Hi friends.
I don’t really have a good title for this (I mean, see the name of this blog for more evidence of this ongoing dilemma!), but all of the coronavirus news and the event cancellations and the bans on mass gatherings got me thinking this week, and I wrote something.
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This living room isn’t the smallest venue we’ve played, but it’s one of the smallest. Just enough room for a couch against one wall and a TV on an old hall table against the other. A stack of cushions in the corner next to the TV, for guests. The room is a little longer one way than the other, and the family gamely shifts the couch and cushions to the shorter wall, so we’re not tripping over their feet as we perform. The doorway to the hall is as good an entrance as any, and more than we’ve had some places. The last place we were, before our two-week quarantine break, we just stood with our faces to the wall when we weren’t onstage. We work with what we have.
Our set-up is simple and quick: a crate in the far corner with a bodhran drum, a bell, and a few other foley items. Some hats and jackets lined up against the wall for easy grabbing. A few lengths of red fabric. When we did this show in bigger spaces we had pallets, chairs, curtains to delineate the different spaces. Now we just use the words, and one length of sheer white fabric for Lady M’s death—the only theatrical moment we couldn’t quite let go of.
As we go, we make sure to touch the family’s stuff as little as possible. We went through the hand-washing and disinfectant ritual when we arrived, but we all have hand sanitizer dispensers at our belts that we use as we arrange our things. It’s as much for their comfort as our safety: we won’t touch your stuff, we’ll kill all the germs, and none of us will get the virus.
The family sits on the couch and chat with us as we set up. Mom, Dad, two kids—both girls, by the look of them, but we don’t want to assume. Grandma. The presence of Grandma means we are extra careful about keeping our distance. The elderly are the worst affected.
With the five of them and the five of us, we just barely meet the gathering limit. No more than ten people in a household at any one time. No more nights out at the bar, or the theatre. No more giant birthday parties, or Thanksgivings, or Passovers. Community has fractured into tiny pockets of people, sustaining connections as best we can from a distance. Nobody really believes that if you go over the limit, the virus will come riding on the shoulders of that eleventh person.
But no one wants to risk it, either.
If the county officially knew what we were doing, they would probably make us stop. Travelling from household to household, even with all the precautions we take, is risky in a pandemic. But with the TV networks shut down and indefinite partial quarantine in place, people are starved for entertainment. Even county officials. We don’t go door-to-door or anything—we’re not stupid—but word spreads, and people call to see if we might come to their place and do a show. We usually get a couple calls a week. We go to one house every two weeks.
In just a few minutes, the props are set, the family settled with popcorn and drinks. Everyone else filters out into the hall for their first entrance as I face the family on the carpet.
Performing for an audience of five sitting three feet away from you is very different from performing on a stage for a house of hundreds. The same tones don’t work; everything must be a little subtler. But it is still a performance.
I sweep my hat off my head and bow. One of the kids giggles, and the other shushes them. I tip them both a wink.
“Kind friends, thank you for having us in your home. We hope to provide a measure of distraction and entertainment.
“And thus we are pleased to present—Macbeth.”
I step back to the foley corner, grab the drum.
Doom doom.
The other four players enter, looking past the family towards the war the drum heralds. The living room becomes Scotland, and they become Macbeth, Macduff, and their wives. Lady Macduff and Lady Macbeth hold bundled babies, and none of them know what is coming.
The witches already lurk behind them, veils clutched in hands behind backs, ready to be thrown over heads.
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