Theater director Natalia Kaliada said she was working under lockdown long before the coronavirus pandemic, forced to work at a distance with actors and others in her native Belarus after being driven into political exile in London nearly a decade ago.
Her ‘Belarus Free Theater’, which has operated underground since dissident artists founded it in 2005, is marking its 15th anniversary just as Belarus is convulsed by protests against its veteran president, Alexander Lukashenko.
For Kaliada and her husband Nicolai Khalezin, also an artistic director, having to create and rehearse plays only online is nothing new.
“When coronavirus happened and lockdown started all over the world... it was a very interesting experience because suddenly all people, like from European theaters, they started to reach out to us and say, could you share how to rehearse online?” she told Reuters.
“We consider ourselves to be in lockdown for all the years of our existence (as a theater)... We teach online, we rehearse online, we run conferences online. So, for us it wasn’t a new experience.”
The coronavirus pandemic has forced the couple to cancel plans this year to stage in London and the US a new play “Dogs of War”, set in an authoritarian dystopia in the near future. They still hope to stage it at a later date.
