Before the pandemic, seeing a play often meant sitting in the dark and fading away amongst the crowd of other audience members, but with Court Theatre’s Chicagoland premiere of Theatre for One: Here We Are, “the audience is front and center,” according to Miranda González, director of Pandemic Fight and Thank You For Coming. Take Care.
Moreover, unlike Zoom meetings where individuals have access to their self view, the platform does not allow for either the audience or artist to see themselves, making the experience feel all the more intimate. “It’s interesting because neither party can see themselves so it’s similar in the fact that, you know, when you’re going to see a performance in person, you don’t perceive yourself,” said director of Here We Are and whiterly negotiations Monet Felton.
In Lydia R. Diamond‘s whiterly negotiations, a Black writer vents to her sister about the microaggressions she regularly faces and how difficult it is being a Black writer. The play also explores the ways articulating these microaggressions often comes with its own difficulties.
For them, the experience of directing in a virtual setting really amplified the dialogue. “It puts me in the headspace of a [stage] reading in so many ways because it’s bare bones really, just the words and the performance,” they said. “And the performance is literally from the chest up so it’s really about sitting with these words, sitting with this language.”
2/18-3/14: previews Thu-Fri 2/18-2/19, 7:30 PM CST; regular run through 3/14, Thu-Fri 7:30 PM CST, Wed, Sat-Sun 2 and 7:30 PM CST, courttheatre.org, F, but reservation required.
