Left Foot Forward

bec7cf1f76a3df6efdf60f12fcd545f2_FotorMy post last week about theatre and (geo)politics, A Rocky Road, has caused some interesting discussion in my department.  Today I would like to add another dimension to that debate by sharing an article by Holly Williams, for The independent. 2014 sees the commemoration of the beginning of the First World War, especially in Europe and Australasia. Over the course of the last year, there has been much polemic surrounding the nature of the commemorations, with many fearing, in the UK at least, that these commemorations could descend into jingoistic, flag waving events, rather than reflective experiences that explore the atrocity and human tragedy that was the First World War. Inevitably, the debate has largely split along the political divide, with even a government minister joining in, accusing British theatre of being left-wing in its portrayal of the events of the war – and this is where Holly Williams begins:

The First World War on stage: Lest we forget… the politics of war drama

At the beginning of Theatre Royal Stratford East’s revival of Joan Littlewood’s 1963 musical Oh! What a Lovely War, a Pierrot clown describes a series of pre-war Bank holiday scenes, while a slide-show projects images of the seaside, bathers and a donkey. Except the “donkey” is the Education Secretary Michael Gove.

It’s apt that this landmark show about the First World War, which took swipes at the ruling classes who made a mess of it, should now laugh at today’s politicians too. And Gove is an easy, and justifiable, target: he made headlines recently by attacking Oh! What a Lovely War [as] perpetuating myths of the Great War as “a misbegotten shambles – a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite” and denigrating “patriotism, honour and courage”.

Birdsong

Birdsong

While it’s easy to smirk at the mental image of Gove stamping his foot, his reference to Oh! What a Lovely War reignited the debate about whether British theatre is inherently left wing: it’s hardly the first time it’s been accused of being the preserve of bleeding-heart, right-on liberals. But Gove had better stiffen that upper lip – 2014 sees First World War centenary events across all art forms, with theatre addressing the topic with particular vim.

The charge has already begun: Northern Broadsides are touring An August Bank Holiday Lark, about boys from a Lancashire village going to fight in the Gallipoli campaign, while the aforementioned  Oh! What a Lovely War is a huge sell-out at its original east London home. There are adaptations of books: a version of Sebastian Faulks’s Birdsong is on tour now, Pat Barker’s Regeneration arrives on stage at the Royal & Derngate in September, while a one-man play of Dalton Trumbo’s 1938 anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun opens at the Southwark Playhouse in May. The National Theatre revives the rarely performed anti-war 1928 play The Silver Tassie in April, and there’s new writing too: Peter Gill’s Versailles is about to open at the Donmar, while in the autumn Shakespeare’s Globe stages Howard Brenton’s Doctor Scroggy’s War and the RSC has The Christmas Truce, a family play by Phil Porter.

These offer a vast array of different angles, from the impact of war on a rural community (An August Bank Holiday Lark) to the inner life of a man who had his limbs and face blown off (Johnny Got His Gun). Meanwhile, their protagonists range from officers in the trenches to civil servants in the corridors of power and the women who stayed behind. To assume that playwrights are wielding their pens like righteous political axes is simplistic, to say the least.

Rebecca Howell, Caroline Quentin, Alice Bailey Johnson and Zoe Rainey in Oh What A Lovely War

Oh What A Lovely War

And few within the industry have anything positive to say about Gove’s comments. “I thought it was unfortunate, unpatriotic, appealing to the worst side the country,” says the venerable Gill, who is also directing Versailles. “But mainly silly, and a bit embarrassing, frankly. Does he think we’re a fan of the Kaiser? It’s just childish!”

His play is set in the aftermath of war and centres on a young man sent among the British delegation to draw up the Treaty of Versailles; both in Paris, and at his family home in Kent, debate rages about the future of Europe.

And while Gill witheringly refutes the notion that British theatre is inherently left wing – “the National is hardly Trotskyite, is it?” – he does suggest that the stage is the ideal forum for ideological debate. “The Greeks showed us it is the perfect democratic instrument. It’s live and, unlike film, it’s not quite so able to manipulate. It’s the perfect dialectical [form] – I’m sounding like a communist now! – but it’s a perfect instrument for all kinds of things, and one of them is certainly airing [political debate].”

Versailles

Versailles

David Mercatali, directing the UK premiere of Johnny Got His Gun, suggests politics are a natural by-product of drama’s primary concern: the story. “There is nothing to say that politics needs to drive any medium, but I think that many people in theatre are looking to go beneath the presentation of history. If, in looking at those human stories, people feel a left-wing bias starts to come out, I don’t think there’s a lot we can do about that.”

He did, however, choose to stage Smith’s self-evidently anti-war monologue this year as a riposte to the misty-eyed patriotism that will also be sloshing about. “We have to be really careful about glorifying it. I actually think people try to protect the presentation of the First World War – it’s important that we expose the shortcomings behind it as well.”

An August Bank Holiday Lark

An August Bank Holiday Lark

Deborah McAndrew’s An August Bank Holiday Lark is winning rave reviews. But the playwright doesn’t see her role as political adjudicator. “Real historical analysis is probably not the job of a play, she says, “I’m a storyteller, I was looking for a story.”

However when she discusses Gallipoli, she can’t help but become angry. “If I was making any little political point it was that I felt young men’s lives were disregarded. And there was gross incompetence – Gallipoli was a disaster. There’s no way of spinning it. They were trying to invade Turkey, a whole country – the sheer numbers would tell you that was doomed to fail.” Which, really, is no “little” point.

Rachel Wagstaff, who adapted Birdsong for the West End in 2010 and rewrote it further for its current tour, echoes McAndrew: “I don’t think the job of a playwright is to teach history; it’s to tell stories.” But, she adds, writing is also an imaginative attempt to understand history and humanity. “How can we have allowed the situation to develop where, for example, in the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 20,000 [British troops] were killed? How can that ever be justified? As a playwright you’re trying to illuminate and question what it is to be human.”

Her show stages such battles – a logistical challenge that the production rises to with evocative use of lights, smoke and sound. And Wagstaff points out that theatre can be uniquely powerful in conveying the physical horror of war: “When it’s a real human being in front of you in that moment, I find that so much more affecting than on film or TV.”

Jonny Got His Gun

Johnny Got His Gun

Not that Birdsong isn’t also patriotic: Wagstaff says it also captures “the British spirit, that dark sense of humour” through its portrayal of the bravely upbeat Tommies in the trenches. “You have to show the events and honour them, and allow people to feel the horror,” says Wagstaff, “but on the other hand, you can’t have people sitting there for two hours just feeling sick, revolted, distressed and disturbed!”

Many of the plays being staged in 2014 do, then, question the decisions made before, during and after the war. Such harrowing source material naturally often lends itself to troubled – and sometimes explicitly anti-war – interpretations. But, despite what our Education Secretary might fear, they are also complex and humane in their interrogation, rather than limitedly “left wing”. “Isn’t it brilliant that people are having this debate?” says Wagstaff, injecting a note of positivity into the whole Govian furore, before concluding: “We must never allow such suffering to happen again, so it’s really important that we commemorate, and remember, and we tell our children. It’s more important than ever.”

I make no apologies for posting an article that is very UK-centric. I know similar debates are had right around the world about how politics and theatre collide, and that theatre makers are viewed as inherently left wing in their views. I think Williams’ word will have resonances everywhere. The politician Michael Gove is held in huge contempt for his ideology by the left leaning middle-class in the UK,  and for transparency’s sake I have to say I am in total agreement with them. I’d be interested to hear if a similar debate about theatre and the commemoration of the War is taking place elsewhere with such political overtones.

I want to finish with two other pieces of writing by theatre critic Michael Billington, both for The Guardian. Firstly, Oh What a Lovely War: the show that shook Britain which explores the impact of the original production in 1963 both on British understanding of the war and on theatre making more widely. Then, secondly, his review of the latest production of Oh What A Lovely War that has just been staged at the original venue of the ’63 production, Theatre Royal Stratford East. This latest staging formed part of the 50th anniversary of the play’s original staging as well as part of the centenary of the First World War.

Palaces of Fun

I have been collecting material for today’s post for quite a while and following the development of one aspect for most of this year. 2014 marks the centenary of the birth of Joan Littlewood, the celebrated founder of the radical Theatre Workshopand director of the internationally renowned Oh What A Lovely Wara piece that was widely recognised as changing attitudes towards World War I, as this recording from the BBC Witness programme describes.

Another, longer, programme broadcast yesterday, also by the BBC, talks about the creation of the show and is really fascinating.

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joanlittlewood460Outside theatre circles, Littlewood is largely remembered for Lovely War but she in fact had an impact on the development of theatre and theatre practice to such an extent that she is credited with being a radical theatrical visionary and one of original figures responsible for the regeneration of the British theatre. Her obituaries in the New York Times and The Guardian paint great pictures of her life and career. However, having had an incredible impact on the development of British theatre, there was one aspect of her work that was never realised – The Fun Palace. An article by writer and theatre-maker Stella Duffy in The Guardian explains:

Celebrating Joan Littlewood: it’s time to build her fun palaces

The trailblazing director wanted to create cultural spaces across the UK. In 2014, her centenary year, you can make it happen

In January, at Improbable’s annual Devoted and Disgruntled event, I called one session:“Who wants to do something for Joan Littlewood’s centenary in October 2014, that isn’t another revival of Oh! What a Lovely War?”.

Oh! What a Lovely War, which Joan developed, is brilliant, but with the first world war anniversary next year, there will be many revivals and Joan was more than a director. She was one of the few British directors (before or since) to work fully with an ensemble, from training to performance. She made “immersive” theatre long before immersive was cool. She kick-started improvisation in the UK. She was political, formidable, inspiring, and far ahead of her time.

In 1961, Joan and the architect Cedric Price came up with the idea of thefun palace. Their blueprint says:

“Choose what you want to do – or watch someone else doing it. Learn how to handle tools, paint, babies, machinery, or just listen to your favourite tune. Dance, talk or be lifted up to where you can see how other people make things work. Sit out over space with a drink and tune in to what’s happening elsewhere in the city. Try starting a riot or beginning a painting – or just lie back and stare at the sky.”

An idea descended from pleasure gardens, the fun palace was designed to link arts and sciences, entertainment and education, in a space welcoming to all – especially children and young people. Joan knew she had not yet discovered a way to welcome those who found buildings and institutions daunting – the fun palace would be about public engagement at its most open and inclusive. Perhaps because they wanted to make links between places such as the zoo and Wembley, via screens and technology that did not yet exist; perhaps it was just too soon. But the councils wouldn’t give the land, the permissions and money did not eventuate.

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In the D&D discussion we talked about fun palaces maybe happening anywhere. I tweeted that maybe, and there were dozens of immediate responses. It helped that some were from big buildings like the RSC……. I thought we might make three or four fun palaces for Joan’s centenary.

Today we have 134 venues, companies, schools, universities, museums, arts centres and digital companies engaged, as well as hundreds of independent artists. There are scientists, film-makers, fine artists, walkers, storytellers, a cub scout pack, massive venues and tiny two-person companies, wanting to make their “laboratory of the streets” on 4-5 October 2014.

Sarah-Jane Rawlings and I……. aim to bring it all together with a brilliant, yet-to-be-created website, digital and physical links. We don’t know what your locality wants – but you do. Together we’ll make fun palaces 2014, across the UK and beyond, a step towards the kind of engagement many of us believe in and most of us have yet to achieve. Doing it together, jointly and uniquely, will be a huge shout about the value of cultural engagement, just as 2012 was for sport.

And if we don’t change the world next year, we’ll do it again in 2015 and 2016.

Since then, individuals, groups, theatres, companies, professionals and amateurs from across the world have signed up to take part. Theatre Royal Stratford East, Littlewood’s own theatre,  has become the organising hub and their website is hosting The Fun Palace site. Stella Duffy is an avid tweeter and there is clear excitement from people on there. You can read the Fun Palace 2014 Manifesto here which also gives you the statistics for who is taking part as of this month – 264 and rising.

Untitled_FotorI think this is a great idea and I am looking forward to see how and where it develops over the next year.