By Jake Henderson
The budding trend of uploading recordings of live performances causes me to beg the question of whether or not these recordings could even be considered theatre. Citing the Hamilton Pro-Shot as the catalyst for this trend, the recording utilized multiple camera angles to capture different moments of the performance. Director Thomas Kail admitted further departure from live performance by noting that the recording is a culmination of multiple live performances with over-the-shoulder shots being recorded without an audience (Nepales). While the ‘is this theatre or film’ debate is vast and endless, my distinction boils down to directed focus—if the camera is used to tell me where to look, I consider the recording a film—which is what we see with the Hamilton Pro-Shot.
Regardless of the status of their title, this type of ‘theatre’ exploded after the success of Hamilton, with large theatre companies like The Stratford Festival and The National Theatre creating streaming services (Stratfest@Home and National Theatre at Home) to supplement the lack of live performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, only these very large, very wealthy organizations were able to support the creation of this type of online streaming, as multiple stakeholders, interviewed for the Pandemic Preparedness in the Live Performing Arts report, acknowledged the widespread technological illiteracy within the sector regarding online streaming. Even with the funding and know-how of these large companies, creating an online streaming service brings regional theatres into competition with international names, pitting the likes of The Stratford Festival or The National Theatre against Netflix or Disney+. How can digital theatre compete with the massive industry of film and television when, as stakeholders explained, challenging these titans of industry is a real threat to the theatre industry, given that the Ontario Government was significantly more concerned with the well-being of film and television than that of theatre when discussing the survival of culture during the pandemic.
The problem lies in the misrepresentation of what this medium of performance is providing. In response to her survey conducted after a live-streamed version of the Globe Theatre’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Erin Sullivan notes that the “respondents were very clear that the format did make a difference to them and that they would have preferred to attend in person, had that been possible… as well as [commenting on] the value of live, in-person theatre in general” (6). Theatregoers seek out co-presence to complete the experience of watching theatre, which exists in the physical space, and to a lesser degree with zoom performance, but the spectator and the performer have no relationship during a recorded theatre performance. This aspect of theatre disappears with productions that “audiences typically watch from their homes, very often alone” (Sullivan 1). Therefore, marketing streamed performances as “theatre” dissatisfies the audiences that go to the theatre for the experience of co-presence, while limiting their ability to compete with film and television streaming services due to their targeted demographic. Streamed performances become a Catch-22 of being too much like film for theatregoers, but too much like theatre for film viewers. A similar survey, conducted by Nesta, observed 1316 audience members who watched a streamed version of National Theatre’s Phedre in a movie theatre. The survey concluded that spectators valued “the ‘buzz’ of a live experience” and “84.3 percent of cinema audiences felt real excitement because they knew that the performance they were watching was taking place ‘live’ at the National Theatre” (Nesta 6). The audience’s need for co-presence is satiated by a connection to other spectators in the cinema and through their knowledge that they are watching a live performance. Due to the lack of scholarship surrounding audience response to recorded theatre, the response to live-streamed theatre is the best there is. However, the aspects of performance that audiences require to continue through the conversion of theatre to a digital medium involve the need to share the experience with other people. Thus, with streamable theatre’s ability to be watched from the comfort of one’s home, the feeling of sharing the experience of a performance is lost.
I would suggest that the screening of recorded versions of theatrical productions should continue to be viewed at movie theatres, as the financial cost is significantly less than live performance, making it an easy way for theatre companies to supplement earnings. However, this would not be a viable alternative in the event of another lockdown. Suppose another lockdown should rear its ugly head. In that case, it is hard for me to recommend Zoom theatre—given my knowledge about the effects of Zoom burnout and the detriment to the performers—but this option would better preserve the audience experience by preserving co-presence with other spectators while limiting the company’s embarkment into international competition. Moreover, streaming recorded performances only works for theatre companies that have a large body of recorded material to draw from. For newer companies, this would only prove an option if they were recording new performances, in which case they may as well be live streaming these enclosed performances to maintain the co-presence necessary to the audience experience. Theatre continues to shift towards a direction that utilizes the luxuries of modern technology, but peddling off a poorly shot film as ‘theatre’ and throwing it to the hungry mouths of the internet is not a direction we should allow it to take as creatives or spectators.
Works Cited
“Beyond Live: Digital Innovations in the Performing Arts.” Nesta, 2010. Available at: https://media.nesta.org.uk/documents/beyond_live.pdf
Nepales, Ruben V. “‘Hamilton’ Film Director Reveals Details-30 Cameras Used, Which Songs Were Shot with and without Audience.” INQUIRER.Net, 10 July 2020, entertainment.inquirer.net/382564/hamilton-film-director-reveals-details-30-cameras-used-which-songs-were-shot-with-and-without-audience.
Sullivan, Erin. “Live to your living room: Streamed theatre, audience experience, and the Globe’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, vol. 17, no. 1, 2017, pp. 92-119. Available at: https://www.participations.org/17-01-07-sullivan.pdf