Lovely essay. The city I lived in sewed hundreds and hundreds of masks for a nearby hospital, for the doctors (they were low on N95s and would wear the fabric over the N95s so the respirators would last longer). It was very moving to see groups of people sacrifice for the good of all. I agree it wasn't hygiene theater, even though some efforts were not effective. What is theater, performance, emotion, fantasy is post-pandemic false narratives about mitigation--"anti-hygiene theater."
Thank you--yes it has this feeling of forced cheer that many people who continue to take covid precautions object to. My personal sense is, it's inevitable ppl will gather in settings where it's difficult to mitigate, but I'm saddened we're not even trying in healthcare, classrooms and other more formal settings which already have many protocols in place. Worse, we're now collectively engaging in a strange revisionism where it seems that e.g., school closures (which had bad effects, of course) seemed totally unmotivated or were an overreacting. We can still learn from our past mistakes, but that will require an honest look at what we have done, and what we're doing now.
I am saddened that the brief practice of online plays and concerts is now largely abolished again. I saw so many wonderful performances. The high point was a play by Margaret Cavendish, the 17th century philosopher, where you have ladies who try to make a utopia without men, but then a beautiful prince (or princess?) comes in and confuses and excites them all. I think that was nice to have, it's a pity it's gone
I felt a real shock from "Amadeus" of the British National Theatre. Lucian Msamati as Salieri and Adam Gillen as Mozart - it was amazing!
I watched it at night and sobbed like crazy at the end... I realized that it doesn't matter whether you're sitting in the theater or watching online, sitting before laptop somewhere in Kyiv, and even on a recording. If this is a real game of actors, it breaks through all barriers - both temporal and spatial
Lovely essay. The city I lived in sewed hundreds and hundreds of masks for a nearby hospital, for the doctors (they were low on N95s and would wear the fabric over the N95s so the respirators would last longer). It was very moving to see groups of people sacrifice for the good of all. I agree it wasn't hygiene theater, even though some efforts were not effective. What is theater, performance, emotion, fantasy is post-pandemic false narratives about mitigation--"anti-hygiene theater."
Thank you--yes it has this feeling of forced cheer that many people who continue to take covid precautions object to. My personal sense is, it's inevitable ppl will gather in settings where it's difficult to mitigate, but I'm saddened we're not even trying in healthcare, classrooms and other more formal settings which already have many protocols in place. Worse, we're now collectively engaging in a strange revisionism where it seems that e.g., school closures (which had bad effects, of course) seemed totally unmotivated or were an overreacting. We can still learn from our past mistakes, but that will require an honest look at what we have done, and what we're doing now.
Great song! I recall how many excellent performances could be watched online - British theaters, the Metropolitan...
I am saddened that the brief practice of online plays and concerts is now largely abolished again. I saw so many wonderful performances. The high point was a play by Margaret Cavendish, the 17th century philosopher, where you have ladies who try to make a utopia without men, but then a beautiful prince (or princess?) comes in and confuses and excites them all. I think that was nice to have, it's a pity it's gone
I felt a real shock from "Amadeus" of the British National Theatre. Lucian Msamati as Salieri and Adam Gillen as Mozart - it was amazing!
I watched it at night and sobbed like crazy at the end... I realized that it doesn't matter whether you're sitting in the theater or watching online, sitting before laptop somewhere in Kyiv, and even on a recording. If this is a real game of actors, it breaks through all barriers - both temporal and spatial