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Do Live Broadcasts Ruin The ‘Magic’ Of Theatre?
To enter a theatre for a performance is to be inducted into a magical space, to be ushered into the sacred arena of the imagination.
SIMON CALLOW
Theatre can be traced back as far as ancient Greece and people have enjoyed drama, comedy, music, dance and other forms of entertainment. The theatre is more than just a building. People experience the magic of theatre in different ways. A rush of excitement: powerful and intense. This is how I would describe my emotions when I walk into a theatre. For me theatre can provide an escape from everyday life. It can tell a story; it can change your understanding of things and evoke emotions. For others it maybe it is the sound of the audience as they wait in their seats, the sound of the orchestra warming up or the lights dimming and the curtains opening.
Theatre has a live element, a sense of realism. But theatre goers are not always able to attend a live performance and more recently due to the COVID 19 pandemic, theatres across the world have been forced to close their doors and audiences have had to find other ways to watch performances.
With advancements in modern technology, audiences are no longer bound by their location. Using devices such as mobile phones, Extended Reality (XR) headsets and streaming into live performance environments, or even in the home. Wherever they are, audiences will experience live performance like never before. (RSC 2021). The number of people in the UK who are watching theatre online is growing as the COVID 19 pandemic continues, with live streaming of performances on platforms such as Zoom, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. Broadcasts are usually in HD but in 2014 a production of ‘War Horse’ was broadcast live via satellite in 4K bringing the show to audiences worldwide in stunning quality. But is this able to capture the magic of theatre?
Theatre is different from all other forms of theatrical presentation because it is live. At the heart of the theatre experience, then, is the performer-audience relationship: the immediate, personal exchange; the chemistry and magic which gives theatre its special quality. The performer and the audience are primary and unique elements in theatre. Time and space are the main criteria in theatre. The main difference between theatre and other media such television, internet and cinema, is a physical presence of two living elements. Theatre is living, breathing art form where live actors present on stage in front of live audiences. According to Brook (1996), 'the only thing that all forms of theatre have in common is the need for an audience'
The magic of theatre or liveness lies in the fact that it renews itself, each performance depends on the audience’s reaction, and the audience becomes that often cited ‘fourth wall’. The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imagined wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this "wall", the convention assumes, the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th century onward, the rise of illusionism in staging practices, which culminated in the realism and naturalism of the theatre of the 19th century, led to the development of the fourth wall concept (Bell 2008).
The word 'liveness' rings through the air as artists speak about what makes theatre and performance magical. Investigations into the meaning of liveness, and its role in the production of theatre, have been at the heart of debates about performance and technology for decades. It is this sense of liveness that separates the theatre environment from television or film.
‘Liveness’ is commonly considered to be the opposite of a recording. In 1993, performance philosopher Peggy Phelan said: “Performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented once it does so, it becomes something other than performance.” (Phelan 2004) In other words ‘live actors on stage in front of a live audience’ (Jellicoe, 1967). However, Philip Auslander retorted that ‘the magic of live theatre’ is just a simple cliché – and that ‘liveness’ is always context-specific (Auslander 2008)
Auslander revisited his position on liveness in 2012 and wrote: “It may be that we are now at a point in history at which liveness can no longer be defined in terms of either the presence of living human beings before each other or physical and temporal relationships.”
Live theatre broadcasting is not a new thing. The live visual transmission of theatre began with television. The first theatrical venture into the field of television was done by the Theatre Guild in 1938, when part of When We Are Married was televised from London’s West End. Between 1953 and 1991 the BBC used its own theatre as if it was an outside broadcast, with cameras feeding back to a scanner van. It proved so popular that the BBC refitted the theatre with a larger stage and permanent television production galleries. The early 21st century has seen unparalleled changes in how audiences engage with live cultural experiences communally in cinemas and online.
In 2009 National Theatre Live began broadcasting live theatre performances to 937 UK cinemas reaching an audience of 5.2 million and in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic the National Theatre at Home initiative also saw 15 productions broadcast to 13.9 million viewers via YouTube. It is an extraordinary, wonderful complement to the experience of seeing opera and ballet live,” says the CEO of the Royal Opera House, Alex Beard. “It’s emphatically not a substitute for being there”. However live theatre streaming continues to be popular all over the world, but does this ruin the magic of the theatre?
The location of the audience is the greatest distinction between live theatre and film. The audience is far away from the performers on stage, and because they have to be able to see and hear a show to enjoy it, performers have to act for the back row. This produces a show larger than life that only works on stage. Whereas the camera is always able to see the action in movies, and the microphone can always hear what’s going on. Theatre doesn’t normally have a camera, so you see the production from your static position in the theatre. Some camera positions are tailored to each play to ensure the audiences watching in the cinema always get the best seat in the house. This ensures that there is little or no difference between what you see in the live broadcast and a repeat encore screening. However, some live broadcasts have the camera cut from a “normal” head on view of the stage, to a close up of an actor’s face. You cannot do that with your eyes in real life, and you shouldn’t allow a camera to do it for you if you want to maintain the theatre experience. If the cameraman decides upon a closeup, the viewer has no freedom to glance about the stage. Close up shots damage many aspects of the performance. Stage acting is very different from onscreen acting. Most of on-screen acting is captured with a camera that frame the actors face so that it fills up majority of the screen. Theatre acting generally is larger, the audience is watching you whole body the whole time. This can mean that body language is more important on stage than on screen. Close up shots eliminate this. This takes the performance away from the theatre. ‘It’s not the same experience, not a communal experience, not an event. It cheapens it.’ (Reidy et al. 2016: 55).
The approach to filming at National Theatre Live broadcasts is to prioritise the audience in cinemas for that night. The camera director is given complete flexibility in choosing camera positions, so that the performance can be captured from the best seats in the house and with a sophisticated camera setup, involving track shots and where appropriate a crane. The audience of the National Theatre are aware that cameras will be present, so the theatre is transformed into something of a live studio. Two full camera rehearsals take place before each broadcast, with time in between for the stage director and camera director to work together to discuss how to best capture the production. Adjustments are made for lighting and sound with the aim of preserving the integrity of the original design.
Despite the negative impact that some camera work can have on theatre productions, a report published by NESTA on behalf of National Theatre Live concluded that ‘Liveness’ can be communicated successfully through satellite transmission of live theatre, and audiences value this unique atmosphere. The report went on to say that whilst ‘actual’ or simultaneous liveness may not be critical, capturing the sense of event and the atmosphere of the live performance may enhance the audience’s experience (NESTA 2011). This is good news for the industry because the COVID 19 pandemic has had a significant financial impact on the performing arts and many performing arts institutions are attemping to adapt by offering new (or newly expanded) digital services.
In the world prior to COVID 19 restrictions the industry was using live streaming to increase their income. As theatres and concert halls have limited seating capacity live streaming offers additional sources of box office revenues for organisations that have previously had to rely on public subsidy.
In a 2015 Arts Council England report, the National Theatre estimated that each broadcast into the UK’s cinemas cost a minimum of £250,000, and that most broadcasts made a profit. This scale is clearly not feasible for most theatre companies in the country.
Pre-COVID 19 a trip to the theatre could be seen as an exclusive venture. While everyone should have access to the performing arts, our expensive world tends to wrongfully characterize them as exclusive through expensive ticket prices. However during the pandemic there has been opportunity for streaming companies to attempt to introduce the magic of theatre to peoples homes. Fortunately, streaming artistic performances promotes accessibility. (Cohen 2020.) Innovators such as Forced Entertainment and Complicité have had great success in live-streaming their work via YouTube or their websites, but this has been on a free-to-access basis.
The magic or liveness of theatre is a much-debated topic, but many agree that it is this magic that separates live theatre from cinema and television. Some even believe that it is impossible to replicate it outside of the theatre. As a performer, I can tell you that there is a world of difference between the last dress rehearsal (without an audience) and the first preview or performance. The audience reactions reinforced the idea that a show is a magical, living, breathing thing.
However, with today’s advances in media technology, it may be possible to bring some of the magic to the streaming audience. During the current pandemic live streaming has helped to fill the gap left by lockdown restrictions and in some cases helped bring in much needed revenue. Maybe we need to be more open-minded about what can constitute liveness. That way, theatre can move into the future, reach newer wider audiences – and find brand new ways to ‘be in the room together’, after all the show must go on.
References:
Simon Callow (2012) Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World (ed. Vintage, 2012) - ISBN: 9780345803245
Peter Brook (1996) The Empty Space. Cambridge. Simon and Schuster
Bell, Elizabeth S. (2008). Theories of Performance. Sage. p. 203. ISBN 978-1-4129-2637-9.
Clemency Burton Hill (2015) Is watching opera in the cinema just as good? Available at https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20150114-opera-in-the-cinema-blasphemy
Phelan Peggy (2004) The politics and Performance. 4th edn. Routledge
Jellicoe, Ann (1967) Some Unconscious Influences in the Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Auslander P (2008) Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture Routledge
Auslander P (2012), “Digital Liveness: A Historico-Philosophical Perspective,” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 34.3 (2012): 6.
Nesta (2011) Digital broadcast of theatre Learning from the pilot season. Available online www.nesta.org.uk/publications/reports/assets/features/cultures_of_innovation/.
Sasha Cohen (2020) The Pros and Cons of Streaming Performance. Washington Square News
Reidy, B. K., B. Schutt, D. Abramson and A. Durski (11 October 2016), ‘From Live-to-Digital: Understanding the Impact of Digital Developments in Theatre on Audiences, Production and Distribution’ (2016), Arts Council England. Available online: http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/publication/live-digital (accessed 13th January 2021)
SECOND DRAFT
Do Live Broadcasts Ruin The ‘Magic’ Of Theatre?
To enter a theatre for a performance is to be inducted into a magical space, to be ushered into the sacred arena of the imagination.
SIMON CALLOW
Theatre can be traced back as far as ancient Greece and people have enjoyed drama, comedy, music, dance and other forms of entertainment. The theatre is more than just a building. People experience the magic of theatre in different ways. A rush of excitement: powerful and intense. For me theatre can provide an escape from everyday life. For others it maybe it is the sound of the audience as they wait in their seats, the sound of the orchestra warming up or the lights dimming and the curtains opening.
Theatre has a live element, a sense of realism. But theatre goers are not always able to attend a live performance and more recently due to the COVID 19 pandemic, theatres across the world have been forced to close their doors and audiences have had to find other ways to watch performances.
With advancements in modern technology, audiences are no longer bound by their location. Using devices such as mobile phones, Extended Reality (XR) headsets and streaming into live performance environments, or even in the home. Wherever they are, audiences will experience live performance like never before. (RSC 2021). The number of people in the UK who are watching theatre online is growing as the COVID 19 pandemic continues, with live streaming of performances on platforms such as Zoom, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. But is this able to capture the magic of theatre?
Theatre is different from all other forms of theatrical presentation because it is live. At the heart of the theatre experience, then, is the performer-audience relationship: the immediate, personal exchange; the chemistry and magic which gives theatre its special quality. The performer and the audience are primary and unique elements in theatre. Time and space are the main criteria in theatre. The main difference between theatre and other media such television, internet and cinema, is a physical presence of two living elements. Theatre is living, breathing art form where live actors present on stage in front of live audiences. According to Brook (1996), 'the only thing that all forms of theatre have in common is the need for an audience'
The magic of theatre or liveness lies in the fact that it renews itself, each performance depends on the audience’s reaction, and the audience becomes that often cited ‘fourth wall’. The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imagined wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this "wall", the convention assumes, the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th century onward, the rise of illusionism in staging practices, which culminated in the realism and naturalism of the theatre of the 19th century, led to the development of the fourth wall concept (Bell 2008).
The word 'liveness' rings through the air as artists speak about what makes theatre and performance magical. Investigations into the meaning of liveness, and its role in the production of theatre, have been at the heart of debates about performance and technology for decades. It is this sense of liveness that separates the theatre environment from television or film.
‘Liveness’ is commonly considered to be the opposite of a recording. In 1993, performance philosopher Peggy Phelan said: “Performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented once it does so, it becomes something other than performance.” (Phelan 2004) In other words ‘live actors on stage in front of a live audience’ (Jellicoe, 1967). However, Philip Auslander retorted that ‘the magic of live theatre’ is just a simple cliché – and that ‘liveness’ is always context-specific (Auslander 2008)
Auslander revisited his position on liveness in 2012 and wrote: “It may be that we are now at a point in history at which liveness can no longer be defined in terms of either the presence of living human beings before each other or physical and temporal relationships.”
Live theatre broadcasting is not a new thing. The live visual transmission of theatre began with television. The first theatrical venture into the field of television was done by the Theatre Guild in 1938, when part of When We Are Married was televised from London’s West End. Between 1953 and 1991 the BBC used its own theatre as if it was an outside broadcast, with cameras feeding back to a scanner van. It proved so popular that the BBC refitted the theatre with a larger stage and permanent television production galleries. The early 21st century has seen unparalleled changes in how audiences engage with live cultural experiences communally in cinemas and online.
In 2009 National Theatre Live began broadcasting live theatre performances to 937 UK cinemas reaching an audience of 5.2 million and in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic the National Theatre at Home initiative also saw 15 productions broadcast to 13.9 million viewers via YouTube. It is an extraordinary, wonderful complement to the experience of seeing opera and ballet live,” says the CEO of the Royal Opera House, Alex Beard. “It’s emphatically not a substitute for being there”. However live theatre streaming continues to be popular all over the world, but does this ruin the magic of the theatre?
The location of the audience is the greatest distinction between live theatre and film. The audience is far away from the performers on stage, and because they have to be able to see and hear a show to enjoy it, performers have to act for the back row. This produces a show larger than life that only works on stage. Whereas the camera is always able to see the action in movies, and the microphone can always hear what’s going on. Theatre doesn’t normally have a camera, so you see the production from your static position in the theatre. Some camera positions are tailored to each play to ensure the audiences watching in the cinema always get the best seat in the house. This ensures that there is little or no difference between what you see in the live broadcast and a repeat encore screening. However, some live broadcasts have the camera cut from a “normal” head on view of the stage, to a close up of an actor’s face. You cannot do that with your eyes in real life, and you shouldn’t allow a camera to do it for you if you want to maintain the theatre experience. If the cameraman decides upon a closeup, the viewer has no freedom to glance about the stage. Close up shots damage many aspects of the performance. Stage acting is very different from onscreen acting. Most of on-screen acting is captured with a camera that frame the actors face so that it fills up majority of the screen. Theatre acting generally is larger, the audience is watching you whole body the whole time. This can mean that body language is more important on stage than on screen. Close up shots eliminate this. This takes the performance away from the theatre. ‘It’s not the same experience, not a communal experience, not an event. It cheapens it.’ (Reidy et al. 2016: 55).
The approach to filming at National Theatre Live broadcasts is to prioritise the audience in cinemas for that night. The camera director is given complete flexibility in choosing camera positions, so that the performance can be captured from the best seats in the house and with a sophisticated camera setup, involving track shots and where appropriate a crane. The audience of the National Theatre are aware that cameras will be present, so the theatre is transformed into something of a live studio. Two full camera rehearsals take place before each broadcast, with time in between for the stage director and camera director to work together to discuss how to best capture the production. Adjustments are made for lighting and sound with the aim of preserving the integrity of the original design.
Despite the negative impact that some camera work can have on theatre productions, a report published by NESTA on behalf of National Theatre Live concluded that ‘Liveness’ can be communicated successfully through satellite transmission of live theatre, and audiences value this unique atmosphere. The report went on to say that whilst ‘actual’ or simultaneous liveness may not be critical, capturing the sense of event and the atmosphere of the live performance may enhance the audience’s experience (NESTA 2011). This is good news for the industry because the COVID 19 pandemic has had a significant financial impact on the performing arts and many performing arts institutions are attemping to adapt by offering new (or newly expanded) digital services.
In the world prior to COVID 19 restrictions the industry was using live streaming to increase their income. As theatres and concert halls have limited seating capacity live streaming offers additional sources of box office revenues for organisations that have previously had to rely on public subsidy.
In a 2015 Arts Council England report, the National Theatre estimated that each broadcast into the UK’s cinemas cost a minimum of £250,000, and that most broadcasts made a profit. This scale is clearly not feasible for most theatre companies in the country.
Pre-COVID 19 a trip to the theatre could be seen as an exclusive venture. While everyone should have access to the performing arts, our expensive world tends to wrongfully characterize them as exclusive through expensive ticket prices. However during the pandemic there has been opportunity for streaming companies to attempt to introduce the magic of theatre to peoples homes. Fortunately, streaming artistic performances promotes accessibility. (Cohen 2020.) Innovators such as Forced Entertainment and Complicité have had great success in live-streaming their work via YouTube or their websites, but this has been on a free-to-access basis.
The magic or liveness of theatre is a much-debated topic, but many agree that it is this magic that separates live theatre from cinema and television. Some even believe that it is impossible to replicate it outside of the theatre. Despite advances in technology it is indeed the case that live broadcasts do indeed ruin the magic of theatre. As a performer, I can tell you that there is a world of difference between the last dress rehearsal (without an audience) and the first preview or performance. The audience reactions reinforces the idea that a show is a magical, living, breathing thing.
References:
Simon Callow (2012) Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World (ed. Vintage, 2012) - ISBN: 9780345803245
Peter Brook (1996) The Empty Space. Cambridge. Simon and Schuster
Bell, Elizabeth S. (2008). Theories of Performance. Sage. p. 203. ISBN 978-1-4129-2637-9.
Clemency Burton Hill (2015) Is watching opera in the cinema just as good? Available at https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20150114-opera-in-the-cinema-blasphemy
Phelan Peggy (2004) The politics and Performance. 4th edn. Routledge
Jellicoe, Ann (1967) Some Unconscious Influences in the Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Auslander P (2008) Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture Routledge
Auslander P (2012), “Digital Liveness: A Historico-Philosophical Perspective,” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 34.3 (2012): 6.
Nesta (2011) Digital broadcast of theatre Learning from the pilot season. Available online www.nesta.org.uk/publications/reports/assets/features/cultures_of_innovation/.
Sasha Cohen (2020) The Pros and Cons of Streaming Performance. Washington Square News
Reidy, B. K., B. Schutt, D. Abramson and A. Durski (11 October 2016), ‘From Live-to-Digital: Understanding the Impact of Digital Developments in Theatre on Audiences, Production and Distribution’ (2016), Arts Council England. Available online: http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/publication/live-digital (accessed 13th January 2021)
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