I’m not talking about the future of theatre, I’m talking about the future of me. I still have a major, never-produced play that my friend and mentor Richard says is my masterpiece. (The dramaturge at Stratford turned it down saying that they only produce masterpieces. I wrote back and asked how will he know it’s not a masterpiece if he doesn’t see it on. He must have a divining rod.) ) It will never be produced now, not that it is such a huge production, only three characters, but that it is very close and intimate and full-length, with no social distancing between the actors and lots of aerosols immanent in long speeches .
Some of the predicted omissions i read included a rejection of long plays. Shorter plays will not require lineups for the washrooms, hence less danger of social proximity. No musicals or dancing or crowd scenes will be allowed in order to to protect the actors. We will be left with closet drama, I guess, but in a fairly spacious closet to allow for safe breathing without masks. One-act plays!
Years ago,in the 70’s and 80’s , Canadian theatre achieved a small reputation for its one-handers—plays with only one character. The regional theatres that emerged from our glorious centennial year (1967, remember?) with magnificent commemorative halls but no money to finance productions in them. Performers and sets still cost money. The solution was to write plays calling for single sets and as few characters as possible. It was a challenge to writers and they/we came through. My most produced play (5 or 6 countries) is a one-hander about an old woman in a room (A Place on Earth—available from Playwrights Press. ). There are old women in rooms around the world, so I am told. Generally, English-speaking countries stash them away in rooms or long-term-care homes and wait for them to die. (Covid19 has sped this process efficiently.)
But it was a full-length play, with an intermission. No intermissions in the future = no line-ups for the loo.
So that is the end of my theatre career, such as it was: some 30 plays produced, 20 of them published, but no hits. The late Canadian playwright Bernard Slade (Same Time Next Year) said you can make a killing in the theatre but you can’t make a living.I never had a killing but I did make a living, mainly because I wrote lots of other stuff. I am a very prolific unknown, and will continue to be so, only not so prolific.
Is this the end? No yet.