Words, Words, Words

Words, words, words … [Hamlet II,ii] reviews books on theatre that have a connection to the Southeast or may be of special interest to SETC members. Sarah McCarroll, an associate professor of theatre at Georgia Southern University, edits this regular column. If you have a book for review, please send to: SETC, Book Editor, 5710 W. Gate City Blvd., Suite K, Box 186, Greensboro, NC 27407.

Toward a Future Theatre: Conversations During a Pandemic

by Caridad Svich 2022, Methuen Drama, Bloomsbury Publishing, bloomsbury.com ISBN: 9781350241053 Price: $24.25 (paperback); $19.40 (E-book); $81 (hardback)

by Joseph R. D’Ambrosi

The COVID-19 pandemic has enforced upon theatre artists a reckoning with both the state and the future of the field. In Toward a Future Theatre: Conversations During a Pandemic, award-winning playwright Caridad Svich begins this difficult, necessary exploration in the first booklength discussion of the topic.

This collection uses conversations with more than 50 theatre makers and performance artists between July and December 2020 to contemplate potential changes to the work that theatre artists produce, procedures within theatre companies and theatre’s place within the cultural zeitgeist. Toward a Future Theatre challenges readers to consider their roles in combating political and socioeconomic complacency, and to reimagine theatre and performance as agents of change and community.

Svich begins with an introduction in which she defines the sociopolitical impetuses for the book: In a locked-down world dominated by political divisiveness and systemic injustice, how might theatre evolve to become a more inclusive, accessible and illuminating tool for social justice? The author introduces the four core questions she asks every participant: • How has lockdown been for you? • What advice do you have for people entering the field right now? • What hopes and dreams do you have for theatre’s future? • In times of crisis and profound multivalent traumas, how can theatre be a vector for healing and heal itself from damages that mostly white cishet [cisgender and heterosexual] male-led dominant theatres have incurred against Black, Indigenous, ethnically diverse people, people of color, LGBTQIA+ folx, working-class and differently abled practitioners?

Svich separates the conversations into five chapters:

In “R/evolution,” conversations consider how theatre can separate from and fight against systems of injustice.

“Local and hyperlocal” contemplates nontraditional performance in specific communities, such as live art experiences and escape rooms. In “Virtuality,” contributors ponder how digital media disrupts or maintains liveness and the future of virtuality in theatrical creation, both live and remote.

The artists featured in “Resistance and faith” position theatre as a space to deconstruct systems of racism, classism, ableism and patriarchal injustice.

Finally, “Communion” situates theatre as a place of togetherness where artists can collaborate to determine the relationship between art and audience now and moving forward.

The structure of the book – featuring interviews with participants, predominantly conducted over Zoom and email – is a reminder of the collective experience of isolation caused by the pandemic. Participants are artistic and managing directors, actors, directors and playwrights, as well as digital and performance artists. What connects all subjects (and their readers) is that each is forced to reimagine their place in the field and the field’s place in the world. Contributors imagine a theatre that is more inclusive, uplifting of minority voices and economically just. Toward a Future Theatre effectively connects theatre makers who were thrust out of an inherently communal field into isolation. Yet, the book – which dreams of the future – is missing an important component: the follow-up. This book was published in November 2021, when many theatres had only just begun to reopen. Future editions, or even a second volume, would benefit from discussion of how the world is reopening and theatre makers are redefining normalcy in the field. It would be of great interest to hear about the plans that theatres have put in place to address the issues Svich discusses.

History has proven that theatre is both fragile and resilient. For centuries, the art form has survived pandemics, political coups and changing media, and yet it has always survived and evolved. Toward a Future Theatre exposes the cracks in our field and imagines a theatre that once again survives and evolves to meet the needs of our contemporary moment. This book is essential reading for theatre practitioners who care about the longevity of the field and who long to make a difference with their work. n

Joseph R. D’Ambrosi (he/him) is a theatre scholar, artist and teacher. He serves as fine and performing arts resource specialist for the school district of Osceola County, FL, and as graduate faculty scholar and adjunct professor of theatre at the University of Central Florida.