For those of us craving a live experience, the Cockpit Theatre in Central London - the home of Voila! Europe since its birth in 2013 - is hosting several shows.The theatre’s director Dave Wybrow is remarkably upbeat and positive about the future - having kept the theatre open since the start of the crisis and doing live show ‘pilots’ since July, including a successful 18 show opera season. Coupled with live performances, the theatre is embracing ‘online’ for the first time ever with increasing audiences. “It’s just another room in the house, and adds value to the live event” says Wybrow, circumspect in his drive for his small theatre to survive.
And so to the live shows: There are four performances in this category, offering an eclectic mix of themes and genres. ‘Right, Left With Heals’ by the Pan European Stigma Collective is an absurdist piece about the right and left shoes of Magda Goebells - the unofficial First Lady of Nazi Germany. The company stumbled across the play in 2016 “when the (Brexit-related) slogans being bandied about harked back to 1930's Germany”. By contrast, the second show ‘We Missed You’ is a mix of live performance and video footage - filmed during lockdown when the comedy duo Julia Masli and Viggo Norten donned costumes and walked round local South London housing estates in a cardboard ‘carriage’ encouraging people to come out onto their balconies with pots and pans to create immediate and quite incredible ensemble performances. The third piece: ‘Naked’ promises to be an intoxicating combination of flying, dancing, lifting, catching and Polish singing - a celebration of liberation whereby “all kinds of movement are beautiful”. And finally, the Anglo-German Zoo Indigo’s ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ is an entertaining mix of media projections, singing, dancing and drinking, celebrating cultural belonging and identity that takes its influence from the Hungarian and Irish ancestors of the two performers.
The new online element to Voila! Europe - which up until now has been a totally live festival - looks to be a very different but equally immersive experience for audiences. A sample of shows on offer includes the already acclaimed Russian/American piece ‘State vs. Natasha Banina’: a play filmed during lockdown in the performers’ living room about an orphaned girl who is about to jump out of a third floor apartment, her emerging relationship with a reporter and a crime of passion. The audience are involved from the start, ultimately becoming ‘jurors’ as events unfold. Similarly the immersive piece ‘Telephone’ - devised in April as a way of connecting a remote audience - takes the idea that Zoom is a ‘telephone’ connecting the audience as they ‘arrive at the bar’, watch several interconnected pieces before going into breakout rooms to have ‘international conversations’. ‘Sh*t Happens’ sees Polish actor Patrycja Dynowska, diagnosed with the bowel disease ID; giving a humorous, thought-provoking take on her condition live from her bathroom - the shared experience being that the audience are asked to similarly position themselves for her show!
Other companies have chosen to go down the watch party route - with mostly pre-recorded shows, and specific dates for Zoom shows that include online live discussion in the spirit of a shared passion of theatre - a bit like a bookclub. There are several highly creative shows including the French/Columbian Defiant Reality group’s ‘Trojana: Webcamming Chronicles’ - an exploration of the lives of sex workers - which for its audiences will be an interactive experience (delivered in English, French or Spanish) through performance and email, whereby they are asked to complete daily tasks as ‘investigators’. This is quite a commitment, but nonetheless promises to be uniquely immersive.
This year’s Voila! Europe is as ever, highly eclectic and experimental. What makes this year extra special is not only the rare chance to see live theatre, mid-pandemic; but for us all - across the globe potentially - to take part in some highly involving, creative journeys that intend to put theatre’s power to connect back on the map - and (thank goodness) not necessary in a live context.
Reportage - Georgina Elliott
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