'It's a delight!' UTM's Theatre and Drama Studies students return to the stage

As we emerge from the pandemic, Theatre and Drama Studies students at UTM have reason to celebrate: the chance to once again perform live on stage.

After an academic year where classwork, discussions, rehearsals and performances all took place in the digital world, the students in this four-year degree program, which is offered jointly with Sheridan College, can finally return to Theatre Erindale at UTM to engage in the original and most vivid form of their art.

“It’s a delight!” says fourth-year student Nicholas Simao. “You forget, being away for a year and a half, how much of a difference it makes to be in the same space with other creatives willing to collaborate.”

“It’s incredible, it’s fantastic,” agrees fellow fourth-year classmate Oliver James Parkins. “When you’re in a Zoom space, you’re aware of what’s missing, but when you actually get to stand and say something to one’s face, it’s so much easier to be present in the room and sit in character and in your body.”

Later this month, Simao and Parkins will perform in a modern remake of An Enemy of the People, the 1882 morality play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen about a doctor who is ostracized by his community after choosing to expose the presence of contaminated water in the public baths, which are a vital economic engine of the small town. In the Theatre Erindale version, the plot revolves around a polluted aquifer in a French Acadian community in Miramichi, New Brunswick, and tensions between political ambition and economic prosperity on one hand, and saving the lives of citizens on the other.

The play is the second in the 2021-22 lineup at Theatre Erindale, with If We Were Birds having just finished its seven-show run on Nov. 7, and four others slated for next year. However, the return to the stage does not equal a full “return to normal,” as the tired but apt expression goes, as COVID-19 safety protocols will be in effect.

To start, the audiences will continue to be virtual. The performances will be livestreamed via the Vimeo video service, and at the end of each show, attendees will be able to participate in a live chat with the actors. This will still preclude the immediate audience feedback that drives actors, and the shared experience that defines live theatre—but Parkins is maintaining a positive state of mind.

“A virtual audience feels otherworldly,” he says, but we have to remember that “the audience is present, even if they are not physically with us.”

“It’s already a hundred times better to be in the same room with my castmates,” Simao says. “I’m less concerned about the audience not being there, because they’ve been gone for a while, so won’t be too different.”

Pandemic safety precautions also require the actors to stay six feet apart from each other when performing, or wear masks and construction glasses when in closer proximity. Such scenes will be infrequent in An Enemy of the People, but the rule has still challenged the actors to find new ways to bring their characters to life.

“Everything needs to be bigger,” Simao says. “There is a significant emphasis on movement skills and embodying the physical properties of the character…Everything feels a bit more heightened than usual.”

“They get in way with large chunks of text, or when the glasses slip, or you have to tuck your mask back in place,” Parkins says. “But at this point, we’re all happy to be there.”