It was a beautiful but chilly summer evening at the Minack Theatre in Cornwall, and something exceptional was about to happen – a play.
The venue buzzed with excitable chatter as audience members rummaged through handbags and ducked apologetically into the aisles for last-minute snack purchases.
I was one of them, scrambling around for my emergency Minstrels in the final minutes before showtime.
Ever since You-Know-What became the unwelcome headline act of 2020, theatres across the country have been mothballed. Despite the Government’s £1.75billion support package for the arts industry, recent figures suggest that theatre job losses have now reached 5,000.
As an open-air amphitheatre carved into a jagged Cornish cliff top, the Minack is one of the (relatively) lucky ones. In addition to being stirringly beautiful and featuring panoramic views over the Atlantic Ocean, its unique architecture means that it can now stage al fresco performances within the guidelines of social distancing.
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After about four months of lockdown, the show can finally go on.
There was a sudden, exhilarated hush as the conductor, dressed in black and wearing the accessory of the year – a surgical face mask – stepped forward. In a commanding voice, he explained the evening’s billing to the silent amphitheatre.
The Soldier’s Tale was conceived by the composer Igor Stravinsky and the writer C. F. Ramuz in 1918, just as the Spanish Flu pandemic was spreading throughout the globe.
It was performed only once – on its opening night in Lausanne – before the Swiss authorities cancelled live acts in response to the public health crisis. It was five years before the full production was performed on stage again.
With that, a violin note splintered the air, and the story began.
You no longer have to worry about the tallest person in the room inevitably sitting directly in front of you and ruining everything
After months of screen time that will probably see the Netflix logo burned into my retinas until the end of days, witnessing live theatre felt almost too real. It’s even a little jarring at first, with all the negligible glitches that come with live productions (a squeaky microphone, a rustle of sheet music) thrown into sharp relief.
I realised I felt nervous that something might go awry. There was no need, naturally; it was all sublime.
Granted, recreating the glamour often associated with a trip to the theatre is hard when you’re sitting on the grass in the great British outdoors. Fancy outfits and overpriced wine were replaced by chunky jumpers and steaming paper cups of coffee. By 8pm, most of the audience members appeared to have turned a faint shade of blue.
But in truth, I found a lot to love about the experience – and losing the feeling in my fingers seemed a reasonable tradeoff for the wonder of seeing the moon rise over the ocean, stage left.
What about the safety procedures? The ushers – armed with bundles of patience and wooden sticks – did an impressive job of guiding the crowd deftly through the venue’s new one-way system.
Unexpected perks included more personal space and blissfully clear views of the stage thanks to a system of staggered seating: whatever valid concerns you may have about the new normal, know that you no longer have to worry about the tallest person in the room inevitably sitting directly in front of you and ruining everything.
The flip side of this is feeling more exposed and visible yourself which, for me, resulted in a concentrated effort to eat the Minstrels as noiselessly as possible. Given everyone else’s exemplary behaviour, I can only assume they felt the same.
The Minack’s precarious position on the edge of a rocky cliff top felt like a fitting metaphor for an industry that is currently teetering on the brink. How will theatres adapt moving forwards? Will we see pared-back productions with fewer cast and crew members? More outdoor settings? Shorter, more frequent performances to balance out smaller audiences?
These are pressing issues because as lovely as it is to have the extra legroom, venues won’t necessarily be able to operate at a reduced capacity for long.
One thing’s for sure – the industry will need our support. And hopefully, just as Stravinsky’s libretto survived the Spanish Flu and Shakespeare’s productions, blighted by bubonic plague outbreaks, endured to haunt generations of school students to come, the theatre will come out of this latest crisis intact.
For now, at least, it feels fantastic to return.
As The Soldier’s Tale came to an end at the Minack, the players took a final bow, grinning from ear to ear. We clapped until the feeling (almost) returned to our frozen hands.
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