“A joke is circulating in the theatrical world: no one wants to be scheduled next January”, reports Solène Paré, who was to go up The art of living at the Threepenny. Humor to soften a brutal reality: during what is normally an important month for the scene, the performing arts are closed for a second consecutive year.
“We received it very harshly,” said the director, while expressing her difficulty in denouncing it, given the serious situation of the hospital network. “I have the impression that inconsistent decisions were made. Why keep the big stores open if we close the theaters, when they comply with a lot of rules, why there are no rapid tests for performers? But I find it difficult as an artist to speak above the discourse of scientists, seeing our exhausted nurses. »
In Quebec, many productions that had already been postponed for the first time (in Montreal, this is also the case with Lysis at the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde) are hit again, notes Marie-Josée Bastien. The artistic director of the Théâtre Level Parking, whose co-production Newsroom had to be postponed to Duceppe, feels a breathlessness in the middle of the Old Capital, a city “almost exclusively of theater” for performers.
“It looks like everyone is a bit in shock. What are the solutions? That the seasons begin in March? Last year, when everything was cancelled, there was an energy: we are going to work on other projects, do workshops… But I have the impression that for the moment, no one wants to work on a creation. A show that will be presented in what, eight years? »
This constant uncertainty weighs on morale, says Soleil Launière, who was preparing to create his solo, Akuteu, in the Jean-Claude Germain room. “It’s like a yoyo: we play in front of a full house; oh no, we are at 50%; no in the end, we may not be able to present it… It’s always readapting. Decisions that are all the more difficult to make for a very young company like his, Production AUEN. “We want to get started, make a name for ourselves. For me, it’s a big mourning to say to myself thatAkuteu won’t be able to play right now, and we don’t know when. It’s discouraging. »
Even if she is understanding in the face of a pandemic that affects everyone, this forced waltz-hesitation is “destabilizing”, agrees Francine Bernier, director of the Agora de la danse. “It feels like we’re going in circles. And she expects that the return of the public to the room “will not be obvious for the years to come”, noting that after the move of the Agora to the place des Festivals, it had taken three years to return to normal. “An audience is fragile. »
Francine Bernier, however, sees in the crisis an opportunity to tackle the endemic difficulties of the sector, an opportunity for the Minister of Culture to launch a “construction site” on dance. “We see all our basic problems stand out even more: in dance, there is chronic underfunding, a lot of poverty, we tour abroad, but not enough in Quebec. How do we fix that? It’s time to sit down to find solutions so that when we reopen in a stable way, we have the tools in our hands. »
Positive impact: the forced confinement in Montreal will at least have allowed the middle to talk to each other all last year. “It brought a boost of energy. We continue to discuss among ourselves to find how we can do otherwise. »
Engorgement
In the theatre, these successive postponements create a problem of congestion. Any new creation “must get behind the queue, which has lengthened,” notes François Archambault. It is certain that projects will fall”. He himself took advantage of the initial lag in the creation of Oil at Duceppe to rework his piece. But he hopes the show can go ahead as planned in April. “If not, do we continue to believe in it? It becomes difficult. »
And how long can we postpone performances, in an art that is supposed to be in touch with its world? “When you write theater, it’s faster than TV, so there’s something that speaks to the society in which you live at the very moment you do it,” recalls the playwright. If we shift the creation too far, we are no longer in touch with the spirit of the times. In addition, the pandemic is causing a lot of changes and new tensions in society. I have the impression that we are going to need fictions that talk about how our world is changing. »
A situation not easy for young authors. “The difficulty will be to leave room for new creations, for emerging artists. You have to be careful not to block the conversation, ”judges Philippe Cyr, who has three stagings suspended this season, including Attacks on his life, which in April will have been postponed for two years: “A show that we haven’t had the chance to see come to fruition, so close to the goal, remains inside of us all this time, as if we weren’t stopping never to support projects until they have seen the light of day. »
The artistic director and co-director general of the Prospero Theater is worried about the next generation, the school graduates. “There is little space in the theaters, the programming being done in advance by a majority of postponed shows. But if they can’t have contracts, how do we engage them in the artistic life? I have the impression that if we don’t tackle this, we will suffer from a lack of succession later on. It is very worrying. »
Destructuring
Many point to the loss of staff, career changes within theatrical teams as an already tangible impact of these repeated closures. According to Philippe Cyr, this unpredictability produces “a serious destructuring effect”. “With the first closure, we lost a lot of technicians in the theater. Now they are a rare commodity. There, we feel discouragement. We may also lose artists. »
He thinks that we will not be able to continue to react to the pandemic in this way. “We’ll have to find another kind of accommodation. It is sure that we are in a crisis, We must be in solidarity with society. But I don’t know how long we’ll hold out due to the closures. We are able to do theater while respecting sanitary measures, we proved it last spring. There may be sacrifices to be made, but this ongoing stoppage is extremely damaging. »
Solène Paré fears “tremendously for the continuation of theater in Quebec”, because of this future shortage which also affects designers and “all trades [maquilleurs, perruquiers…] that form our ecology. But, more than ever, she realizes the necessity of the theater. “I think that in major crises, there will always be a crying need for living art. Theater can be a vector of hope and imagination. Remembering the story we are collectively engaged in has never been more important. »