Theatre 2021: Blackout - Returning to Theatre After a Long Pandemic Pause

It has been over 1.5 years since my husband and I last went to live theatre.  Our final show, before COVID shut everything down, was the highly touted musical Hamilton.  I had looked forward to watching this musical for so long, and waited on hold on the phone for hours in order to upgrade our subscription seats and to buy extra seats for friends and family.  But it felt like a race against time!  I counted down the days until our performance date, while the situation with the pandemic grew more and more dire. 

We were extremely lucky as we managed to see our show on the evening of March 10, 2020.  Days later, we went into lockdown and most of our friends and family had their tickets canceled.  Fortunately, a filmed version of a live Broadway performance of Hamilton started streaming on Disney Plus, giving people who missed it a chance to see this wonderful show.  While the filmed version could not quite replicate the buzz and excitement of watching the show live, it did have the advantage of providing both close-up and wide-angle views, as well as pause and rewind capabilities.  I ended up watching this streamed version three times on Disney Plus and caught some details that I missed from my initial live viewing.

During the initial months of the pandemic, we made up for all the live theatre that we missed by watching the free online offerings from London’s National Theatre, Broadway’s Lincoln Theatre, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s repertoire of musicals and PBS Great Performances.  If there was a silver lining to the shuttering of the doors to live theatre, it was the plethora of great shows that were made available to us online, including comedies, dramas, musicals, Shakespeare plays and more.  Stuck at home with little to do, we ended up watching more theatre than ever, and experienced shows that we probably never would have had the opportunity to watch under normal circumstances.

But after a while the free online theatre offerings dwindled, so we were thrilled when live performances finally started up again, albeit with masks and social distancing.  We felt that the best way to dip our toes back into this arena was to watch an outdoor show.  The perfect opportunity came up when Musical Stage Company and CanStage presented a new Toronto-based musical called Blackout at the High Park Amphitheatre, as part of CanStage’s Dream in High Park outdoor theatre series.

Comprised of three vignettes set during the initial night of the big blackout of June 2003 that left Toronto as well as much of the Eastern seaboard in darkness, Blackout tells tales of loneliness, isolation and the need for human connection—perfect analogies for the thoughts and emotions that have resonated throughout this pandemic.  References were made to Toronto streets and locations such as Ossington Subway Station, Bloor & Yonge, Cabbagetown, St Margaret’s Hospital and its Murray Street parking lot, and Riverdale Park.  The three separately titled, self-contained stories ranged from two estranged sisters trying to reconnect (Gemini), a set of neighbours having an impromptu backyard gathering late into the night (Pandora), and two strangers to happen to meet at Riverdale Park just before dawn (Cygnus).

Music and Lyrics are written by Anton Lipovetsky, who has a 3-year residency with Musical Stage Company with a mandate to write three original musicals.  We actually first watched his third story Cygnus, when it was part of another Musical Stage Company initiative in 2019 called “Reprint”, where three groups each consisting of lyricists, composers and book writers were tasked with combing through the Globe and Mail photo archives and finding a photograph for inspiration in writing a new 30-minute musical.  The resultant mini-musicals were performed in the event space at the top of the Globe and Mail building, with a stunning view of the Toronto skyline in the background.  As we watched the three shows, the sun started to set, filling the sky with a bright red glow which was breathtaking and almost detracted from the performances in front of it. 

Lipovetsky’s Cynus (book by Steven Gallagher) was picked up by Musical Stage Company for further development, much of which happened over Zoom, and resulted in Blackout.  This musical was initially supposed to play at one of Canstage’s indoor theatres with more elaborate sets and a larger orchestra, before COVID health restrictions drove it outside.  For me, this actually improved the experience of the show, making it more intimate and focused on the characters as opposed to the staging.  Chronologically, each story was set later and later into the night and happened to time perfectly with the setting sun and oncoming nightfall.  The last two vignettes were set outdoors, so being outside in the fresh air along with the actors gave an extra sense of authenticity to the tales.  When one of the actors pointed up at the sky in order to look at the stars, we as the audience could look up at the actual sky with them.  As the night grew darker, the lights that shone onto the swaying trees behind the stage made the leaves magically shimmer and glow, while on stage, a backdrop of the Toronto skyline began to twinkle with its own “stars”.  It was a very unique and wonderful experience although we were a bit distracted by the presence of a rabbit that lingered on the grass just off the foot of the stage, and the swooping bat that flew overhead.

BLACKOUT (2021) Trailer - YouTube

BLACKOUT: "Shine Again" (2021) - YouTube

The great blackout of 2003 was one of those memorable events where you look back and can recall “What were you doing or where were you when … happened”.  Musical Stage Company reached out to the community and asked for such stories.  Remembering it vividly, I sent in my reply.