Summary 2021: What future does the theater have when there is less desire to go out at night? Playwrights and directors speak

It seems true truism to say that the performing arts experienced a slowdown in the pandemic. Certainly, closing theater halls and auditoriums for more than a year and a half can give that feeling. However, none of the actors and directors consulted states that their activity has been stopped. Indeed: many lost jobs or postponed projects, but no one stood idly by. From the initial confinement, the performing artists had to invent alternatives to meet their audience.

Thus, in virtuality, works proliferated and workshops were held, readings were organized and writing projects were closed. Playwright Alfonso Santisteban, for example, explains that he never stopped teaching remotely, and while he has not yet returned to theater acting, he has returned to television sets. “Remote teaching will continue for me (being over 65 years old, I am a population at risk) and I do not dislike it for theoretical courses. But to teach acting I still prefer being present. Acting on television showed me that, by following the protocols and taking care of ourselves, the contagion is surprisingly low”, he says.

“It would have been impossible to completely stop the activity“Says actress and director Vanesa Vizcarra, who this year adapted Vallejo’s poetry into” Rosaura and the Nine Monsters “, a virtual theater proposal interpreted by Wendy Vásquez and produced by the Centro Cultural de la Católica. For the director, in recent months, with the new protocols drawn up, the possibility of returning to the theater in person has been exciting. The same is expressed by the director Mikhail Page, who after producing four works online in the midst of the pandemic, returned with Pold Gastelo’s “Conquering the devil” monologue in the open air about the Covid. “It was a very important show because it had many things to say about what was happening to us. It meant returning with recharged energies”, He assures.

Javier Valdez feels the same: “The energy generated by presence is something very special. The encounter with the viewer is what makes the same work grow as the season progresses“, Explain.

Exciting for many, but extremely tough too. For the director Mateo Chiarella, with the death of his father, the teacher Jorge Chiarella, it has been doubly difficult to resume his work and restart the activity of the Aranwa Cultural Center. “”, Explain.

By the way, the return to presence is also difficult on an economic level, because as director David Carrillo warns, a good part of the local theater has returned to the uncertainty of “”, he acknowledges.

Clemencia Ferreyros, director of the British CC, reminds us that we are still living a moment full of doubts. Some urgent linked to the public response or a possible resurgence of the pandemic. Others more in depth: what is valid and important to present, how to face these times from the performing arts. For his part, Marco Muhletaler, director of the PUCP Cultural Center, also reflects on the complexity of returning to theaters: “In the first place, it is about breaking the inertia of two years of virtuality. The virtualization of content in culture was easier than going back to face-to-face, because in the face of the pandemic there was only one way: learning how to make our offer come alive in a new medium”, He says. For the director, now the challenge is much greater. It is about making two worlds coexist: the virtual and the face-to-face.

“It is not about having two separate offers, two lives on different paths. We have won an audience that we cannot disappoint and we must recover another that was already following us and wants to meet us again in person. The challenge is in integration, in ensuring that the virtual and the face-to-face complement each other”, Explains Muhletaler, who trusts that the CCPUCP will be ready to offer this hybrid offer in the first quarter of 2022.

Let’s look at the trends

As Vanesa Vizcarra points out, there are some obvious results in this reopening: casts reduced both by health requirements and for creative reasons that embrace one-man projects or monologues. He also notices a thematic trend linked to loss, grief, and the recovery of mental well-being.

For the playwright and director Eduardo Adrianzén, who last July presented “Somos Libres”, a play about Independence for family audiences, his reintegration into the theater could not have been happier as he witnessed the return of the public. And that reception is another positive news. People are returning to the theater.

“”, States the writer. Marco Muhletaler thinks in the same sense: “”.

“I see a great desire in the public to meet again, to be part of the social eventMikhail Page points out. “We have been taking care of ourselves for a long time and now, with the advance of vaccination, activities such as the theater have become very special experiences. Many colleagues are betting on projects that bring audiences back to theaters, despite limited capacity. That fills me with excitement and hope“, Explain.

According to Alfonso Santisteban, upon returning to the presence, the theater takes up an old problem: the lack of an amateur audience that supports it consistently. “However, there are the theater people fighting as always,” he says. As for the repertoire, for the playwright, much of what he has seen has not sought to directly reflect the pandemic, but to recall other, older and deeper themes. “The question is whether virtuality will remain in the theater or will we forget it,” he adds.

Can we talk about a revival?

With this question begins the debate. For directors like Vizcarra, Page or Valdez it is clear that we can speak of a reactivation of theatrical activity, his companions Adrianzén, Ferreyros and Muhletaler do not show the same enthusiasm. Indeed, there are exciting news, such as the confirmation of the new edition, already in person, of the Lima Performing Arts Festival next March, the announcement of productions ready for 2022, as well as the progressive recovery of the public. However, the capacity is still very small and the functions are planned for reduced weeks, in many cases with reduced prices.

“I think it is premature, and somewhat optimistic, to speak of a reactivation,” says Clemencia Ferreyros. “It is difficult to evaluate if we would have full rooms with capacity to 100% and longer seasons. But it is important to highlight the great work that creators and producers are doing to keep mounting, keep proposing and keep creating“, Explain.

Like her, Marco Muhletaler believes that, despite the enormous efforts to fully return to face-to-face activity, we are still far from being a reactivated market. “The cultural sector, used to living in crisis, has flexibility and adaptability as one of its main values. But it has been a very long period and it has hit a lot. The main consumer of cultural products and services is the adult and the elderly. It is understandable that there are certain resistance in them to return to shared spaces, despite the efforts by cultural producers to ensure compliance with biosafety protocols.“, Explain.

“We are experiencing a reactivation in emotional and attitudinal terms, but not in economic terms. It’s the stubbornness of the survivors“Says Eduardo Adrianzén, for whom it is clear that what was optimistically called the” Golden Age “of Peruvian theater ended with the health emergency. “Now is the time of resurrection and rearrangement. Disasters make things never the same as before. Today is the time to rethink ways of working, topics, audiences, etc. Hopefully we all succeed in this rearrangement. Get up and rebuild the world again”, He says.

, local governments and private companies. “In many cases, when we talk about theater groups we are talking about cultural centers that provide a very important cultural and pedagogical service to their communities. We must seize the opportunity to aspire to something better than what we had before confinement“, Explain.

Finally, David Carrillo proposes a change of terms. Beyond a “reactivation” in economic terms, what the theater needs is an emotional “revival”. And he explains: “We are very beaten. We have lost many teachers and references. We have not been able to say goodbye to very valuable people. Spaces such as the Teatro Marsano have been lost, and there are places with no signs of reopening. My colleagues are prudent but also uneasy, who feel that it is not worth betting on the theater, after feeling so much contempt for our activity “.