Where does theatre stand in the midst of reopening?
With more and more reopening over the coming weeks and the country getting back to normal, there’s one question that hasn’t been answered for us theatre nerds – when can we go and see a show?
Pubs, restaurants and cinemas all opened up last week – which is so great to see – but with every other cultural and entertainment facility seeming to either be opened up or have a date set, theatre has been kind of left in the dark.
With dozens of shows constantly being either canceled or postponed, some of us are getting tired of waiting for a date.
When the plan to reopen the country was announced by the government, theatres were told they could open along with cinemas, and as great as that sounded, it wasn’t enough time for them to get a show in production.
Speaking to Neil Murray, co-director at The Abbey Theatre in Dublin, he explained that reopening just isn’t possible for a lot of theatres.
He said: “Theatre shows don’t just happen overnight and they need to be in rehearsal, or they need tech and all of those things.”
“It’s a maximum of 50 people in theatres at the moment and it has to be a two metre social distancing, although you can be in pods of up to 6 people, so it’s something. It’s the start of getting back to a live audience.”
“Well, you know, theatre shows takes, from the first day of rehearsal to opening night at the Abbey is a seven week process, so you cant suddenly go ‘oh great we’re open’.”
“The Abbey’s fortunate in that we are the best funded theatre company in Ireland, the national theatre, we can obviously afford to do this [putting on a show to 50 people], however the reality is for some smaller venues and smaller theatres who don’t have the level of funding we do, it’s simply uneconomical to play to the two metre socially distanced. It certainly isn’t feasible for them to do any work, I don’t see how they could.”
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The Abbey is funded by both the government and the Arts Council of Ireland, unlike a lot of others in the country. So when it comes to booking shows, many are relying on UK tours to come over here, which of course is not recommended at the moment.
Neil said: “Those other theatres, both the larger commercial theatres and the smaller independent theatres, can’t do that, so you’re going to have very few shows happening until attendance is rolled out and we can have somewhere near 50% before people will be really able to risk putting work on again.”
“You’re not going to see many shows until that social distancing is relaxed and you see theatres opening their doors more widely again.”
The Abbey has a show set to open on Monday and run for a week. It was initially meant to be streamed only but now can have a small audience.
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While Neil says it’s still not the full experience, it’s better than nothing and if all goes well, he hopes the numbers can increase.
“It has become part of the conversation, we’ve opened ahead of the pubs here so whilst it’s tough and we want to see a massive improvement, we have to give credit to the government for fighting to keep theatre open.”
Despite this, he was disappointed to see that there has been no pilot event planned to see how theatre will go ahead planned by the government.
“I think it was a missed opportunity, I think it got confused in the message reopening again with only 50 people. I think it would’ve been great for somewhere like the Bord Gáis or the Gaiety to be told ‘ok, you can do two or three performances, pilot shows, with 50% capacity’, I think it would’ve been great to try that out.”
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“It would’ve been good to have pushed it and to see what does it mean to have 600 people in a theatre. That’s whats happening in London, theatres are reopening with one metre social distance which means they can get up to about 50%.”
“I know the ambition by government is to increase it month by month, I understand their caution but I do think you also have to be ambitious, and say ‘you know theatre is say, everybody is masked, theatre has really high health and safety regulations anyway so we really know how to do this stuff.”
While Neil was reluctant to tell me what we can expect to see at the Abbey in the future, he could say it was definitely something to get excited about and all will be revealed in the coming weeks.
In a statement from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, they said that from July 5th, there will be allowed a maximum of 100 people allowed in “larger venues where strict 2 metre seated social distancing and one-way controls for entry and exit can be implemented”, which includes theatres.
