Digital Dionysus

Acorn TV’s Theatreland

By Terry Morgan

Ian McKellen as Estragon in “Waiting for Godot” at Theatre Royal Haymarket (Photo by Sasha Gusov, Courtesy Acorn.tv)

England’s National Theatre is screening its productions in movie theaters, to great success. Plays and theatrical documentaries are available on DVD and/or streaming, and companies such as L.A. Theatre Works are recording plays available on CD, radio and the Internet. For a theater lover, there are more opportunities than ever before to see or hear productions one couldn’t attend in person. This column will be taking a look at these different venues for enjoying theater, beginning with, appropriately enough, a backstage documentary about putting on a show.

Theatreland is an eight-part series following a few months in the life of the Theatre Royal Haymarket, a venerable institution located in London’s West End that dates back to 1720. During the period of time chronicled, the TRH puts on a hit Waiting For Godot starring Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, and prepares to launch a production of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The star factor is intriguing enough, but what makes this documentary special is its focus on everyone that makes a show happen, from the marquee names to the housekeepers who dust the lights.

The series begins with rehearsals for the Beckett play with director Sean Mathias, as theater manager Mark Stradling hurries to prepare the aging Theatre Royal for months of sold-out houses. This entails everything from selling tickets and training the ushers to, literally, keeping the theater from falling apart. Days before the show moves in, a leak rots the roof over one of the dressing rooms, requiring the roof to be torn out and the entire room to be redone. The seats, a century old, must be checked and repaired daily. Then there’s the updating of the plumbing in the bathrooms, done by a cheerful father-daughter team, the latter of which opines of a toilet, “Famous bums are gonna love that.”

Courtesy Acorn.tv

The production has its press night, and everybody waits for the response of the critics. “The first night is like an operation,” says Simon Callow, who plays Pozzo in the show. “You know you have to have it, and you feel better afterwards.” The critics generally praise the production, but find it a bit too comedic. The production sells out its run anyway, and the series then examines the challenges of keeping a show running. One of the more fascinating episodes focuses on an understudy and what that job is like, and the thrill when he finally gets to go onstage.

The actor-stars are covered here, but not at the expense of the rest of the production team. Stewart finds learning his lines for Godot to be far more difficult than any Shakespeare play he’d done, and he sees a ghost onstage during one of the performances. McKellen, surprisingly if touchingly, weeps uncontrollably after the final show. Callow bitches about Maggie Smith and Joan Plowright (in the audience) being in his sightline. But the show belongs to people such as Tony Brunt, master carpenter, who takes the filmmakers through countless odd hallways and rarely trod rooms, the guy who hoists a new Union Jack on press nights and knows the Theatre Royal probably better than anyone. When asked if he misses the shows when they close, he says no, he likes a change. And the fabulous invalid moves forward.

As Godot nears the end of its run, Mathias is in rehearsals for Tiffany’s, and is changing gears from serious drama to big, glitzy spectacle. The set will be three stories high, with huge movable fire-escape staircases being specially constructed. Star Anna Friel is nervous just coming off American TV to do a play on the West End, but she’s more nervous having to learn how to play the guitar for the production. Oh, and also there’s a live cat in the show, which has an understudy. Finally, Godot closes and Tiffany’s moves in: goodbye, hello, and the cycle of stage life completes another rotation.

The documentary’s director Chris Terrill keeps things breezy and informative, highlighting the faded grandeur of Royal Haymarket Theatre. Theatreland is currently available for streaming video on Acorn.tv. It’s $4.99 per month to use the site (which is primarily full of British TV programs) but the first month is a free trial. Playing Shakespeare, another documentary featuring actors such as Stewart and Judi Dench, will be added as a streaming option in June. Theatreland is also available for purchase as a DVD, and the Acorn site (acornonline.com) features many more theatre DVDs for purchase.

It’s become a tired trope to write about how the theater is dying, or that something or someone will save it. Heedlessly, the fabulous invalid continues to swan about. In fact, there are more ways now to access theatre than ever before.

Theatreland, directed by Chris Terrell (Acorn.tv)