Does theatre matter? You asked Google – here’s the answer

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/15/does-theatre-matter-google

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If you’ve asked why theatre matters, there’s every chance you actually work in theatre – and are having the kind of late-night solo Drinks Party of the Soul in which, after a bottle of £4.99 corner-shop wine, you end up searching “why theatre matter”, “work theatre no money” and, eventually, “law conversion cheap free”. On the offchance that isn’t you though, what you probably mean is: why, in a world with HBO and Imax and the Nintendo Switch, do we still need theatre? Hasn’t entertainment sort of naturally evolved from, you know, all that?

The answer of course is that we still have theatre for the same reason the advent of the novel didn’t kill the play, and the advent of film didn’t kill both: because humans love to share stories, and each new way of doing that gives us more opportunities for, respectively, escapism from and better understanding of the world around us. Reading novels about people different from us engenders empathy and watching sad films boosts feelings of group bonding: theatre has an added feeling of liveness and shared experience – like a cross between a gig and the cinema.

Sometimes you want to experience art on your own in the bath, and sometimes you want to share that experience with a bunch of strangers in the dark. We live in a busy, complicated world – there’s every chance you’re reading this on public transport, or on your lunchbreak, or in a few snatched minutes away from your emails – and it’s hard to carve time out to interact with most art forms without checking your phone occasionally, or “double screening”. Doing several things at once makes us less efficient at all of them, and is bad for our brains – but theatre demands your complete attention. (Not least because if you do get caught using your phone, Kevin Spacey might shout at you.)

In a culture that demands you continually remain in reach of your emails and accessible to your boss, spending time sat in the dark being told a story, obstinately suspending your disbelief with people you don’t know, can be as defiant an act of self-care as any other.

Ultimately there are as many ways for theatre to matter as there are types of theatre – and these days there are lots. From the sweepingly grand blockbuster-style big shows you find in the West End or at the National Theatre, to the intimacy of experimental work in small hot rooms at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, or the excitement of wandering up a set of stairs at the back of a pub and not knowing what you’ll find at the top. Theatre, like all good art, can be an exercise in escapism or empathy, an adventure or food for the soul, or all of them – you might laugh, you might cry, but either way you’re sharing something with strangers, and in an increasingly divided world that feels important.

As an industry, theatre still has massive problems, although there are lots of genuinely exciting people working hard to fix its issues with gender inequality and the representation of race, disability and class on British stages. We have to get better at reaching out and making everyone feel welcome – because one of the things that should be so exciting about theatre is that you don’t need cameras, a large budget and huge amounts of space – just somebody to do and somebody to watch. It should be one of the most accessible art forms for beginners, which is what’s so brilliant about student drama and amateur dramatics. Professional theatre needs to get better at harnessing that energy and excitement.

Last week the company I work for, Clean Break, took a short play to the House of Lords. We create theatre with, by and about women who have experience of the criminal justice system, and this week marks the 10th anniversary of the Corston report on the incarceration of women. During a recent prison residency, we asked the women what they’d say at the House of Lords event if they could be there – what they’d say to policymakers and politicians about the reality of being in prison as a woman in this UK.

The short play we brought to parliament was based on their actual words. When our actors began performing, each of these women – women who would have loved to be there but couldn’t because they are in prison – passed through the room.

At its best, theatre brings things – people, stories, places – to life. There will never be a time when that isn’t important.