News and Events
Theatre needs to show more community spirit
17th May 2011
Many years ago, I spent some weeks following a participatory theatre project being created with a community in London. As the weeks went by and the numbers of participants dwindled, it became increasingly obvious that there was a complete disconnect between the expectations of the theatre company leading the project and the expectations of that particular community. The truth was that, while it had the funding in place, the company had neither the expertise nor the relationships within that community to deliver the project properly. They needed the community far more than the community needed or wanted them. The community had been around long before the theatre company had arrived and would continue long after the company had moved on to other things. Not surprisingly, the participants felt exploited. They voted with their feet.
Along with "collaboration" and "sharing", "community" and "participatory" are the buzz words in theatre at the moment. The huge success of National Theatre Wales and Wildworks's The Passion in Port Talbot suggests that participatory theatre is having its Sultan's Elephant moment. The Passion was a remarkable event with which the people of Port Talbot engaged wholeheartedly, and it's no surprise that it was delivered by a company that has vast experience in making theatre with and for many different communities, supported by a theatre whose entire first-year programme has explored different ways of engaging with audiences.
We are likely to be seeing a great deal more of this kind of work, and it has recently received a boost with the announcement of a major new project grant worth �175,000, provided by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, to create participatory productions in disadvantaged communities. Six proposals have been shortlisted from 62 bids, and the companies on the list have come up with some imaginative ideas. Duckie hope to work with homeless men to create a large-scale performance called Penny for the Guy in the Spring Gardens in Vauxhall, London on bonfire night 2013; the National Theatre of Scotland wants to create a piece about oil and the car on the Shetland Islands; Birmingham Opera Company has proposed a multiplatform version of Weill and Brecht's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny; the Young Vic would like to make a piece inspired by the Chinese film Beijing Bicycle that will take place both in and outside the theatre, on stage and on bicycles. Not surprisingly, both National Theatre Wales and Wildworks make the list � NTW with a piece called De Gabay (The Song), created from working with the people of Butetown but using digital networks to reach a worldwide audience; the latter proposing a live performance and installation work called Chimera about human interaction with the animal world.
I'd be happy to see any one of these projects make it into production, and the Gulbenkian award � which the foundation are hoping to make an annual one � is important because if, as seems likely, we are going to see a great deal more of participatory work in the future, it's crucial that lessons are learned and shared. Expertise is every bit as important as funding and will help ensure that the final piece has real artistic value, is genuinely welcomed by the community, is run along ethical lines and leaves a valuable legacy behind. The days when theatre parachutes into a community and then moves on to the next big thing should be over; so too the idea that theatre is merely as a tool of social inclusion (something that has certainly done street arts little good in the past).
So here's hoping the Gulbenkian award can help every participatory theatre piece reach the gold standard of The Passion. It'll only do so if it helps foster real transparency.
Source: The Guardian
