Is British theatre ready for its close-up? A new venture called Digital Theatre, announced this week, offers filmed theatre available to download. The launch production is an adaptation of Far from the Madding Crowd by English Touring Theatre. From a glimpse of the trailer, it seems an enthusiastic enough reading, and less creaky than is often the way with stage-to-screen transfers. The company uses up to 13 cameras to capture the performance, and for £8.99 the result can be yours.
Also involved in the scheme are the Royal Court, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Almeida and the Young Vic, many of them producing work with short runs in small-to-medium spaces. Spectators will be able to catch up on any productions they have missed. But there remain big questions. Will regular theatregoers be happy to get their fix via their laptop? Will this venture attract a new audience for theatre, or simply eat into its existing fanbase? And what exactly will be watched?
Two forthcoming productions, both at the Young Vic earlier this year, point to the appeal and disadvantages of the project. Kathryn Hunter gave a phenomenal performance as Kafka's Monkey, a one-simian show derived from Kafka's story. The charismatic Hunter, currently with the RSC, has a cracked voice and loping physicality that rarely appear on screen. I can see why you'd want to get close to her baffled ape.
But will The Container communicate the immersive effect of its live experience? A site-specific piece, it herds a small audience into a lightless freight container, offering a sliver of the panic and confusion felt by illegal migrants making for the UK. A slight play on big themes, its prime effect is sensory – darkness and anxiety, the stifling prickle of proximity. You wonder whether a production built on making spectators share a space is really made for film.
Hardy's novel is frequent syllabus fodder, and this launch production may attract schools and colleges. Will the educational market prove to be Digital Theatre's cash cow, given all the repeated viewings required for study? In a similar venture, Greenwich Theatre has teamed up with Stage on Screen to film classic texts on the national curriculum (Dr Faustus and The School for Scandal are the first titles, available next month). Even so, it would be miserable if classes began using digital productions in preference to live theatre visits. There are fears that such outings are under threat – the RSC responded by launching a Stand Up for Shakespeare manifesto last year, after fears that Shakespeare was slipping down the curriculum.
As future funding looks increasingly bleak, it is understandable that British companies are seeking to assert their reach – as in the National Theatre's large-scale cinema screenings (Terry Pratchett's Nation follows in January), or DVD producer Opus Arte's partnership with the Royal Opera House and Shakespeare's Globe. Even so, my inner Victor Meldrew imagines theatre directors worrying more about camera angles than the way their shows will come alive before a real audience, or fussing about their afterlife in the digital archive. Anything that preserves transient art deserves applause. But are we preserving everything about live theatre except what matters – its liveness?
