(< 5 min read)
I grew up with grandparents who were artists, musical artists. My grandmother was a pianist and my grandfather a composer. They met, like in the movies or novels, at a prestigious conservatory, during wartime. I treasure every day that I was able to hear astounding stories from their youth. There were an infinite number of stories, at least one for every day of every year that I was able to hear them.
The adversities they faced are only something I can imagine; only informed by their testimonies and history recorded, at times dramatized in fictions. They lived through clear and present danger in their day, but they never strayed from their passion for their art. Sirens and bombardments did not stop them from making music or teaching music. My grandfather never even really retired. He simply kept composing, for as long as he was alive.
The dangers they faced heroically were enormous. However, I don’t recall any anecdote pertaining to them not being able to play right in the centre of the city’s plaza at curfew, with high probability of being hit by a bomb, and feeling frustrated that they wouldn’t be able to play in such plain sight at that specific hour…
Amidst media cacophony, a recurrent sound-bite is that we are facing an invisible enemy in 2020 and that because we do not see it, we are not cognizant of its danger. Yet this hardly sounds like a valid explanation for ignorance. Avid holiday-makers can be easily deterred from visiting a region that is war torn – and this on account of a “danger” that is not immediately experienced. There is as much footage of critical cases in hospitals on all news channels right now as there is of countries ravaged by war.
I can almost say with assurance that it would not have crossed my grandparents’ minds to strike up a tune in the city centre during an airstrike (…unless it was a calculated strategy for some covert operation…). That risk would have been too ludicrous to entertain and having any such compulsion would not have warded off any “enemy” (…unless it was a calculated strategy for some covert operation…).
Not staying at home is now analogous to playing a tuba while the rest of your troop is aiming for stealth. Beyond looking like very dark comedy, it is also quite close to a disregard for human life, possibly latent ageism and discrimination for the economically marginalized. Increasing the risk of propagating a virus decreases the chances that the weaker and poorer survive.
Because my grandparents did not play in the middle of a town plaza when sirens wailed and bombers roared, I was able to hear stories of survival some 40 years later. Their existence resulted in music being made the whole time. Their existence resulted in mine. With an ounce of chagrin that it wasn’t music, I studied theatre, particularly fond of absurdist and experimental theatre.
Arguably, all arts are a celebration of life. Theatre is a strong contender for a first place as life’s mirror. Beyond the stories to be told, the visuals at which to revel and the sounds to experience, it is also a place in which “living” takes place, very, very literally.
In theatre we can experience all that, for instance, goes missing in between frames of a motion picture, no matter how high the definition. It might not be a very quantifiable phenomenon, but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It is not “consecutively” that we are impacted through all our senses. Most theatre practitioners can attest to a force, in both the creative process with a troupe and the performance context with an audience, that is so powerful it can fuel a life-long resolution to pursue this art form no matter the lack of material rewards or any other obstacle.
But, if any of us do this now in close contact with others, we risk never giving our art, or any art, a future.
I am the first to resist the cage that is social media or self-video when it comes to freedom of genuine expression, free from non-ironic affectation and synthetic image. And yet, if I don’t learn to make-do with trending tools, perchance subvert them, then I contribute to the risk of having them conquer the living.
The deprivation of live theatre at this time can reinvigorate our reverence for it. More so, it can remind us of the importance of the “living” theatre and the threat of the “deadly” theatre. It is also a good time to re-read The Empty Space. 😉
World Theatre Day was started by UNESCO’s International Theatre Institute in 1961. ITI “advocates the protection and promotion of cultural expression, regardless of age, gender, creed, or ethnicity.” This March 27th, ITI will conduct its activities online.
https://www.world-theatre-day.org/mainevent.html
New 4-week formats will be running in November 2019 on 
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