INTERVIEW: Theatre in Quarantine explores possibilities within closet space
Photo: Joshua William Gelb appears in Corners as part of Theater in Quarantine. The piece features choreography by Katie Rose McLaughlin. Photo courtesy of TiQ / Provided by Everyman Agency with permission.
The inventiveness of the theater community during these unprecedented times is something for the history books. Somehow — with dedication, creativity and a whim — theater companies and theater makers are solving the gulf that now divides audiences from artists. It’s not the same as it once was, but it’s satisfying and culturally important.
Here’s the latest example of that inventiveness: the new theatrical laboratory called Theater in Quarantine, overseen by writer/director/performer Joshua William Gelb. The stated mission of the new effort is to explore the theatrical experience inside the digital space.
A few days ago, the new company premiered Box Thrree. Spool Five. A Piece of Krapp, which is billed as an unauthorized interpretation of Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. Alex Weston provides music, while Katie Rose McLaughlin choreographs. This theatrical effort followed their unique dadaptation of Franz Kafka’s The Neighbor.
Each production takes place in Gelb’s converted closet in his East Village apartment. This is like blackbox theater — well, white-box theater at least.
Next up will be the May 28 premiere of Closet Works, an evening of short works by McLaughlin, Weston and Ellen Winter, among others. Audience members can tune in to the live premiere or access the archived film on Gelb’s YouTube page.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Gelb about Theater in Quarantine. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style. His work has previously been presented by the Abrons Arts Center, Ars Nova, The New Ohio Theatre and Joe’s Pub, among other venues.
When did the idea for Theater in Quarantine first come to you? Was it immediately after lockdown?
When the stay-at-home orders began trickling in I occupied myself like most people, with binged television, elaborate recipes, boxed wine, household odd-jobs, yet another attempt to finish reading Ulysses. I’m totally alone in my East Village apartment, which I think explains a lot. Because this solitude no doubt enabled certain ideas I might dismiss in any other circumstance: in particular, looking at my closet and realizing its dimensions were remarkably similar to the aspect ratio of my iPhone’s camera. That’s how a week into the shutdown I found myself converting my formerly coveted storage space into a white-box digital theater.
What can audience members expect from the theater company?
I suppose now that we’re producing regularly scheduled live-streams every other Thursday we could be considered a company, but I’m more likely to call it a theatrical laboratory. I’ve been working with an ever-growing roster of remote collaborators to understand how theater might digitally adapt without sacrificing what it is that makes it special: collectivity, ephemeralness, collaborative impulse, the protean empty space. As a director of physical theater I’m less interested in the glut of Zoom readings that have popped up. I crave movement, spectacle and aesthetic cohesion, all the things that seem particularly out of reach right now. But in limiting the scope of the work to my closet, I’ve been able to construct a proscenium venue in which I can use digital tools to frame unquestionably theatrical feats of liveness.
The work includes dance, adaptations of short stories, serialized installments of longer plays. But everything is a one-man-band situation, which leaves me as the only actual performer. Here I find the central metaphor and perhaps appeal of the entire project — which is about as obvious as you might expect — that my attempts not only to make art in this confinement but to exist within it whatsoever is not so dissimilar from what many of us are experiencing. There is frustration, and boredom, and lots of loneliness. But in this small, white container, there is somehow an impossibly deep stage for the imagination to thrive.
Do you envision this lasting throughout the pandemic? Can there be a future once the lockdown lifts?
Theaters have a long way to go until audiences feel safe congregating again. The whole industry relies on communal gathering, and right now it’s existentially threatened for what may be an indeterminate amount of time. When can we return to normal? The fact is, we just don’t know, and until that changes, I’m content to keep building work for the closet. We’ll continue releasing pre-recorded videos as often as possible, and every other Thursday we’ll be live at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. for the foreseeable future. The next live show is May 28 with an evening of short pieces featuring the choreography of Katie Rose McLaughlin.
But even when theater as we know it returns, I think the industry is going to find it harder and harder to ignore the digital space. So, yes, I do imagine continuing the project — though hopefully not in my closet. Once the curve’s flattened out entirely I’d like a place to store my air conditioner again.
The first production, based off Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, is an interesting one. How would you describe it?
It’s not exactly our first production. A couple of weeks ago we premiered an adaptation of Kafka’s short story, The Neighbor, which was our first proof of concept for the TiQ livestream. “box thrree. spool five.” — which is what we’re calling this unauthorized edit of Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape — is our first attempt at bringing spoken text into the closet, and in some ways our first attempt to mount something closer to a traditional play.
The piece follows the original very closely, but instead of watching an elderly Krapp listen to a reel-to-reel recording of his 39-year-old self, we experience the younger Krapp make that recording. It’s a beautiful, heartbreaking monologue about isolation and the ways we use technology to document our lives, preserving versions of ourselves that we might later regret encountering. Beckett was absurdly ahead of his time in this respect.
This is also our first piece to integrate live manipulation of the camera’s frame — no post-production here — so when the room starts spinning that is programmed to happen in real-time with the performer, and here is where I get really excited about this new hybrid form. What are the ways we can tell stories digitally that aren’t available to us in a live theater but remain inherently theatrical?
What are the extra logistical headaches of producing programming online?
I’ve never considered myself a gear-head. I think most theater makers fall somewhere on the analog end of the spectrum, so there’s been a lot of acclimating to being so dependent upon technology. Whole weekends have been lost getting all of the equipment talking to each other, and with every problem solved, like whack-a-mole, there’s always some new issue that crops up, especially as we become more ambitious with the work we’re making.
I just upgraded to internet ultra, so that might help. Plus I probably need to acquire an external GPU for my poor 13-inch MacBook, a couple more dongles (so many dongles). And since I can’t just waltz over to Best Buy, everything has to be ordered, and it’s hard to predict when that essential adaptor you’ve been waiting for will arrive. For me, adaptors have replaced the trope of the diva who refuses to come out her dressing room.
But beyond the technical, the biggest obstacle lies in my own limitations. I try to involve as many collaborators as possible, but all of the in-house work, the actual realization of my collaborator’s ideas, rests solely in my hands. I’ve always considered myself a sort of jack-of-all-trades when it comes to theater, but this project has truly pushed me. And frankly I’m a little tired.
How do you work with other artists on this project and still remain safe?
I’ve got asthma, so I’m immunocompromised and don’t mess around with the stay-at-home orders. All rehearsals are held over video conference — we’ve worked on Zoom, Jitsi, Hangouts, FaceTime and Cisco Webex. I make sure designers and choreographers have a perfectly framed view of the closet, and we stumble along from there. It’s not perfect, but it has been functional.
My choreographer, Katie Rose McLaughlin, likes to say that we do things quick and dirty, and there’s a lot of truth to that. None of us are getting paid for this, so really it’s a way to keep ourselves not just occupied, but creatively sharp. Do I look forward to the day when I can comfortably invite another performer or a technician into my apartment and work in person? Absolutely. But until then, we make do with the tools we have.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Theater in Quarantine, presented by Joshua William Gelb, is available via Gelb’s YouTube page. Click here for more information.
