ON STAGE
What: Salt Water Moon
Where: The Roxy Theatre
When: July 6-11
Tickets: $25 from bluebridgetheatre.ca
The third stage of the provincial restart, announced Tuesday to a collective sigh of relief, has dramatically changed the fortunes of performing arts companies on Vancouver Island.
It also allowed artistic director Brian Richmond of Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre to say what we’ve all being secretly feeling for 15 months of online arts programming.
Livestream? Good.
Live events? Unimaginably, unequivocally, overwhelmingly great.
“Live theatre is not live theatre without people in the auditorium,” he said. “It’s just not the same thing. Even though we’ve had a lot of fun and learned a great deal through having to stream our shows, it simply isn’t the same experience as having an audience. That is the essence of theatre, the relationship between actor and audience. It’s going to make a huge difference.“
Blue Bridge has been selling a limited amount of in-person tickets to its upcoming production of Salt-Water Moon, which opens Tuesday at the Roxy Theatre, for several weeks — the first time since November the company has been permitted by the health authority to do so. Though Richmond and his staff have been active throughout the pandemic, primarily with livestreaming, the impending arrival of audiences is a development of substantial importance, especially with Day After Day, a musical tribute to Doris Day, set to close out the company’s 2021 season Aug. 3–15.
Per provincial regulations, Blue Bridge is now permitted to sell up to 112 in-person tickets to its performances through the summer, which represents 50 per cent of the Roxy Theatre’s 225-person capacity. Blue Bridge won’t hit that mark out of the gate — the company will continue to offer the livestream component to its in-person its shows, equipment for which takes up seats and space in the auditorium — but the news is invariably good.
By mid-September, the expectation is that all live performances in B.C. will be back at full in-person capactity.
“We started the season not being able to have any people in the audience, so we’ll be playing catch-up with our final two shows to get back to our original budget figures,” Richmond said. “But it means that we have a fighting chance.”
Fran Gebhard, who is directing actors Shea O’Connor and Dawson Rutledge in Salt-Water Moon, Newfoundland playwright David French’s much-loved classic, has spent several weeks of rehearsals on Zoom. Though it would not be her first choice, Gebhard, who teaches acting at the University of Victoria, has become well-versed in the idea of teaching virtually. Some of her classes at UVic were moved online during the past school year; she also directed a student production at UVic in the spring that was shot entirely for livestream.
Gebhard now has the unenviable task of directing theatre for in-person and online audiences simultaneously. “I teach acting for film and television but that doesn’t mean I teach camera work necessarily,” she said with a laugh. She has positioned the cameras for the livestream at a distance, so that those in the audience don’t feel like they are on a film set. “This will like watching a live theatre production,” she added.
Victoria fiddler Pierre Schryer plays a key role. Schryer, a decorated Juno-nominated performer who hails from Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., has years of experience in Maritime folk music, so his input was invaluable. He plays live throughout the show, which adds texture to the love story about two childhood sweethearts in 1926, who try to rekindle their relationship in the Newfoundland neighbourhood of Coley’s Point.
“I think of him as the spirit of Newfoundland in this production,” Gebhard said of Schryer. “I think we’re using him very effectively.”
Gebhard, a well-respected theatre veteran, shares Richmond’s excitement for the coming production and what the return of audiences means to live theatre in a broader sense. After 15 months of world-changing health protocols, which greatly hampered the performing arts, “it’s time for a good-news story,” she said.
Richmond, who has been battling behind-the-scenes to keep the company afloat during the unprecedented turn of events, is hopeful audiences return in droves. It may be slow-going at first, he said, especially with some uneasy about returning so quickly to wider public interaction. But he learned something about Blue Bridge through the pandemic, and the role patrons play in sustaining its financial health.
“There is no hyperbole, no b.s. in this — we would not have been able to survive without the loyalty of our ticket buyers and our donors,” he said. “That is what has kept Blue Bridge, which does not enjoy a lot of government funding, afloat. They have stepped up very, very admirably.”
