With auditions on Zoom, social distancing on stage and scenes that can be cut if an actor tests positive, Nine Lessons and Carols is a play for Covid times
In the near-empty Almeida theatre in London in mid-November, six actors are trying to nail the choreography for a musical number. The moves look simple enough – they have to walk slowly past each other, then turn out to face the auditorium as the song ends – but two cast members keep wandering perilously close to each other. Director Rebecca Frecknall pulls down her mask and the music halts. “Guys, careful!” she says, clearly straining not to do anything as hazardous as raising her voice. “Two metres, remember …”
Frecknall is directing this year’s Almeida Christmas play, Nine Lessons and Carols, written by Chris Bush, and Covid is an unignorable presence. Created and written here in the auditorium and pulled together largely when England went into its second lockdown, Nine Lessons is being rehearsed in a way that aims to cover every eventuality: social distancing and mask-wearing, twice-weekly testing, labyrinthine backup arrangements if a cast member gets ill, the whole DCMS-guidance-approved corona enchilada. But what happens if they’re not actually able to open? Frecknall is looking on the bright side: “No one ever said no to a few extra weeks’ rehearsal.”
