Visionaries see an obstacle and innovate around it. Two of them in the theater world, Igor Golyak and Wang Chong, show how it’s done. Both are directors who found a way to make remarkably successful live theater virtually. Golyak’s Natasha Banina vs the State became a New York Times critic pick over the summer and Wang Chong’s version of Waiting for Godot, “staged” with 4 actors performing in 4 different cities, vacuumed in an audience approaching 300,000 people. Symbolically, Wuhan; the epicenter of the Covid epidemic, was one of the four locations.
The two directors met up on Zoom August 19th to talk about the future of virtual theater with Annie Levy, Artistic Director for Emerson Stage in Boston. They agreed on every key point touching on perspective, purpose and platform. Their only difference lay in the way each chose to achieve his goal of creating a palpable sense of “here and now” in his theatrical production. Golyak used technologically generated illusion and the crucial component of audience participation to make Natasha a breakthrough hit. Wang Chong, operating out of Beijing, used Beckett’s theme of perpetual anticipation to dramatize the predicament we find ourselves in now.
Both are convinced virtual theater should not be considered a place holder anticipating the return of traditional theater. Chong is particularly adamant about embracing the creative potential of this new way of making stories that are relevant and accessible. His Online Theater Manifesto starkly reflects his views on traditional theater. “Theater is tourism. Theater is consumerism. Theater is capitalism. Theater is non-essential because theater stopped being (a) public forum long ago.”
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