L to R: Haley Jones and Rebecca Tucker in Or, at The Winnipesaukee Playhouse. Costumes by DW. Photo by Leslie Pankhurst.
A note on the note:
In the early months of 2020, I reached out to the Winnipesaukee Playhouse in Meredith, NH. about the possibility of being hired to direct. I had attended their shows over many summers spent in the area, but the email I sent was a shot in the dark. As chance would have it, there was a vacancy to fill in the most “esoteric” play in the “Women in Theatre” season planned for the summer. I signed on to direct Or, by Liz Duffy Adams just as theatres across the nation were shutting down in response to COVID-19 .
As the pandemic worsened and the future of summer 2020 productions became darker, I prepared myself for the show’s inevitable cancellation. In May, I received an email from AD Neil Pankhurst that the summer season was indeed cancelled—with the one exception of Or,.
The production would be moved to a to-be-renovated outdoor amphitheater, the cast, stage manager, and wardrobe would isolate as a pod (helped by two of the three actors already being a couple) , we would distance from the audience, wear masks in rehearsal, take temperatures, sanitize props, get tested, get tested again, follow ever-changing state guidelines on onstage kissing, and be prepared to have the whole endeavor called off at any moment.
It took flexibility, care, consent, patience, ingenuity, humor, sunscreen, intimacy direction, breath, and a lot of trust, but we did it. Or, ran from September 3rd (after a rained out planned opening on September 2nd) through September 12th, 2020. Distanced pods of masked audience members gathered in a new outdoor space to experience a story about the fraught pursuit of happiness in a world beset by sickness, divisiveness, and fear. The old magic of theatre remaking itself once again.
***
“Let’s speak only of what really matters, of poetry, theater, and love,” says King Charles II to Aphra Behn in her prison cell as his nation reels from a decade of civil war, outbreaks of bubonic plague, and the Great Fire of London, which destroyed almost 90% of the city’s homes. England’s coffers were hemorrhaging, its people were hurting, and King Charles II chose this moment in his reign to reopen the theatres after 18 years of Puritanical closures.
Why theatre, why now?
Echoing from 1660s England to 2020 America, this question is eerily resonant.
As businesses shuttered to contain the spread of COVID-19, theatres were among the first to be labeled ‘non-essential.’ In my opinion, rightly so. Not only are theatres hotbeds of intimate interaction on and off the stage, they provide only meager concessions as food, a single seat in the dark as shelter, and historically accurate, but deeply uncomfortable garments as clothing. The vast majority of us that work in the theatre have no medical training. The most we had to offer in the beginning of the pandemic was a healthy stock of toilet paper.
However, as months of isolation, fear, grief, anxiety, civil unrest, and calls for justice have irreparably changed our society, those of us that have been lucky enough to survive must go about the essential business of living. At this, the theatre excels. We go to the theatre to take pleasure in tragedy of being human, to delight our eyes and ears, to deliciously dream a new world into being. The theatre is a social space where distance—between past and present, reality and artifice, I and thou—is closed by a potent cocktail of collective whimsy and will. We go to the theatre because we want to, not because we need to.
That is the heart of Charles’ matter, which is the heart of this lovely play by Liz Duffy Adams, which is the heart of our production, constructed with COVID-safe care. The desire to live the fullness of life must supersede the necessary evils of mere survival. As we navigate our time of plague, fire, and war, let us arm ourselves with knowledge and kindness so that we can celebrate the non-essential things that make life really matter: “poetry, theater, and love.”
-Aileen Wen McGroddy, Director
L to R: Nick Cochran (Jailer, Wardrobe), Nicholas Wilder (King Charles II, William Scot), Rebecca Tucker (Aphra Behn), Haley Jones (Nell Gwynne, Lady Daveport, Maria), and Kim D’Agnese (Stage Manager) in Or, at The Winnipesaukee Playhouse. Costumes by DW. Photo by Leslie Pankhurst.
