Feest Isolation Days – 14 August
The theatre is something that has been dear to my heart for the longest time. Working in the theatre was the first job I loved, and you know what they say about first loves! The psychiatrists tell us that your first love will affect all of your relationships after that because of what you learn. First loves let you know that you can be wanted and desired and they also teach you about how you want to be treated by another person. When the relationship ends you’ll also learn what heartbreak feels like. For me, finding my “first (job) love” at such a young age (14) gave me all of that and more. The theatre and the people in it enabled me to see that I was an able young woman with skills that were valuable. Those lessons learned did indeed stay with me. The theatre is a great place to grow and to develop. I didn’t really feel the heartbreak when the relationship ended as it never really has. It changed of course, and I stopped working in the theatre decades ago. Now, I do feel the loss as we can’t go out to the theatre.
Nevertheless, theatricals are creative and need to be just now in order to survive this virus intact. Demonstrations around the country earlier this week were filled with red.
The red lights were on around the country and marches and demonstrations were held to say that theatricals and live entertainment venues were in the danger zone. Not only are livelihoods being lost, but so are skills that will be hard to be easily replaced.
It’s time to think differently and creatively my theatrical friends! We watched a performance that was streamed Live on You Tube from the Irish Rep theatre in New York City and it was a delight. It was free to book and a donation was then suggested. We gave them the amount they suggested. This was a performance made for now, with the technology available. It wasn’t exactly a television performance, nor was it a theatrical event, but it was somewhere in the middle. We need more of this!
We baulked at paying the Old Vic in London sixty pounds to pay for a show that was beamed in to our living room, and there has been nothing else since from them.
Theatrical folk, please stop stamping your feet at this virus and get those creative juices flowing. We need you! We will support your efforts. Get to work. Not everyone’s job will be saved, as Rishi our Chancellor keeps telling us, but there must be a way for British theatricals to come up with something that scratches our theatrical itch.
Look in the archives! Perhaps there is something you can learn from old original television entertainment? Create please. We need you! Small shows, small casts, live together if you need to, please don’t give up! Your theatre audience needs you!
It may be a long time before we can head back into big theatre halls. My first job of working in the theatre was inside a repurposed circus tent. More or less outside….hmmm. Maybe that’s worth a try?
With love
Kathy x