Where are the South West Theatre Critics?

When I tell people I live in Plymouth they often suggest that I enjoy the whole ‘big fish in a small pond’ phenomenon. Actually I feel like I’m a tadpole without a pond at all. Drying out before I’ve had a chance to grow into a …fish…? Hmmm.

from: http://thinkorthwim.com/2007/03/06/face-painted-fish-in-a-relationship/

So @Nom_de_strip (‘a journal of arts and culture in the South West of England’) are asking…. “Why DON’T people write about theatre in the South West?”

And as I have a tendency to get the wrong end of the stick whenever a wrong end is available, I have clarified with them that this refers to both the lack of reviews of South West work and the lack of reviewers/writers on theatre based in the South West.

They have asked me to write something about my experiences of this.

There are a few SW reviewers and writers… Belinda Dillon has reviewed for Devon Life for a while, and she now reviews for the brilliant brilliant Exeunt magazine.

I check out these blogs now and then: Angela Street, Annette Chown, … Wide Awake Devon, are good at provoking debates and Theatre Writing South West has just started a blog. Action Hero ask good questions, and I think in Bristol in general there’s loads going on. But sometimes Bristol doesn’t feel like the ‘South West’ for us Plymouthian Devonians.

Martin Freeman at the Plymouth Herald is pretty open to mini features on arty-stuff. Devon Life profiled my writing project ‘Writing in the City’ last year as part of the British Art Show (that was also Belinda Dillon).  Jo Loosemore who works at BBC Radio Devon used to have a brilliant art review show that featured a site specific piece I did ‘Boat on the Water’ a few years ago, and now she’s on every afternoon, ‘Shep and Jo ’, and is up for squeezing in minimini profiles of theatre/art in the region.

Lyn Gardner regularly gets down the Drum Theatre Royal in Plymouth for the Guardian. But the Drum Theatre Royal in Plymouth very rarely programmes local work. Elizabeth Mahoney has been reviewing lots of stuff for the Guardian in the Northern part of the region (and Wales)…and gives a very high proportion of 4 & 5 star reviews!

I invited everyone I could think of in the region and outside of it to the premiere/preview of Opposition at the Barbican Theatre in Plymouth. It was sold out, but only those outside of Plymouth who already knew my work came and there were no reviews. (Funnily enough, Sarah Ellis came down from London for it, and Claire Morgan from Newcastle (bless them both) but no one from Bristol or Cornwall made it) When it was at the Bike Shed theatre for the Exeter Fringe Belinda Dillon came and wrote a lovely review for Devon Life. That was my first proper review of my work in the region.

So because I couldn’t get any national critics to come to see Opposition in the region, or any producers or representatives from other theatres either, going to Edinburgh Fringe (with the Barbican Theatre) seemed like it’d provide that opportunity. I got great reviews in Edinburgh, including five stars from What’s on Stage and four stars from Exeunt and Fringe Review and others. Those reviews really helped me to book a tour since. However the nationals didn’t make it. It was a little frustrating to see the Guardian reviewing work that had already been on in London or was going to be in London in the following weeks, but not managing to come to mine – when the future of my show kind of depended on getting those reviews…. A couple of the other people I invited did make it (and booked it) but most didn’t. Edinburgh Fringe is a nightmare and way too big to stand out if you’re not known and don’t have a known producer/theatre behind you. & we just did the last two weeks, which was a mistake, looking back. One of the people who did manage to come was Phil Hindson from the Arts Council (funny that I had to go all the way to Edinburgh to get my local relationships manager to see my work, but it worked out). Following Edinburgh I managed to get a second small G4A fund to re-develop the show.

It’s possible that if I’d had a review from one of those nationals, I’d have managed to book Opposition for a run at a London theatre by now. Someone recently said –if you’d had a load of four star reviews from Edinburgh it would have been programmed in London – which made me go Arrrggh but I did!!  – Just not from the Guardian. So I’ve now put all the stars in a more prominent position on my blog. (See to the right!)

At the recent ‘Getting it out there’ symposium, Lyn Gardner said that theatre makers should stop worrying about the mainstream press and instead pursue a dialogue with bloggers etc. I like the point, and I think in London where there is plenty of opportunity to connect with great bloggers and online websites and other theatre makers it makes total sense. But we can’t expect them to travel this far without funding, and in the South West we don’t have that kind of a community. We need to start building one.

@Nom_de_Strip also asked me to write about my experience of writing about theatre in the SW.

I’m not a critic, or reviewer, or anything. I realised a while ago that it wasn’t sensible for me to attempt to review work – because I’m an artist too, and we’re colleagues in a way, and I can be mega blunt and I rarely like stuff : ) So I made a little rule – I’ll only write about companies that are established, so what I write has no impact on them, or, I’ll just write about the work that I think needs shouting about.

So I saw Blok/Eko by Howard Barker at the Northcott Theatre in Exeter. I didn’t go intending to write about it, not at all. But when I got home and looked it up there were no reviews. So I wrote my kind of a response and a lot of people have read it. Actually the comments are more interesting than my post, and I’m happy that my blog provided a space for people to discuss the work. I don’t know why there were no ‘proper’ reviews of Blok/Eko.

I have got some great national opportunities at the moment and have actually made some kind of a ‘living’ from my writing and theatre for the last few months and I’m possibly sorted for the next few. But other than a bit of teaching, none of that is coming from the region or supported by the region (so far anyway). I don’t even get shortlisted for jobs that I apply for in the area, and they often go to people outside of the SW who then struggle with the commute. It must be human nature – we never go to that great café next door until we’re about to move, we assume that if someone is local they are not any good. I think it happens everywhere. I’m currently working on a commission for Hull City Council and getting nice bookings in Liverpool and Manchester.

And the last opportunity to see (and review) Opposition is next week at the New Wolsey Theatre, Pulse Festival in Ipswich on the 8^th June, 7pm.

[edit: Yeah! I've finally got a London run for Opposition! - Ovalhouse 6-17th November 2012]

What’s on Stage gave it five stars and said: Go to listen, marvel, participate, go to be amazed, just go.’ – Honest!

Avant-garde theatre: Britain has lost what little nerve it had

There’s something appealing about the term ‘avant-garde’. Perhaps because it doesn’t evoke a particular form of work. In spite of the clichés mentioned here, for me it doesn’t conjure up eyeball munching, nude dancing or a preoccupation with insulting the audience. It’s more about pushing a form to its limits, making the work you want to make and not caring what anyone else thinks. And it’s a bit retro, it conjures up different times, writers such as Antonin Artaud, Tristan Tzara, Alfred Jarry – performance that is obsessive and uncompromising and hard. Avant-garde theatre has sharp elbows. Ironically, the term conjures up the old, not the new. But it’s definitely better than ‘experimental’.

The discussion in the Observer by Vanessa Thorpe references recent comments by Mark Ravenhill, who is talking about the avant-garde within playwrighting rather than art/theatre in general. I think it’s within the new writing theatres and playwrighting that there is the biggest problem – because most writers depend on being spotted by a producing theatre or company to get their work seen. Of course theatres are rejecting brilliant avant-garde plays by unknown writers. They always have and always will. Beckett’s plays weren’t recognised until he was 47.

“I was simply left wondering how such naive tosh managed to scrape past the Court’s normally judicious play-selection committee.” Michael Billington on Blasted

Sarah Kane on Crave:  ”I think of it more as a text for performance than as a play” (Kane cited in Saunders)

It was OK for Kane to say that as she was already seen as a playwright by then. But there’s a risk that if you start to say this kind of writing is not playwrighting, then it gets kicked out of the canon, out of the new writing theatres and confined to devised theatre companies (who usually don’t want to work with scripts or writers anyway) and student productions. Or in Kane’s case – the rest of the world where it’s performed regularly.

Looking at Howard Barker proves that something is seriously wrong with the theatre and new writing industry in this country. I love Kane’s work, and her attitude and her writing on theatre. She is incredibly important. But as a playwright, Barker is in a different league. As Kane said – in a few hundred years he’ll be like Shakespeare. The fact that his current work is practically ignored in this country is a crime. He may be a nightmare to work with. I don’t know, never met him. But who cares? He’s the best living British playwright.

Mel Kenyon suggested that Kane couldn’t have gone further “the body of work was absolutely complete”. (About Kane: the playwright & the work)

Maybe that’s how Kane felt at the time, she wrote in 4:48 Psychosis:

How can I return to form,
now my formal thought is gone?

But I disagree with Kenyon, I think she would have kept writing and kept experimenting. She was a writer. You can go further. The worst thing about people’s attitude towards ‘avant-garde’ work is that there is some assumption that it’s all been done – so let’s get back to naturalism and story. It’s harder to do it badly.

As well as this plague of TV style naturalism there’s an obsession with story in theatre at the moment. Theatres, playwrights, competitions, everywhere, looking for writers with ‘stories to tell’. ‘Be very clear about what your story is’.

“Narrative is not destroyed by the non-linear, it is merely disguised. Disguised as something else, which is where the poetry comes in” Mac Wellman

Kane on the Bush theatre:

“If I wrote a report saying a play was absolutely dreadful, I could be pretty sure that it was going to be on in six months, and it was always to do with form”

New writing theatres are drowning in story and naturalism while there’s a drought in experimentation with form and language. Language play is seen as a distraction from character and story. Characters speaking in similar voices are seen as proof the writer doesn’t know their craft. But Kane’s don’t. Barker’s don’t. Wellman’s don’t. Churchill’s don’t. Crimp’s don’t. Beckett’s don’t. Sarah Ruhl’s don’t. Marius Von Mayenburg’s don’t. etc. – those writers use language, form, image, theatrical innovation as an integral part of writing, part of theatre, and not as something that is toyed with to the detriment of the quality of the work.

“I genuinely believe you can do anything on stage. For me the language of theatre is image” Sarah Kane

Part of the problem is in the barriers that are placed between performance art, spoken word, new writing, devised theatre, performance art, academia and ‘the real world’ (London). Artists should have a choice regarding what genre they operate within. If they say it’s a play, then it’s a play. It’s too easy to dismiss avant-garde playwrighting as ‘performance writing’ or something ‘other’.

Of course avant-garde theatre has small audiences. We need smaller audiences. Peter Brook said ‘oh for empty seats’ - we need theatres and funders willing to support work that won’t reach large numbers of people in the short term. That’s the work that makes an impact in the long term.

We also need theatres, directors and actors who are able to produce the work. Work that doesn’t fit a three week rehearsal period. And into a – character motivation, character journey, what’s at stake, what’s the subtext – kind of analysis.

This tentativeness in approaching and producing avant-garde plays seems to have something to do with how directors and actors train, differences between university and drama school, a narrow therefore inbred route into London theatres and the wall erected between the work of companies such as the Wooster Group and Odin theatre (for instance) and British new writing. A bit of cross-fertilisation would be good.

In moments of desperation I do haphazard google searches:

‘linguistically innovative plays’

‘directors interested in experimental writing’

‘international playwrighting’

etc. It’s pretty futile.

I emailed Mac Wellman, and he replied:

- obviously it wd be better if we cd talk in person.  Of course, doing non-naturalistic work is hard nay where; but you shd persist– one never knows; best wishes, Mac Wellman

It was nice of Mac to respond, and maybe we will talk in person some time. That’s just how it is, we’re all busy, we’re all fighting.

Transcribing the imaginary performance

Kind of a provocation (or perhaps rant)

Since the sixties, the playwright Tom Stoppard has been stating the fact that:

A text is an event, not a text. A script is the transcription of an event that has not yet taken place.

and that the playwright’s job is to transcribe ‘the imaginary performance’.

When a script reader at a theatre reads your play, they are not trying to decide whether or not to put your play on…. they are trying to decide whether or not to put an imaginary play on…and the play that they are imagining may not be the same play that you imagined.

The trouble (or sometimes the delight) with writing the play at home then getting it produced is that there is always going to be a gap between script and performance. A play written in the ‘traditional’ way will never quite be performed as the writer imagined it – the definitive version is always the one on the page. That is one of the main differences between a text devised with performers, and a text written by a single author at home. A devised text can only exist in performance with those particular performers (or in that particular location with site specific work).

I guess script readers are pretty adept at imagining this imaginary play you have written. But I wonder, if the gap between what you write and what might happen on stage is intentionally left open, the reader might get lost in that gap, and reject the play because they just can’t imagine it.

Usually writers try to narrow the gap I’m talking about – through stage directions, well developed characters with motivations and reasons for talking…and any other method writers have of being clear on the page.  This clarity makes the text enjoyable to read. The reader doesn’t have to work too hard, because the writer has been clear, and is writing within a recognisable style and form. When the director and actors are brought in to work on this play, they too aim to keep the gap between writer’s intentions and production as narrow as possible – by understanding and executing the intentions of the play and the writer as best they can.

I’m interested in the plays that intentionally leave a wide gap between page and production. Plays that leave gaps to be filled by collaboration. Such writers do not necessarily believe that their words should always take centre stage. In the gap, there is room for music, dance, physicality, stage design, light, video…..these writers might see those elements of theatre as equally important.  They might need the director to interpret it in their own way – the writers themselves may not have all the answers. These plays are not particularly easy or enjoyable to read – because the play is only one ingredient, it’s impossible to imagine them, to ‘see’ them.  (It’s pretty hard to imagine something unlike anything else you’ve seen.)

Writers who often leave space for collaboration: Heiner Müller, Sarah Ruhl, Mac Wellman, Sarah Kane, Caryl Churchill, Ronald Schimmelpfennig, Marius von Mayenburg… (I can’t find many in the UK – Tim Crouch & Howard Barker maybe, but they have particular approaches, maybe because they’ve had to find ways to manage the British system) In my opinion, plays by these writers don’t work when the text is left ‘to speak for itself’ and the production ‘stripped back’. I don’t think the text is supposed to speak for itself…the text benefits from collaborators who have visions on how to bring their discipline to the work.

Does a writer have a role in stage design, light design…? How does the writer use language to provoke collaborators? For instance, it’s a pity to ignore a stage direction such as:

The university of the dead. Whispering and muttering. From their gravestones (lecterns) the dead philosophers throw their books at Hamlet. Gallery (ballet) of the dead women. The woman dangling from the rope. The woman with her arteries cut open, etc…Hamlet view them with the attitude of a visitor in a museum (theatre). The dead women tear his clothes off his body. Out of an upended coffin, labelled HAMLET 1, step Claudius and Ophelia, the latter dressed and made up like a whore. Striptease by Ophelia….

(Heiner Müller’s Hamletmachine)

I think a lot of productions either project this text onto a wall, or ignore it. To me (just like Sarah Kane’s rats who carry Carl’s feet) it seems to be a provocation – Hey designer, director, actors… here’s something to start you off. If stage directions are easy to execute, where’s the collaboration? It’s in attempting the impossible that something new is created.

Plays by these writers benefit from a looser, longer rehearsal process… maybe they require different acting styles/techniques, maybe they need a different working process…. when these plays are treated the same way a ‘traditional’ play is treated – they often don’t work. And then they give this kind of writing a bad name (pretentious/boring/academic/obscure).

The rules and structures in place in new writing theatres enable the theatres to get work onto a stage within time and financial restrictions. But is there a risk that writers write within these set parameters, to these processes – as otherwise the work won’t be staged…?

I was recently on the fantastic Aldeburgh/Jerwood Opera Writing scheme, and I think one of the points of the scheme is to bring people from different fields, who haven’t worked in opera before, together, in order to explore new methods of making opera, to collaborate, to experiment with alternative approaches. But when it came to the final week and we had the pressure of staging the work in front of the audience all the rules came back in. First the writers were told to keep quiet, then the composers too. Which of course makes sense – too many voices produces chaos etc….however the process became about staging the work within fixed parameters, instead of questioning and exploring the process itself and challenging those traditional roles.

There was one group that did it differently. The director/writer (Peter Cant) invited the composer (Marcin Stańczyk) to compose light, to contribute to the directing….and yes the final result was a bit chaotic, maybe didn’t do quite what they hoped/imagined -  but that’s irrelevant really. It’s impossible to make something like that work in such limited time. Even though we had the pressure of a showing with an audience– this was a rare opportunity to experiment and fail, and most of us, when it came to it, didn’t dare fail. (The pieces were great though and took risks in other ways )

Maybe the writer doesn’t want a read through followed by a staged reading etc, maybe the writer wants to improvise with the actors, to work with a designer from the beginning….Maybe it’d be great if there was room for a writer within devised theatre companies, in non ‘new writing’ environments. (There probably is, e.g Abi Morgan-Frantic Assembly; Lucy Prebble-Headlong; Caryl Churchill-Out of Joint – I don’t know how those processes worked; the one that’s very clear is Tim Etchells-Forced Entertainment) But it would be great if these opportunities were easier to access for writers – it’d be great if you didn’t need to be successful via the other route first.

To me, from where I am (Plymouth) there seems to be a hurdle that’s tricky to clear. There is a pathway that most of the writers being produced have taken. It basically goes: Royal Court young writers’ programme/Soho young writers’ programme/any other London based writers’ programme run by a new writing theatre- development-development – getting work commissioned. Theatres don’t usually take risks on people they don’t know…. they would rather take a risk on someone they have already invested in and ‘developed’. That’s one hurdle to do with living a long way from London.

The other one is the gap issue I was talking about, the problem that faces a particular type of play.  I think, anyway, that theatres, through their selection of particular plays, are censoring playwrights and preventing development of ideas and approaches to writing. Looking at the tutorials on the website for the Bruntwood Prize demonstrates the preoccupations with a particular approach to character and narrative. (even though the reading process seems to leave room for the plays that fit in the ‘or anything’) category.  I think (and what do I know), anyway, I think that far more flawed ‘traditional’ plays are put on than flawed ‘experimental’ plays. (Of course the words ‘traditional’ and ‘experimental’ are inaccurate and vague but hopefully you know what I mean) – More flawed plays in the ballpark of Bartlett’s ‘Love love Love’  are put on than those in the ballpark of Churchill’s ‘Far Away’.  And, if, like me, you’re writing in the  ‘experimental’ ? ‘poetic’ ? ‘non-naturalistic’ ? ‘language based’ ? field – you need to see lots of these flawed productions/plays. Otherwise how can we get better at writing/producing them ourselves? I just don’t learn anything from watching plays like Love Love Love – because it’s simply nothing like what I want to do.

I was really interested to see Melanie Wilson’s Autobiographer recently. I don’t think (and really, I don’t know) that a new writing theatre would have commissioned/produced it. Because it doesn’t really do character/narrative/high stakes….and there’s no plot (there’s not supposed to be). It’s hard to follow what the characters are saying a lot of the time (it’s supposed to be). It had beautiful moments, some really delicate, touching audience interaction. Some audience members loved it, some struggled with it. I absolutely enjoyed it and more importantly, learned something about this approach to  playwriting by watching it.  I needed to see what happens when a writer (as a playwright/theatre maker) bathes in poetry entirely and doesn’t worry about narrative and plot, and to experience that as an audience member. As the writer, it’s hard to put yourself in the audience’s/reader’s shoes.. (btw check out her website and past work -  stunning)

Without seeing my plays succeed or fail in performance, I’m really struggling to re-write them and write the next ones. My characters perhaps don’t have enough depth on the page, but I think I’ve left space between my words for the actors to bring them alive. (not that a script should even have to have characters of course – but I’m not sure there’s any point to sending a script like that off ) Maybe my scripts aren’t ready, I’m sure they’re not, but I think the next stage of writing happens in collaboration…(and that’s the bit I’m good at)

- quick detour: perhaps another obstacle is that some theatres/directors/script readers/whoever don’t trust what I just said… that the writer really does know about theatricality, about performing, collaboration and all the other elements of performance. There seems to be a general view that writers only know about writing. That they can’t know whether their plays are ‘stageable’ or not, I suppose that’s why writers like me end up having to perform/produce/direct their own work, to prove that it’s possible, and to prove that we know what we’re doing…

I’m very excited to have been invited by David Lane to be on the panel of a discussion at the next South West New Writing Network meeting:

‘The Writer is Dead: Long Live the Theatre-Maker’

 As new theatre writing continues to diversify, embracing spoken word, inter-disciplinary work, collaboration, immersive or site-specific theatre or solo writer-performers, should the playwright with the script in their hand wait in the wings, or move with the times?

David said I’d be perfect for the panel as I tick several of those boxes.  (David is wonderful, thank you for inviting me ) but, this made me think…actually…the only box I want to tick is ‘writer’. Everything I have done, I do to get my writing out there. I don’t want to be stuck up a mast reciting poetry on a boat in Plymouth, I don’t want to be performing on my own every day at the Edinburgh Fringe, (especially not with these bloody knees) I don’t particularly want to travel for 2 days to perform ten minutes of spoken word (but please keep inviting me!)…. really….I want my plays to be staged, whether that’s through the conventional route, with all its pitfalls, or an alternative, collaborative (i.e I raise the money) route – equally challenging.

Is the writer dead? – If our plays aren’t getting staged…we may as well be.

I don’t think it’s spoken word/devised theatre/multidisciplinary performance/site specific or any of those forms that is killing the writer…I think it’s the theatres that reject our work, and that try to hold onto the differences between new writing and everything else. (To a particular way of developing writers and producing work)  – That’s probably not fair…and every theatre is different of course…and sure this kind of writing is not for everyone…

I’m not sure how to remain alive, I’m not sure where to go next with my playwrighting…. maybe next I need to make friends with theatre companies, directors, composers, designers, performers and other artists and writers…and find another way to get the work made.

p.s:  Dear directors, theatre companies, composers, designers, performers, artists, writers…please get in touch – I will travel to London!

Blok/Eko by Howard Barker

Blok/Eko

I saw the Wrestling School perform Howard Barker’s new play Blok/Eko last night at the Northcott theatre in Exeter.

It’s exciting that the university and theatre have found a way of making this research and work happen. Click here for info about the collaboration.

I haven’t managed to find any reviews yet. It’s hard to know where to start with a response. Especially as I find describing what I saw on stage boring, and anyway I can’t do justice to it.

Like the initial sequence of a choir of doctors punctuating the silence with ‘Kryie Eleison’ conducted by a naked woman conducted by a man limping across the space.

The space was huge and bare. Like a warehouse, the side lights were visible. It felt like there was a whole world behind the performance space too.

Sometimes props came down from the ceiling, like trees at the end and torn garments (doctors’ coats?) at the beginning. But basically the space was empty.

But not empty. Not really ‘stripped back’ either, in the sense that other productions feel stripped back leaving the words to work too hard. Because the theatrical images were so strong, they filled the space. And because Barker’s writing is so strong it never struggles for a second. I think the difference between this and the ‘stripped back’ new writing productions I’ve seen recently (e.g. by the ATC) is that this production was entirely connected to the writing, it was collaborating with the text rather than scared of it.

Barker directed, and the actors completely inhabited the words and the characters. They were in total control of their craft. They visibly relished the chance to get their voices around these words. It felt like I was seeing actors act for the first time in my life. I mean ‘act’ in the positive sense. With their whole bodies. Yes – artifice – not naturalism. The world that was created was a whole world, not trying to comment on our world, not trying to be ‘realistic’, but entirely theatrical.

The Queen (Eko) only communicated in song or through a female attendant. Eko’s voice was amplified somehow, using a bone conductor microphone perhaps? Several of the actors (I’d give their names but can’t find them anywhere – apart from Shaun Dooley off the tele who was fantastic as ‘Tot’ the talented poor poet) had incredible vocal ranges and resonances. The melody and rhythm of the writing was stretched out in the delivery. The couple of different accents/approaches to the text – Dooley’s and the London gun renter – enlivened the writing, made it communicate more directly, revealed the nuances to it and the shades and humour within the characters. Made it more dangerous in a way; RP can be too smooth.

Here’s the blurb from the flyer:

Imagine a world in which they’ve killed all the doctors in order to let the poets become the healers. In this place of desire, violence and beauty the story of a Queen’s lifelong passion for her servant plays itself out against the backdrop of a broken realm.

There are two poets in this world, one’s an idiot and wins the Queen’s poetry prize each year and the other (Tot) is brilliant, never wins and lives in poverty, robs a post office, goes to prison, loses an arm (no doctors) comes out and at the end commits suicide. Which makes it sound simple but it’s not really told quite like that.

There are many layers and lots of elements I can’t explain. Such as one of the women constantly collapsing, the strange swing at the back of the space – brilliant image, reminded me of one of Heiner Muller’s impossible(?) stage directions: ‘on a swing, the Madonna with breast cancer’ (Hamletmachine)

It raised questions about what artists need to make art. Do we need support, funding, recognition, money? The strange despotic Queen reckoned the poet wrote better when struggling and incarcerated, and that the singer’s best work would come from the experience of death…Do we need struggle and suffering to make art?

& I loved this idea that the world had become silent through drugs and injections and pain killers…that somehow those screams and the noises of pain create a kind of poetry…

Just before the interval the rich poet handed the poor poet money, but he didn’t let go so they were each holding onto this paper money fighting each other with poetry. Words used as weapons. Made a fantastic montage/soundscape.

Then it was the interval and I felt shaky and a bit sick. First time in ages that theatre has affected me physically.

Just before going back in a fellow writer told me she was only staying for the second half as she was hoping they were going to tell her what was going on. It’s strange to me – that you might need to know what the story is in order to enjoy the work. There was a story, it was pretty clear, but we were never given a lecture about how it came to be and what the characters thought about it…they were too in it.

I suppose the story of Blok and Eko was pulled out in the second half. Blok was the servant and song writer. Brilliant actor – an intense way of speaking with head down and eyes piercing up at us.

Usually my mind wanders in the theatre. I think I was gripped partly because I wasn’t being spoon fed, it was a new experience, pushing at the edges of theatre –something was happening. I haven’t seen any of Barker’s previous productions but, unlike some of the later work of other legends – Robert Wilson, the Wooster Group, Richard Foreman…it felt that there was nothing formulaic about this. He’s still taking risks.

So why isn’t this work on at The National? Why aren’t there any reviews of it? Why are theatres censoring playwrights? Why this obsession with naturalism and story and character? I recently read:

It’s exhausting to still be repeating admonitions by Witkacy, by Artaud, by Tristan Tzara. Didn’t Gertrude Stein fight this battle already? Didn’t John Cage?’ (Helen Shaw, foreword to Mac Wellman’s The Difficulty of Crossing a Field )

On the topic of what is too much or too little on stage (part of Barker’s current research) I wasn’t convinced by the choruses. Partly because – although they performed very well – I was too aware that they were students; they looked too young, too studenty. And because the core actors were so strong anyone else on stage was diminished. Perhaps it would work better in a larger theatre, with more exploration of the choreography. There’s lots more that could be done with their vocal parts too, soundscapes created with the chorus rather than on a soundtrack would be great. And I’m not a fan of geometric marching and sudden right angles…or futurist hats…

Female nudity was quite a feature. The initial image of the naked conductor was brilliant. Nudity was used several times, and always impacting. It seemed to be saying something…something…women have bodies and men have words? Certainly both language and the body were weapons. But they were all wrestling with language in some way, trying to find the right word or just trying to get a word out or…in…in…in…