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our protests
An email exchange between Lisa Goldman (Red Room Artistic
Director) and Joyce McMillan discussing the Edinburgh
Festival's radical potential
Printed: Saturday August 2, 2003
Dear Joyce
During the brief period of mass protest about the
war in Iraq it did seem that the London theatre scene
woke up to the world beyond itself and that it was
capable of real change. There was a real anger and
sadness at the impending war and this was expressed
through new anti-war plays, testimony, poetry, images
and polemic. I imagine that other cities experienced
a similarly slight, but welcome, cultural shift. Given
that most of the Edinburgh Festival was also programmed
in this period of international anti-war activity,
the parochialism of the Fringe theatre programme is
surprising. Only a dozen new contemporary political
plays - mostly at the Underbelly, a few at the Traverse
and elsewhere.
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There seems to be a limitation of vision - in the international
theatre programme as well. Is this coming from artists, programmers
or producers? Our Government's still locked into an ongoing
"war on terrorism". Could the Edinburgh Festival
be part of a public theatre of the future, or has it gone
too far down a corporate road? I'd like to know more about
the programme of the Peoples Festival that's being organised
to counter the growing inaccessibility of the Edinburgh festival
to local audiences and artists. Do you think this community-orientated
initiative could show a way forward?
Warmest wishes, Lisa
Hi Lisa!
Well, whoah, and hang on a minute. We're going to have to
clarify some terms before we can discuss anything at all.
What can you mean by saying there are "only about a dozen
new political plays on the Fringe?" There are 557 theatre
shows in this year's Fringe programme, at least half of which
seem to me, from their blurbs, to have some intention of saying
something serious about the world we live in; on my first
trawl through the programme I noticed major preoccupations
with terrorism and the fear of it, media spin and virtual
reality, relations between the west and Islam, and, interestingly,
violence against children.
I have about 45 shows on my own review schedule alone, almost
every one of them new, and almost every one chosen because
I expect it to have something to say, at some level, about
power and violence, war and peace, justice and injustice -
the essence of politics. So how are we defining "political"
here? And how can you know, before any of these shows have
opened, that so few of them meet your definition?
All the best, Joyce
Hello Joyce
If we're talking definitions the term public theatre may be
more useful - a right to participate as well as engagement
with public debate. I used "political" in a shorthand
sense in my last email to imply the consciously radical. In
the broader sense of unconsciously reflecting the world we
live in, I'm sure all 557 plays might be termed "political"
and not just the half with intentions to "say something
serious". I wonder what it is that you "expect"
your 45 shows to say? Of course it's impossible to know before
seeing work what its impact will be and neither of us can
really judge that. But what we can question is the relationship
of contemporary theatre to the wider political/cultural context.
It has been an extraordinary year in terms of mass political
protest. Two million people on the streets of London, over
100,000 in Glasgow, spontaneous actions including school student
strikes - this isn't just business as usual. Yet for the Edinburgh
festival it looks like being exactly that.
Who's it really all for? And how does this relate to the bigger
theatre picture? I think now is a time for questioning everything,
including our own part in it all. Your email smacks of complacency.
Lisa
Hi Lisa
Well, let's cut straight to the main point you make, since
I hardly know how to respond to the idea that it's "complacent"
for a theatre critic to refuse to dismiss a whole Fringe full
of shows without having seen a single one of them.
If I read you right, you're suggesting that the current political
crisis is so intense that both the Fringe and official Festival
programmes should be reflecting that fact, not only through
the subject-matter of the shows - because many of them do
deal with subjects relevant to the Iraq crisis - but through
radical theatrical forms; you seek a kind of "public
theatre" which not only deals directly with headline
political issues, but is open and participatory in form, and
is linked to direct action for social change.
I would also like to see more of this kind of theatre, and
I think you are right that we should constantly question how
theatre relates to wider society, who makes theatre, and for
what audience. So far as Edinburgh is concerned, yes, the
official Festival - which is clearly programmed by one man,
the director Brian McMaster - could in theory have cleared
the decks, taken a gamble on finding a new audience, and dedicated
all of its drama programme to a series of "living newspaper"
theatre events/debates on the current crisis in global politics;
that would have been an interesting idea, although not one
likely to meet the Festival's fierce box-office income targets.
But the Fringe is different. As an open festival, with no
central programming and very little public subsidy, it has
no control over the artistic decisions of companies taking
part; and beyond that, it essentially functions as a theatrical
free market, in which the huge Festival boom of the last 20
years has created immense upward pressures in costs, both
for audiences and for companies staging shows. This does tend
to make the Fringe something of a rich folks' plaything, and
does raise major questions about access and exclusion; in
fact under these conditions of production, the surprising
thing is not that the number of genuinely radical shows on
the Fringe is limited, but that any survive at all.
But changing the conditions of production on the Fringe is
extremely difficult. Essentially, it would require a massive
injection of cost-cutting public subsidy into an event that's
already seen by some as posh and privileged, and which seems
to work perfectly well in commercial terms without it, selling
almost a million tickets a year. And more subsidy, even if
it were politically possible, would inevitably mean more controls,
more "accountability". Which no one really seems
to want.
So that suggests two questions. First, is the Edinburgh Festival
and Fringe, as it stands, capable of generating any exciting,
radical theatre at all? I think it is, and it does, despite
all its limitations. Then secondly, is the kind of participatory
public theatre that bloomed for a while around this year's
anti-war movement really the only kind that can pack a radical
punch, or are there other forms of theatre that make a strong
political impact? And if so, what do they look like, and whom
do they address?
With best wishes, Joyce
Hello Joyce
Ok - so you're not complacent and I'm not dismissing the efforts
of other artists on the fringe. Actually I agree with most
of what you say. You're right to celebrate the fact that radical
theatre happens at all in such difficult conditions.
In terms of your two questions: I think we need to find ways
of democratising theatre so that the conditions can exist
for new perspectives and a richer diversity of voices to emerge.
This is not just a question for the Edinburgh festival but
for British theatre as a whole. Sadly it's not just the festival
which suffers from being a "rich folks plaything".
Theatre is marginal to the lives of most people or absent
from it altogether. Our relatively tiny industry is controlled
by the few - unfortunately they're not the few most talented.
They come from a narrow social stratum (privately educated
middle class/Oxbridge) and this is reflected in their programming,
not always as individuals, but taken as a whole. More or less
subtle forms of discrimination occur against radical voices
for change.
The press are also to blame. They give status to individuals
rather than ideas and to mainstream companies producing old
plays for the well-heeled rather than artists producing new
work for a wider range of communities, including children.
I know that the Arts Council is trying to tackle certain areas
of access, but attitudes have set in.
Theatre belongs to the people. It should be accountable and
accessible to people. We need to set it free.
The theatre of the 21st century that I'd like to see would
be a genuinely public theatre - a model of democracy. I think
theatre has a potentially important role to play at this moment
when the credibility of media and government is at an all-time
low. Theatre is an imaginative space where people can free
their minds against the status quo, ask questions and search
out truths or new ideas. To be democratic, such theatre must
represent the diversity of our society.
I think the gulf between the establishment and the grass roots
is growing. There's a lot of very exciting work happening
both in theatre and in protest movements where political street
performance has been undergoing a revival. Artists Against
the War for example has brought a lot of people together who've
used the network to create street theatre, cabaret, invisible
theatre etc. The promotion of participatory theatre at a time
of denial of democracy and active protest could be part of
revitalising the art form.
I'm working next year on a participatory project on housing
estates about regeneration and I'm looking forward to exploring
a new model of working. My work with the Red Room involves
a constant attempt to develop new work that will "pack
a radical punch" - The Bogus Woman by Kay Adshead, Stitching
and the Censor by Anthony Neilson; Made in England by Parv
Bancil; Seeing Red Festival; Going Public ... I've just started
rehearsing Animal, a new Kay Adshead play which is a truly
extraordinary exploration of our time.
I do think there is a need at the moment for the visionary.
The epic and poetic. Deeper truths. Alternative realities.
Protests here have retreated because there appears to be no
long-term alternative programme to organise around. No alternative
organisation. Theatre has a vital role to play in this scenario.
If we can get our act together. More on this tomorrow? Hope
you enjoyed the first offerings of the festival?!
Lisa
Hi Lisa
I think many of the points you raise have to do with issues
of social exclusion/ inclusion that go way beyond theatre,
although I agree that at its best, theatre is often about
breaking down those barriers and giving a voice to voiceless.
Your Bogus Woman was a great example, although interestingly
it made its point through a fairly conventional combination
of brilliant writing and acting; maybe we should think more
about the radical potential of the straightforward solo show.
This year, there's been a lot of debate in Edinburgh around
the launch of an event called the Edinburgh People's Festival,
which aims to take the Fringe back to its radical roots by
staging events in outlying areas of Edinburgh, staying out
of the official Fringe brochure, never charging more than
£2 for anything, and focusing on more "popular"
art-forms like music. Its main sponsor is the Scottish Socialist
party MSP Colin Fox. But the rhetoric surrounding it seems
to me slightly out of focus, in that like your comments, it
involves a lot of generalised slagging-off of people who are
genuinely trying to do good, thoughtful work within the existing
structures of theatre, whether that means - say - subsidised
theatre in London or the more anarchic/ free market atmosphere
of the Edinburgh Fringe.
The truth is that as social/economic divisions in our society
grow more marked, those at the bottom end are being subtly
distanced from a whole range of good things in life, from
good food to non-junk entertainment, and one thing we have
to ask is what theatre can say to the vaguely comfortable
majority in Britain that might make them want to change this?
Is there such a thing as radical theatre for a comfortable
middle class? Or does the theatre we have just reflect the
mood of our society back to us, in a not-very-flattering light?
Joyce
Morning Joyce!
I certainly haven't felt that I've been engaging in a slagging
off of anyone. I've been trying to analyse the relationship
of the industry to the wider changes in the world and I know
that I've started through this exchange to make a few new
connections for myself about democracy and participation.
It may feel generalised because of the limited nature of a
rushed email exchange. It may be that some of the most interesting
visions of the world are the ones emerging as (what you call)
radical theatre for the middle classes. A lot of this theatre
is actually written by working class writers and there is
often an interesting tension between who it is written for
and who actually sees it. I know that we make huge efforts
to overcome this through the way in which we market the work,
but this is another big issue.
I think the difficulty is that there are many interwoven issues
here. It is abstract and meaningless to speak about public
forms, public access or public responsibility in isolation
of one another so we have to somehow explore them together
and as artists to approach them together throught the work
that we create. Your final question points precisely to the
problem. How can theatre be truly reflective of society when
it is totally unrepresentative?
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
Yes, I absolutely agree about the "working-class writers
for middle-class audiences" phenomenon; Gregory Burke's
Gagarin Way comes to mind, and we need more long-term critical
analysis of what that kind of theatre means, and what it can
achieve.
On reflection, though, I think one of the main differences
between us lies in how we see the relationship between existing
theatre and society. For me, both subsidised theatre in general,
and the Edinburgh Fringe in a different and more anarchic
way, actually sit at quite a critical and sometimes radical
angle to current British society. But it strikes me that I
may be seeing it in that way, and placing a higher value on
its power to be radical within existing structures, because
I am reviewing in Scotland, where there isn't this huge tradition
of establishment and "court" theatre; there's no
West End, and no equivalent of either the National or the
RSC.
What we have is a more fragmented and localised scene which
has grown up in the last half century, and where almost all
the artists involved have been hugely influenced, over the
last generation, by the work and ideas of John McGrath and
7:84, which made such a huge impact in Scotland.
I don't want to overstate this difference, and I'm sure the
Scottish scene is in many ways similar to the English regional
one; but the sense of anger you have, and of confronting a
huge, inert establishment theatre system, does seem to me
stronger in London than elsewhere.
I suppose what I'm saying is this; that when you consider
the intensity of the attacks theatre often suffers from people
on the right who want to pronounce it dead, then we have to
consider the possibility that mmany forms of live theatre
are already doing something right; bringing people together
in a society that promotes fragmentation, creating public
events in a privatised culture, perpetuating some great works
of art in an age of junk.
I don't disagree with many of the criticisms you make of dead,
routine theatre. But I feel that in an age when politics itself
is undergoing such rapid transformations, when old forms of
radicalism are not working and new ones are emerging, it's
difficult to dismiss any kind of live public event as being
categorically incapable of producing a radical or exciting
result. And it's that unpredictability that keeps me interested
in my job as a critic.
All the best, Joyce
Lisa Goldman is artistic director of the Red Room theatre
company and a co-founder of Artists Against the War, Joyce
Macmillan is theatre critic of the Scotsman.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/edinburgh2003/story/0,13366,1011022,00.html
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