Community theatre

“Greek Theatre

IS PERFECTLY SUITED TO ZOOM”

Arabella Harcourt-Cooze says Am Dram is surviving Covid better than you might think

Destructive and confusing as these times are to the theatrical world, community theatre can now step into the limelight. Local and with little overhead, it can afford to use its imagination to reinvent itself and experiment. St Michael’s Players’ amateur dramatic group in Chiswick has been performing in the local church hall for seventy years. Pushed to work out how we could continue in the challenging circumstances dictated by the coronavirus, since July a group of talented amateur actors have regularly chosen and cast a number of Zoom play readings. A varied choice, from The Duchess of Malfi to Mixed Doubles and The Life of Brian. Finishing the evening with a discussion of the play, one leaves with a sense of having been both performer and audience, meeting new people, neighbours and friends. We decided to go public with an online performance of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, directed by the gifted Deesh Mariwala. Greek Theatre is perfectly suited to Zoom as the actors perform to the audience with none of the pretence of naturalistic theatre and yet the ancient themes still speak to us today. Written in 458 BC, The Oresteia won the first prize at the Dionysia Festival. An exhausted father, having sacrificed a member of his family to go to war/work, comes home, does not acknowledge his wife’s success in keeping the home fires burning, makes no mention of missing her, just thanks the Gods and introduces his mistress. If only Agamemnon had said sorry, “great to see you” and “well done”, the tragedy of generations might have been stopped there at the gates of Argos. Instead of which, an epic tragedy unfolds. After a month of rehearsals our actors, most of them Chiswick locals, performed live via Zoom from London, Wales, Lymington, Brescia, Italy, and Crete and we held our breath as to whether jaded by six months of virtual meetings there would be an audience. We were delighted to find that more than a hundred homes tuned in across London and Wales to Houston, Texas and the Peloponnese! There was something particularly satisfying about ancient Greek Theatre being aired across the world and back to modern Greece. A real sense of connectivity, people, time and place. St Michael’s Players is now weighing up ideas for performing options in the autumn and winter, following social distancing and other government guidelines. Possible outdoor productions, if we could find a space collaborator. But if the situation worsens what could be better than online pantomime! All new members and ideas are very welcome!

stmichaelsplayers.weebly.com

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