Interview: Keeping Us Human and Feeling Alive: Portland Stage Produces TALLEY'S FOLLY

"I am happy to be able to provide a safe environment for cast, crew, and patrons. I am thrilled to have a way to keep my staff employed For the staff and our artists to be able to work while we are still being responsible and keeping everyone safe feels like a good thing..."

Portland Stage's Executive/Artistic Director Anita Stewart enthuses about the company's bold new project: producing live professional theatre in the midst of a pandemic! From October 29-November 15, Portland Stage is presenting Lanford Wilson's two-character play, TALLEY'S FOLLY, at their Forest Avenue theatre venue. Stewart's company is among a very few nationally to receive approval from Actors Equity Association to produce a live performance indoors with an audience in attendance. The permission comes with a long - even daunting and costly - list of safety protocols, rules and regulations, that Portland Stage has been negotiating, planning, and implementing since the pandemic shuttered theatres across the globe.

"We have been planning and replanning options for connecting theatre to our community [since the pandemic began]. We knew we had to change our approach," Stewart says. The current production scenario permits a capacity audience of 50 persons socially distanced and masked throughout the 288-seat auditorium, and has stringent testing and sanitizing protocols, including a new HVAC air filtration system for the theatre.

Stewart says she feels that Portland Stage is lucky because the venue itself lends more easily to this kind of distancing. "Twenty-fifty people spread out through the house is a fraction of our normal audience, and with the significant rake of the hall, it doesn't feel like an empty barn. People still feel connected to the artists onstage, even though the cast is minimally fourteen-feet away from the closest patrons. Once the show starts, people have said they feel they are back in the story. It's an intimate space that allows us to do this."

Stewart also is proud of Portland's Stage's investment in a new air filtration system. "You can really feel the difference throughout the building," she says of the $30,000 plus upgrade, "but this will be ultimately better for all of us in the long run."

The choice of TALLEY'S FOLLY, Stewart points out, is not only a practical one - a small, two-character, ninety-minute/no intermission play presented here with a married couple in the leading roles, but she believes the theme is apropos as well. "This is a reality piece about a couple of people whose lives are complicated. In a way, we are saying that as hard as it is now, there are others before us who have struggled too. Our lives may not be exactly as we planned, but if we really take care of each other, we can find a new way of being. I think that's the perfect message for right now."

Stewart says she hopes this is not the only production Portland Stage will be able to mount during the pandemic. She is in negotiations again with Actors Equity to produce a one-man version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL, and she is looking into other collaborative options with small New England theatres.

As with everything in these unprecedented and difficult times, it often feels as if theatres are struggling to navigate a complex landscape in the dark. Stewart praises Governor Mills and Maine CDC Director Nirav Shah for their handling of the crisis in the epidemiological sense. "Maine is one of the few places in this country where I could even conceive of doing what I am doing." But she notes that relief monies have been scarce and "not necessarily distributed to people who need it the most. The Maine Arts Commission is surely trying to support us, but I feel as if we need to get back to a relief program [for the arts] that is something like the WPA. We need to look at our history as to how to put artists back to work and move in a positive direction." Because these are scary times, and if theatre companies fold, the talent goes away. They leave Maine for states that will invest in the arts. That is why I am trying to do this. Part of my wanting to work now [despite the costs and challenges] is to say 'we're here. We are part of this community.'"

Stewart admits that her company like so many others is looking beyond government assistance to private donors to keep them alive. And she acknowledged on a recent PBS NEWSHOUR interview, producing on this model is not financially sustainable in the long run. But for now, she called it a "matter of the soul."

She closes our interview by elaborating eloquently, " This collaboration is about bringing people together, amout getting lost in another person's shoes and seeing the world from another perspective. It reminds you what it is to be human, to be part of a society, and to find the good even in a world that is not particularly positive at the moment. I can't wait until we get back to a place where people can be sitting shoulder to shoulder in the audience. That is how theatre feels best, but [with TALLEY'S FOLLY] we are still providing that sort of outlet. Theatre keeps us human and keeps us alive."

Photos courtesy of Portland Stage, Mical Huston, photographer

TALLEY'S FOLLY plays at Portland Stage, 25 Forest Ave., Portland ME until November 15. For in-person tickets or tickets to the online streaming presentation (November 9-15), contact www.portlandstage.org or call box office at 207-774-0465.

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