Happy World Theatre Day
Today is World Theatre Day. This year’s artist featured on the UNESCO WTD page is Canadian Theatre Director Robert LePage. They’ve asked him to share a message, and he shares a nice little fable about the birth of theatre. But that’s not my favourite part. To me, the best part of the whole page is the following quote:
Theatre has to reinvent itself.
Its right there on the top of the page. And I wholeheartedly agree.
There’s a common perception about theatre. To most people, its something the rich do. And judging from the prices of most theatre tickets, who could blame them? Theatre is perceived as something stodgy, or staid and traditional. Some theatre companies don’t do much to fight that perception, either by sticking to the same old plays by the same old established writers, or by catering to what is commonly referred to as the "blue hair crowd".
In the age of big budget movies and interactive video games, theatre can’t rely on its old tricks. New stories have to be told in new ways. That’s not to say that the plays of Shakespeare need to be dropped from their place in most theatre company’s rosters. Far from it. However, the grand costume parades that some productions have become should probably become a bit more rare. Putting your characters into period costumes, while a great showcase for the costume designer, usually puts a wall between the story unfolding on the stage and the audience. There’s nothing wrong with using modern clothes. After all: Shakespeare did. All of his productions used clothing that was contemporary to his day, regardless of the period being covered.
Ask someone what they see Opera as. They will probably tell you that they perceive the Opera as an expensive night out, where they pay a lot for a ticket, dress up in their best clothes, and sit in a theatre being bored. For a lot of people, theatre itself threatens to become that very same thing.
And that shouldn’t be allowed to happen.
I have a friend who half-jokingly refers to theatre as the "Bastard child of film", and likes to tell me that theatre is obsolete and has been supplanted by film. I can’t agree with this (which he knows, and I’m pretty sure he just says it to watch me turn a shade of purple). One thing that’s missing from film is the live actor. During my first days of theatre school, the head of the acting program asked us to define "theatre". We all described theatre as the building, or the play, or the actors, or the audience, or some combination. After a few ideas were thrown out, we were told what I still hold is the "proper" definition: Theatre is that moment when the actors on the stage and the audience in the auditorium breathe together. And that’s something that doesn’t happen in film. Sadly, I think that moment is becoming rarer in live theatre. If it happened more often, audiences would never want to stop going to theatre.
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In sad news on this World Theatre day, it seems that Equity Showcase is closing shop, due to a funding crisis. Equity Showcase was
Founded in 1960 by a group that included Charmion King, Amelia Hall and Christopher Newton, it was created to keep actors in the game when performing jobs were hard to come by. Equity Showcase Theatre put on as many as four productions a year of mostly well-known plays. In 1978, the organization began offering training and professional development workshops.
