©2020 Meg Bashwiner
I’ve performed on a freshly broken ankle, a badly twisted knee, with laryngitis, with stitches, with diarrhea, while having suicidal thoughts, with colds, flus and allergies. Every year my theater company does a big group show, where the entire ensemble gets together and every year, without fail, most of us get sick. The cold December weather of New York coupled with late nights and close quarters gives us all coughs and fevers. We do the shows anyway, miserable but fortified by our sacrifice for the show. My case is not unique, it’s even mild compared to what i’ve seen others endure. I’ve performed with people actively enduring food poisoning, miscarriages, with pneumonia, with serious infections, with people who had lost their parent the day before. And we’ve all missed weddings, birthdays and funerals. All because of one toxic adage: The Show Must Go On.
There have been times when that adage, The Show Must Go On has healed me, has strengthened me, has emboldened me to rise beyond myself for the greater good of an ensemble, or of an audience. There have been times where it has made me sicker, damaged my joints and vocal chords, hurt my family, hurt the show. This is never a fair trade but it is what is asked of you in the theater.
It is celebrated and revered. “How tough can you be?” Becomes the fodder for the legends told to us in greenrooms when we are feeling a little off or tired. “Yeah she broke her leg during the show and kept going.”” “He had a heart attack and died onstage.” “They were puking in a bucket offstage.” “She went into labor during the show.” These are stories we tell each other to prove how tough we are, how essential we are, how outright fucking diluted we are about what is important in life.
But this delusion has it’s roots in reality. In order for it to be a show, there is an audience, usually a paying audience and we need their money to live. No show. No Money. Simple as that. We work so we can afford the cough syrup, the dr. bills, the therapy bills, the flowers sent in our absence to hospital rooms and funeral homes. Saying “I can’t do it” is also saying I choose to lose my wage. And because there is no such thing a solo show, I am making that decision for everyone else who would draw a paycheck that night.
Imagine your livelihood precariously balanced on the back of another. Imagine your back balancing the livelihoods of others along with your own. It’s dangerous right?
When we learn to make theater, we are taught to believe the show is more important than us and it is. Yes, the show is more important than your bullshit— being late, being unprepared, being disrespectful for reasons of selfishness or disorganization is bullshit. You let the show down and everyone who watches it or works on it when you behave in this way. We become so focused on this aspect that we cannot see where to draw the line. The line where it starts to hurt and damage. We are taught to believe the show is more important us, than the very breath in our lungs and it isn’t.
When the Corona Virus hit the show did not go on and largely it won’t until there is a vaccine. Thousands of venues across the world have shuttered and cancelled their seasons, some by government mandate and some by morality. We cannot cause mass death even if it means smashing our toxic adage of empowerment. The show can’t go on. No one needs to die for this art form and we will close our entire industry down to protect and ensure that, because we know that there is a bigger show that must go on.
This act of selflessness from a group of people conditioned to act for a greater a good of a show is commendable. Although this time it’s not the show we risk ourselves for but for the health of the world. The same people who performed on broken limbs and broken hearts are the same people who gave up all of their income, who set back their futures, who stopped making their art all so that lives would go on. It was a tough but obvious sacrifice. We put ourselves aside for the greater good, just as we had been taught by five word foundation of our industry: the show must go on. Humanity must go on.
All of the shows are still dark but all of the bars and restaurants and beaches are now open. I feel like i’m living in a different country than everyone else. Am I? How is a Cheesecake Factory filled to capacity any different than a 500 seat theater? It’s not. I’m not saying that if restaurants are open than theaters should be open. What I’m saying is they all should be closed so people don't fucking die. I do not want myself or my family to die because the CEO of Pepsi decides that our lives are worth their profits. Nothing has changed since March, there’s more virus out there now than there was then and we are no more equipped to handle it.
When people see restaurants and bars open they think we are back to normal, that we are safe. It signals that there is no more danger, so people relax, stop masking and distancing. Because why would our government let us do something that’s not safe? Isn’t there a specific plan? I hate to be the one to have to remind you that the same government that is in charge of reopening is the same government that has made guns easier to get and mental health care harder to get since sandy hook. It’s the same government that hasn’t replaced the water pipes in Flint Michigan that are actively poisoning it’s citizens. It’s the same government that is trying to dismantle our already extremely ill-equipped healthcare system during a pandemic. We are not safe. They will not keep us safe. We have to keep ourselves safe. Nothing is back to normal. Nothing will go back to normal until we stop the spread of the virus by stopping spreading it with our own damn bodies.
They are doing shows in New Zealand. The shows have gone on because they have completely eradicated the virus. Not with a vaccine. Not with a magic treatment. But by locking the fuck down, testing and tracing and not letting up until it was gone, putting scientists in charge instead of ceos, making a good plan and executing it. The only way to stop this virus is to lockdown and wait. It took New Zealand two months. This could all be over for us if we locked down. I could be back at work. We could be hugging our families. But we are not tough like the dancers dancing on broken legs, musicians singing on shredded vocal chords, actors perfectly portraying someone who is not in a great deal of pain when that is the opposite of their situation.
It’s too late and we’ve lost. The American made nails of freedom over consideration for others are too deeply driven into our nation’s foundation. We are a country of Diva’s, of people who put themselves before the show at every turn. People who put their own bullshit ahead of other’s lives, ahead of the lives of us all. I’m sorry that I have no hope to offer you this week. I can only offer you honesty instead. Many people will continue to die, and the industry of live entertainment in the US is going to die right along with them. We are killing people because people are bored. We are killing people because we are entrenched in a toxic capitalist society that values money over life. We can’t keep putting our bullshit in front of the greater good. Stop participating in the dangerous re-opening if you are privileged enough to do so. It’s not worth your lives and it’s not your responsibility to line the pockets of Restaurant industry CEOS. You have food at home. Wear a mask. Stay as far away from other people as possible. If you can get tested, get tested. Give us all a chance for the show to go on.
There’s an adage that I prefer to the show must go on that I think is healthier. It allows you to set your own boundaries and encourages group-care over individualism while maintaining a distrust in authority. It’s a saying by the band the Mountain Goats about touring. They put it on a patch and I'm lucky enough to have one of those patches that I display prominently in my living room. The patch is an outline of a tour van and it says “We have no friends, no one not in the van can be trusted, we ourselves are our only allies, trust ends at the windshield.” I want you all to follow that adage. Do not trust anyone to take care of you, “no one not in the van can be trusted.” Take care of as many people as you can, “we ourselves are our only allies.” Your life is more important than the show.