March 2020 saw the shock of locking down. The confinement to our homes. The discovery for many, of Zoom. The fear of touching surfaces, door handles, people. Breath and voice became dangerous. The great separation and then the great confinement.
Gatherings were quite suddenly forbidden. Shops closed. Panic buying signalled the full horror of the situation before being displaced by the full horror of what was happening in hospitals - and then in care homes. All this came before we had knowledge, data, vaccine.
Everything stopped.
Then online social hyperactivity started. The quiz. The sea shanty. The kitchen disco. The desperate search for a way for musicians to play together in the same time but not in the same place (the Stones got there first I think).
Now… nearly 20 months later, I'm still asking the same question that has haunted me throughout - is there anything Theatre can do to help? Behind the question lurks an anxiety - is there any need for theatre now?
There's been time to read. Right now I'm two thirds of the way through Art and Ritual by Jane Harrison. First published in 1913 - finger on the pulse as ever, Peth - she's tracking where it all came from and looks at three concepts and the order in which they arrived. The Dromenon (from which we the word drama comes), the Theatron (theatre) and the Orkestra (you can work that one out yourself).
The ‘Orchestra’ is the area on which the chorus performs, and this came first - it’s the centre, the kernel of it all. Originally in the Agor or market place, the ‘Orchestra/Orkestra’ was a round flat area where Rituals took place - where dance and chanting was done to celebrate the important moments of the year and of life.
The ‘Theatron’ originally denoted the place of seeing - where the audience sits, and this only comes along later - when Ritual turns to Dromenon/Drama. Jane makes much of the word Dromenon - she translates it as 'that which must be done'.
I'm fascinated by the point at which the audience were added. When the doers were joined by the gawpers. Or some of the doers, chose to sit it out and gawp. Or maybe some people weren't allowed to do and had to watch - the children, the womenfolk, those who weren't initiated.
As she says there wasn't originally an auditorium, then as more people watched raked benches had to be built in the agora so the gawpers could all see the ritual. Then the seating collapsed. So some bright spark worked out that the hill beside the Acropolis offered a less rickety seating arrangement and the Festival of Dionysus was re-sited and that arrangement became the basis of what we call a Theatre. But we did it before we watched it.
But what was it that was performed? Well, the ‘thing that must be done’ were Rituals either heralding the approach or celebrating the arrival of the meaningful events of life - Summer, Spring, deep Winter. Death, Birth, Fertility.
The Orchestra was occupied by the chorus. Jane uses a lovely description of the chorus - “doddering and pottering old men, moralising on an action in which they are too feeble to join". This appeals to me because I seem to find myself in the company of potential chorus members quite a lot at the moment. And they are feeble, but they are also principled, angry, experienced and loving - with occasional episode of doddering thrown in.
This doddering chimes with my question about theatre. Is theatre doddering and pottering - or does the societal hesitancy I see currently suggest that 'the thing that needs doing' might be of higher priority than 'the thing that needs gawping at'.
The thing that needs doing might well be just gathering and sitting/standing/gawping and breathing together. Or perhaps the gathering might be more active - moving/singing/speaking/chanting - but done together, as a chorus. But if this a ritual to celebrate the thing, what is the thing we feel compelled to celebrate? Is it actually the gathering itself?
In these days of zooms, emails, texts and tweets perhaps gathering to gather is a radical and required action. Perhaps this is the function theatre needs to take on and to be explicit about.
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