fact that this show never truly existed did not eliminate the feeling of loss. In what turned out to be the last crowded classroom I would inhabit in 2020, we stood together and we mourned.
The Moon, Wednesday, and Pugsley - design and renderings by MJ Hall
In the months following the initial shock of lockdown, we have seen theatres around the world shuttered indefinitely as every nation struggles to find its way in the face of this insidious and invisible foe. And as every country, town, and zip code struggles with “re-opening,” it becomes clearer each day that the road back for the performing arts may well be the longest and most indirect of all. Headlines crying out the bleak meditation “Is this the end of theatre?” pepper all of our social media feeds, and in our darkest moments, each one of us has sadly whispered, “Maybe it is.”
But history reminds us time and again of theatre’s resilience. And it is that resilience that we feature at the heart of this issue. The artists and scholars herein celebrate the power of theatrical ingenuity to take on a crisis – not only our current crisis – and to rise above. Verena Arndt explores the unlikely world of musical theatre for its attempts to grapple with and even provide a voice for the unending pain of the Shoah in “Theatre in a Graveyard? Representations of the Holocaust in Musical Theatre.” As the Black Lives Matter movement continues to be as vital and urgent as ever, Nathan Bowman tracks the deeply human impulse for the public expression of grief in the face of injustice in “Public Horror: The Monstrous Other and Antigone in Ferguson.” Scott Knowles takes on an insidious and persistent epidemic in “Remaking Masculinity: Split Britches, Killer Lesbians, and the Cultural Disruption of Masculine Violence.”
But history reminds us time and again of theatre’s resilience. And it is that resilience that we feature at the heart of this issue. The artists and scholars herein celebrate the power of theatrical ingenuity to take on a crisis – not only our current crisis – and to rise above. Verena Arndt explores the unlikely world of musical theatre for its attempts to grapple with and even provide a voice for the unending pain of the Shoah in “Theatre in a Graveyard? Representations of the Holocaust in Musical Theatre.” As the Black Lives Matter movement continues to be as vital and urgent as ever, Nathan Bowman tracks the deeply human impulse for the public expression of grief in the face of injustice in “Public Horror: The Monstrous Other and Antigone in Ferguson.” Scott Knowles takes on an insidious and persistent epidemic in “Remaking Masculinity: Split Britches, Killer Lesbians, and the Cultural Disruption of Masculine Violence.”
Blocking plan from If/Then
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Model of The Addams Family set - Design and model by Matthew Hallock
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As thousands of theatre buildings still remain empty, and artists around the globe begin the painstaking and often painful work of imagining a theatre that can not only survive but thrive in a post-COVID world, Colm Summers meditates on liveness and the technological turn of digital theatre in “This Will Never Catch On.” Juliana Moraes creates a space that can be shared through public projection in her ongoing project, “Dance to Ward Off the Plague. Mary Anderson engages her colleagues in a heartfelt and nuanced conversation as they reflect on what we have lost, what we continue to lose, and where we might find hope in “The Hundred Thousand.” And both Julia and Jen took time to speak to theatre companies who are leading the way into the digital frontier – Colvin Theatrical and The Women’s Theatre Festival.
But even as we consider the theatre that has lifted us up before and the conversations that will move us forward, our sense of saudade still pulled at us, calling on us to celebrate the work that was, but never was. Joe Court and Veronica Santoyo take us through a detailed retelling of their inventive sound design process for The House of Bernarda Alba, celebrating the one chance they had to share it with an audience. And in our "Unfinished" design essay section, a handful of designers share their processes in the various stages in which they were left: Macbeth, Pure Native, #metoo and SLU, Sun Kissed Montañas, Little Shop of Horrors, Bonnets, and Measure for Measure all felt COVID’s sting when they were shut down this spring. And we are now their audience.
It’s true that so many interrupted performances never had the chance to be seen, and it’s true that the loss is real. But equally real are the accomplishments that had been made in all of those processes. Equally real is the inventiveness of the artists innovating new modes of performance and engagement as we speak. Equally real is the legacy of art that challenges its audience and its world to be better. And equally real is the ongoing responsibility, power, and love that we share as makers and viewers.
Theatre is part of us. Theatre is not dead. Theatre persists.
But even as we consider the theatre that has lifted us up before and the conversations that will move us forward, our sense of saudade still pulled at us, calling on us to celebrate the work that was, but never was. Joe Court and Veronica Santoyo take us through a detailed retelling of their inventive sound design process for The House of Bernarda Alba, celebrating the one chance they had to share it with an audience. And in our "Unfinished" design essay section, a handful of designers share their processes in the various stages in which they were left: Macbeth, Pure Native, #metoo and SLU, Sun Kissed Montañas, Little Shop of Horrors, Bonnets, and Measure for Measure all felt COVID’s sting when they were shut down this spring. And we are now their audience.
It’s true that so many interrupted performances never had the chance to be seen, and it’s true that the loss is real. But equally real are the accomplishments that had been made in all of those processes. Equally real is the inventiveness of the artists innovating new modes of performance and engagement as we speak. Equally real is the legacy of art that challenges its audience and its world to be better. And equally real is the ongoing responsibility, power, and love that we share as makers and viewers.
Theatre is part of us. Theatre is not dead. Theatre persists.
