Lockdown Shakespeare: the State of (the) Play
By Gemma Allred & Ben Broadribb
Theatres in the UK have now been closed for just over two months. During that time, the need to fill the void that has suddenly been created has been experienced on both sides of the fourth wall: audiences have called for theatre to be made available to enjoy at home, and actors are finding new ways to share their craft online. Theatre in Lockdown has become an international phenomenon, with Shakespeare undeniably emerging as the dominant presence. Actors, companies and theatres from across the globe are making performances of Shakespeare’s plays available for audiences many times the size of a theatre auditorium to enjoy together at home — often free of charge. For the past few weeks, we’ve been considering the proliferation of Shakespearean performance that’s emerged online, and now seems like a good point to step back and discuss the trends we’ve noticed in ‘Lockdown Shakespeare’.
This joint article came out of a session we ran together with students of Shakespeare and Performance at the University of Neuchâtel in mid-May 2020. Many of our thoughts here came from our conversations before, during and after the session, which is why we’ve chosen to preserve the conversational format and tone in this article.[1]
The Three Forms of Lockdown Shakespeare
We’ve noticed over the last few weeks that there are three main ways theatre is being made accessible during lockdown. Before moving onto our conversation, we’d like to outline what these three forms are and what we’ve observed about them.
Model 1: Streamed Pre-Records
This is the approach taken by many of the larger theatre companies, including the National Theatre and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London in the UK, and the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada. Applying this model, theatre companies make available recordings of productions previously performed in theatres. These are generally performances that were recorded to be screened in cinemas (‘Live Theatre Broadcasts’), either ‘as live’ on the night of the performance or for a limited cinema run at a later date. In some cases, the performances were also recorded to be sold on DVD or to be purchased to stream online. During lockdown, theatres are making these recordings available on streaming platforms such as YouTube. Whilst audiences can usually access them whenever they like for a limited time period, the performances receive ‘premieres’ — the time at which they are first made available online. Audiences are encouraged by theatres to ‘watch live’ to create a shared experience. These streamed productions are, for the most part, free, but there is also a move to monetise these screenings. The Globe and the National Theatre have a fundraising approach inviting the audience to donate. The RSC meanwhile have paired with arts streaming service Marquee TV to offer a 30-day free trial — presumably in the hope that you will upgrade to a fully paid subscription.
Model 2: Live Online Performances
Rather than being recorded previously, these adaptations are performed live by actors confined to their homes during lockdown. The actors are brought together through video conferencing software, with Zoom emerging as the platform of choice. The actors’ Zoom conference is streamed live to a streaming platform, most often YouTube, with the audience able to watch live. Rob Myles is one of the earliest inaugurators of this method through The Show Must Go Online, which has been streaming Zoom readings of each of Shakespeare’s plays with added performative elements on YouTube since mid-March. Another example is Ctrl-Alt-Repeat’s production Midsummer Night Stream, which developed the use of Zoom as both a theatre space and a tool for creating Shakespeare on screen. The performance happens once, and following the live event, the captured performance continues to exist as a screen adaptation which can be watched again.
Model 3: Virtual Theatre Performances
This is the model which comes closest to recreating a traditional theatre experience. Rather than passively watching the performance through a streaming platform such as YouTube, audience members are invited to join the actors on a Zoom conference. The audience therefore experience a unique performance each time they watch, the same as they would if they attended a theatre performance. Creation Theatre is one of the key proponents of this model. Their production of The Tempest demonstrated how Zoom can be used to create an immersive theatre experience online, with audience interaction both integral to and encouraged throughout each performance. Similarly, an audience member could ‘unmute’ themselves at the wrong point and cause a disturbance, or even choose to heckle or disrupt the performance — just as they could in a theatre auditorium. As with traditional theatre, the audience pay to attend, generally per device rather than per viewer.
Now that we’ve outlined these three main forms of Lockdown Shakespeare we’ve observed, we’d like to structure the second half of this article to reflect the conversations we’ve had over the past few weeks.
The Conversation
Ben: Gemma, you come at this primarily from a Shakespeare on stage perspective. How far to you think these forms of Lockdown Shakespeare are filling that gap?
Gemma: For me, the three models serve different purposes. The archive recordings are usually productions I saw live — so I’m often revisiting a production rather than seeing it for the first time. There is a sense of nostalgia, that these productions are an imitation or substitution for the real thing. I’m having viewing parties with my friends — usually the people I watched the production with the first time. It’s also a chance for me to watch productions I missed in the theatre — particularly the NT Live productions, which aren’t usually available outside of Live Theatre Broadcasts and encore screenings in cinemas.
I’ve generally enjoyed the Live Online Performances — particularly those that ‘do something’ with the text and use the technology to perform, such as Sid Phoenix’s Midsummer Night Stream. There is a sense of the immediacy of theatre as the actors are live and anything could happen — lines could be forgotten or, given the nature of video calls, the connection could fail!
Both of these do have a sense of ‘instead of’ rather than ‘being’ theatre. But the Virtual Theatre Performance model really interests me: it is live theatre, and there is a present audience that can influence the performance. What you see, what you experience, is a one-off — like seeing a production in a traditional theatre — it may be pretty much the same from night to night, but ‘pretty much’ is not identical. Like traditional theatre, you can’t go back again and see the exact performance you watched the last time.
Ben, you come at this more from a screen perspective. What’s your take on these forms of Lockdown Shakespeare as recorded artefacts of screened performance?
Ben: Yes, the big UK theatres such as the National, the Globe and the RSC have made available online Live Theatre Broadcasts, and the National has also begun releasing archive recordings — both of which I think of as distinct forms of Shakespeare on screen. Where these have been streamed free of charge, audiences have been encouraged to donate to support the theatre industry. For the most part, popular plays and those with big names have generally been chosen to help maximise the amounts raised. These have usually been presented as discrete productions with the nostalgia element that you’ve already mentioned, but others have been repackaged. For example, the Stratford Festival is making filmed productions from several years ago available but repositioning them as speaking to our current cultural moment. The first three productions they released were King Lear, Coriolanus and Macbeth, grouped together as plays about ‘Social Order and Leadership’ — one of the themes those curating the online festival felt was pertinent in 2020.
I’m particularly interested in the ways the Live Online Performances, and to a lesser extent the Virtual Theatre Performances, exist as screen adaptations — how they manipulate the features of platforms like Zoom to echo film and television editing techniques. Midsummer Night Stream played with the edges of what we expect when we’re watching a screen adaptation to give elements of the production a more magical sense. And then of course there are contemporary cultural reference points — having the mechanicals in particular playing around with Zoom backgrounds and bringing a cat on camera to represent the lion in Pyramus and Thisbe unquestionably ties the recorded production, available to watch in years to come, to our current cultural moment!
Gemma, I know you also approach theatre from a business perspective. I’d like to pose a potentially provocative question: does the evolution of the Lockdown Shakespeare streaming models mean we shouldn’t fund live arts anymore?
Gemma: The quick answer: no, we need theatre.
There have been voices of push-back against streaming theatre with a threat to future live theatre often being cited as a concern. The notion being that, if you promote streamed theatre, ultimately it will be harder to fight the case for funding live arts. This argument takes me aback slightly, because whichever model you go with, there is a need for a live audience.
Yes, theatre is an immediate response ‘in the room’ — but as the Virtual Theatre Performance model shows, you can have your audience live and interactive at home. Zoom becomes the theatre space with actors performing unique shows. You also have the Live Online Performances where actors are doing live streamed theatre via YouTube. The audience is not present in the same space but is watching live and experiencing the joy of unedited performance. The live experience is also integral for the Streamed Pre-Records, larger streamed ‘not live’ theatre being made available by the National, Globe and others. The existence of that material — that the theatre was made in the first place — relies on a live audience, a traditional theatre run.
The numbers of people watching the Streamed Pre-Records shows that there is an appetite for theatre. There is also an interest in accessing theatre at home. The debate shouldn’t be ‘this vs that’, ‘streamed vs live’. The two can co-exist. People are watching theatre performances on YouTube who are financially, geographically, or physically distanced from live theatre, or maybe who thought theatre is ‘not for them’ and are perhaps accessing theatre for the first time. I wonder whether the funding debate should be reframed; that going forward, funding for live arts should have an element of accessibility or legacy funding. How will this live art be made more readily available?
You will always reach a larger audience for free on YouTube than you will in a theatre run. For example, on Monday 11 May, the Globe streamed its Playing Shakespeare Macbeth — primarily a Globe Education production aimed at school children, the production would’ve played to around 35,000 people over the run. In the first week, the YouTube stream has had over 160,000 views. Similarly, Rob Myles shared The Show Must Go Online’s viewing statistics: as of 15 May 2020 there had been 106,798 views in fifty countries across six continents.[2] There is a clear appetite for theatre at home and there must be an argument to continue accessible theatre after lockdown.
Ben, you’re also interested in how Shakespeare is adapted in the twenty-first century to reflect the cultural sensibilities of the time. How do you see this manifesting through Lockdown Shakespeare?
Ben: The shifts we’ve seen in aesthetics and sensibilities from the twentieth to the twenty-first century fascinate me, particularly the movement away from or beyond the postmodern to the ‘post-postmodern’ — whatever that might be. I think a lot of what we’re seeing in all three models of Lockdown Shakespeare speaks to our current cultural moment. The interactive nature of the Virtual Theatre Performances, the way that the audience is being given a ‘starring role’, if only briefly, through Zoom’s spotlight function resonates with the forms of reality TV that are both critically and commercially successful. Not the cynical, fame-hungry shallowness of something like Big Brother, but closer to the humility and sincerity of something like Gogglebox.
The aesthetic choices of the Live Online Performances feel increasingly metamodern to me — embracing the childlike innocence of low-budget costuming and technology to bring Shakespeare to life. And the Screened Pre-Records are allowing people to connect emotionally even when they’re physically separated. The nostalgia you mentioned earlier, Gemma, is key to this — for many people, they are watching to remind themselves not only of performances they watched live years ago, but to remember the human connections they were able to have only weeks ago and to look forward to them again. The conversations that are happening online around these productions are also fascinating, particularly through YouTube’s ‘Live Chat’ feature. People are connecting with each other through cultural reference points, dialects and esoteric memes — their shared online experience of Shakespeare is giving them the opportunity to find their ‘tribe’ in the same way as they would at a large gathering in person.
Gemma: I know exactly what you mean about finding your ‘tribe’. For example, when we watched the Globe’s live stream of Hamlet together with friends, we were all baffled when large numbers of viewers started typing a single letter ‘F’ in the Live Chat. A little bit of internet research revealed an internet meme taken from the video game series Call of Duty — ‘Press “F” to pay respects’. A section of the viewing audience at home were interacting with Shakespeare using an internet culture, one that we weren’t part of. Similarly, the Live Chat alongside the Playing Shakespeare Macbeth formed largely of school children (identifying themselves by reference to their school) revealed a collective love of a throwaway line ‘What, you egg?’ (4.2.78). The ultimate revelation that the line had been cut led to calls of ‘Egg or we riot!’. The nature of an internet stream and chat function allows a new form of interaction with theatre.
The Conclusion
What’s perhaps most exciting for us is the feeling that we’re on the brink of a further evolution. We’ve seen what the early adopters have been able to do, how they’ve helped create these three distinct modes of Lockdown Shakespeare. We’re beginning to see what’s ‘sticking’ — The Show Must Go Online’s model is proving popular, and Creation Theatre’s Tempest has received international attention with reviews in the New York Times. It’s possible that theatres will remain closed until 2021, so it’ll be interesting to see whether any of the big enterprises such as the Globe or RSC move away from Streamed Pre-Records and towards the second and third models of Lockdown Shakespeare.
The evolution of this genre is not without questions. If the larger commercial theatres start to create new content, will what is created have the same sense of authenticity and nostalgia, or will it become too commercialised to retain it? Monetisation is key. Creatives cannot work for free, nor should they be pressured to do so. However, with so much entertainment streamed into our homes for free or for a relatively low subscription cost, the willingness on the part of the audience to pay for content has to be addressed. New theatre content needs to be differentiated from standard TV and film content. To achieve that, the liveness of the theatre experience has to be brought to the fore: the sense that the production you are paying for shares the same sense of ephemerality as the traditional theatre experience is key.
We are clearly at a pivotal moment of transformation and innovation in the theatre industry. These models are proof of concept that streamed theatre can work in some form. Not only that, streamed theatre allows for international reach — theatre companies and audiences can connect over international borders. To quote a clichéd proverb, necessity is the mother of invention. It feels that, after being forced to close, the theatre industry has reacted with agility and imagination — offering theatre audiences new and exciting ways to engage with performance.
[1] We would like to sincerely thank Professor Emma Depledge for the opportunity and the vibrant discussions which came out of this session.
[2] https://twitter.com/robmyles/status/1262033745596633089?s=20
