ENHANCE & ELEVATE
I’ve had a lot of conversations this month, in particular around the role of theatre in the 21st Century and its impact on people’s lives. Sadly, it’s not good - at least not based on the conversations with other theatre professionals I’ve been having … that is unless we’re talking about direct participation.
This all started as I officially launched into a new venture myself - Coddiwomple Theatre - with the aim of creating work that can only be realised as theatre … and by asking that question, how does it inform the work I create and who I create it for - the role of the audience as active participant becomes important.
I was having a conversation with someone recently who regularly reads new plays with a view to commissioning … their observation was how many submitted theatre scripts were actually written as film or tv scripts. It was as if they were writing for the wrong medium, or were unaware of the potential of the medium. Theatre language and theatricality actually opens up the imaginative world. A plastic bag can become a cloud, a bird, a walrus, a hat … this is so very rarely the case with film and television.
When working with young people or those who don’t have any frame of reference or experience of theatre, often their first ‘way in’ is to suggest re-enacting film and television shows. Which is fine - I have no problem taking those first suggestions, but I would be remiss in my duties as a facilitator if I didn’t then move their experience forward … enhancing and elevating their suggestion … the magic of What If … turning a problem into a gift … I learned early on that if you can’t do something realistically, then you heighten it - so re-enacting a famous motorcycle chase sequence, using bodies as mountains, and chairs as tunnels, and asking the group to create puppets from recycled materials that they would then use to manoeuvre through this world - while utilising the Mission Impossible theme … magic! Or turning a re-enactment from last night’s East Enders into a non-verbal mask piece … suddenly these moments stand out because the group are engaged theatrically - they are not passively watching (or watching and scrolling) - in fact, what I remember most about these moments is the desire from the group to watch the created spectacle AS audience … it was all part of the theatrical experience.
Theatre MUST be exciting
Without the facilitator, enhancing and elevating the experience, it wouldn’t be exciting. And theatre must be exciting. It must be memorable. It won’t survive in the 21st Century without active, lived, visceral participation at its core.
Theatre must elevate and enhance and excite, and professional facilitators are the backbone of this. They are the front door into unlocking this world. At putting theatre back at the centre of people’s lives.
I got involved with a drop-in drama group a few years ago. At the time it was being run by a volunteer who was moving away, and the group was in danger of closing. During their sessions they played games and were preparing to put on a show in the room they rehearsed in. It was utterly charming, but sporadically attended and on the day of the show, there were quite a few drop-outs due to nerves.
Fast forward 3 years, and the group had a regular attendance, strong commitment to the work being created, and peer support for anyone experiencing anxiety, rendering drop-out’s on show day (almost) non-existent.
Now just to clarify - I am NOT diminishing the work of the initial volunteer. I 100% applaud their tenacity and commitment to starting the group, but under the guidance of professional facilitators this group strengthened into a community force. They found their individual voices, created a support network for each other, and produced work that was performed to wider community audiences. The professional facilitators elevated and enhanced this group and the theatre they created and the role it played in their lives was vital and exciting.
A Poem from Michael Rosen
What did they think they were doing
those English teachers
staying on after school
to put on plays?
I was an ant in a play about ants.
Then I was a servant
in Much Ado About Nothing.
Hours and hours rehearsing
in winter classrooms.
My father did it too,
bringing home the problem
of how to make blood for Julius Caesar’s toga
and snakes for Cleopatra.
They got no money for it
these English teachers.
Sometimes headteachers were pleased
sometimes mildly irritated
that the hall was out of action
for their assemblies.
We left school.
They retired.
They’re all gone:
Mr Jones, Mr Brown, my father.
There are one or two photos
blurred pictures of unbelievably young people
with too much make-up round the eyes;
some marked up play scripts,
the character’s name underlined in red,
stage directions - ‘move stage right’.
voice directions - ‘urgent’.
Did they know that we would carry the memories
for decades?
60 years since ‘Much Ado’.
Did they know that it’d be easier to remember
the lines and the Leichner make-up
than how to do simultaneous equations
and the correct order of the cities down the Rhine,
though I can be a red corpuscle
and describe my journey from the left ventricle
to my fingers and back
(it involves all four chambers of the heart).
Did they know that some of us
would do more and more and more
of things like saying words out loud
or writing words for others to say out loud
or just working with a few other enthusiastic people
to get something done.
Did they know that?
I once bumped into Mr Brown
on Russell Square Station.
He was in his 70s
I was in my 60s.
I had a lot to tell him.
He had a lot to tell me.
There wasn’t time.
We said, ‘Let’s meet up.’
We didn’t.
He died soon after.
He had an obituary in the Times.
They asked me to add a bit.
I wanted to say that
those hours in the winter classrooms
being an ant mattered then
mattered again and again
and still matter.
Well, they matter to me.
But did he know that?
Did he know that they would go on mattering?
And if he knew that,
where did he and Mr Jones and my father
learn that the kids in their plays
would go on thinking about
being ants and servants
for the rest of their lives?
Books I'm reading this month:
Arguments for Theatre
by Howard Barker
Dark Attractions: The Theatre of Peter Barnes
Devising Theatre
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