A Note from the Editor: Essentials

Abstract

A Note from the Editor: Essentials John Fletcher As those readers who saw the original call for papers know, my initial plans for a 2021 special issue centered on the notion of intimacy. I imagined a slate of pieces about intimacy choreography on stage and screen, intimacy awareness in theatre classrooms, and intimate ruminations about the ever-fascinating transactions between performers and audiences, between dramatic events and the places that house them, and between projects that speak to and with one another across time and space. That was in March 2020. By April, it became clear that the year would turn the comfort of familiar intimacies into aching nostalgia. Remember seeing a live show in a crowded theatre? Remember reconnecting with friends over drinks at a conference or a party? Remember hugging someone? Of course, 2020–21 inflicted deeper wounds: lives snuffed out, justice undone, incomes suspended, and political stabilities frayed. Losing touch—refraining from physical closeness with others, especially indoors—only made these traumas harder to endure. The idea of essentials as a replacement special issue topic grew out of the absence of intimacy. I realized, first, that many in our society—the so-called essential workers—did not have the privilege of isolation. For people like delivery drivers, grocers, food staff, medical personnel, and custodial workers, continued contact was obligatory, often without the necessary gear to keep them safe. The pandemic reminded us again how badly we as a culture do at valuing those whose labors we depend on every day. What other essentials, I wondered, do we take for granted? I saw also how theatre artists and teachers were adapting to the prohibition on proximity. How does a live artform go remote? How do I perform a scene with you when even our smallest interactions suffer a microsecond’s time delay? How do I connect with students when all we can see of one another are glitchy Brady Bunch boxes, many of which are blank? How do I enjoy that organic exchange with colleagues about work and lives when every Zoom session feels like a strained, excuse-my-mess/children/pets/stress performance of perseverance? What remains when we have stripped away so much that we would normally define as essential to theatre, teaching, and even everyday interactions? Some pandemic lessons have proved valuable. We have all acquired an appreciation of personal boundaries, a change that intimacy-awareness specialists have long argued for. Classes and conferences (and even in some cases productions) have become much more accessible for many thanks to lowered costs, universal recording, and audio captioning. So many old practices and conventions we thought indispensable now seem optional or even retrograde. Although I like being able to handle certain interactions with Zoom, even I worry about how the technology imposes troubling renegotiations of privacy and work–life balance. On a different level, all of us are much more conscious now of the fragility of our social and political norms. Most of us, hopefully, are more careful about recognizing the injustices against BIPOC folk and others that such norms can mask. As we emerge from the pandemic, we find ourselves sad, tired, and frazzled. But I hope we have also grown wiser and defter, inoculated against certain kinds of ignorance and poised to respond to future challenges. How long will such wisdom and dexterity last, I wonder? What booster shots may be required to reinforce them? [End Page ix] The fourteen pieces in this issue each capture a bit of the stress and isolation since the pandemic began. Each essay dwells on something essential about theatrical practice, teaching, and research, and each gestures beyond the present, lifting up durable reflections and questions for us to carry out of quarantine. I love how our three peer-reviewed essays for this issue represent the different forms that “scholarship” can take in our field. Nathan Stith, Aria Gastón-Panthaki, and Rachel Morris get us started with an impressive mixed-method study, “The Theatre Industry’s Essential Workers: Catalysts for Change.” Combining quantitative and qualitative techniques, the authors provide a snapshot of the pandemic year’s impact on professional theatre workers. Yet, far from relaying a list of laments...