New Delhi: With people in large parts of the world under quarantine to curb the spread of Covid-19, theatres and events have either been cancelled or postponed globally to take place later this year. But that hasn’t stopped many from finding innovative ways of showcasing their art. One such example is American playwright Richard Nelson who has virtually released his play ‘What Do We Need to Talk About‘ which was enacted via Zoom.
Nelson’s drama, deemed the first great original play of quarantine by The New Yorker, premiered on YouTube last month (29 April). The one-hour-9 minute-long play will be available for streaming till 28 June. It has already received over 50,000 views.
Nelson’s new drama is an addition to his earlier plays on the ‘Apple Family’ that is based out of Rhinebeck in New York. It shows all four Apples, middle-aged siblings, talk about lives during the global pandemic and catch up on Zoom instead of their usual dining table. They talk about grocery shopping, friends lost due to Covid-19 and hope for the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R76oRm76mMM
The Apple Family plays were first performed in 2010 and have always been a reflection of the times. The first in the series ‘That Hopey Changey Thing‘ focussed on the 2010 US midterm elections. The second play called ‘Sweet and Sad’ (2011) shows the family during the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
The third play ‘Sorry‘ (2012) takes place during the 2012 US presidential elections and the last one ‘Regular Singing‘ (2013) is set against the 50th anniversary of American President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
Nelson has said, “These plays have always been, in my mind, about the need to talk, and the need to listen. That is, at their heart, they are about our need for each other. Never in my life have I felt that need more than now”
“Recently, I began to think about what they would be going through today, in my hometown, Rhinebeck; thought about how close they live to each other, only a street or two apart. How they, like us, are now separated, isolated from each other. And how they, like us, would find ways to come together.”
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Theatre at home
Non-profit theatre group The Public, which came into being over 60 years ago in New York, has commissioned all of Nelson’s plays, including the recent one.
In a program note for the production, Nelson has written about the role of theatre in societies: “In times like our own, when human voices seem more disembodied than ever, where words seem pulled from their meanings and turned into rants and weapons, the theater can be necessary…So in one sense then, I’m hoping that these are plays about the need to talk, then need to listen, and the need for theater.”
Closer home in India, the noted Asmita Theatre Group has also made available all of its highly-acclaimed plays on YouTube, calling it the Quarantine Theatre Festival.
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