Dramaturgy in the Faslane: Jenna Watt @ Edfringe 2016

Jenna Watt in association with Showroom present:

FASLANE

Summerhall - Edinburgh Fringe 2016

A new solo performance from “One of Scotland’s most interesting performers and theatre makers” (Daily Record) at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe.

Her Majesty's Naval Base Clyde, or Faslane, situated 40 miles outside Glasgow, is home to the UK's nuclear missile program: Trident. 

With family having worked in Faslane all her life, and with friends protesting at the gates, Jenna Watt (How You Gonna Live Your Dash, Flâneurs) explores what happens when the personal and political collide. 

Drawing upon interviews with individuals at the front line of the nuclear debate and featuring an immersive sound design by Kim Moore (Blow Off, Tiger Tale) Jenna navigates her own journey through the politics, protests and peace camps. 

A deeply personal yet meticulously researched take on the nuclear debate, delving into not only the global politics of Trident, but also the personal struggle of taking a stance on this most divisive of issues. Rejecting a didactic approach, Faslane invites audience members to question their own thoughts on the issue, and to interrogate just what a nuclear deterrent really means.

Faslane represents the culmination of years of research including multiple trips to the naval base, interviews with current and former MOD staff and activists as well as forays into the world of activism by Jenna herself.

LISTINGS:

3rd (preview), 5-28th August 2016 (not 15th) at 7.15pm 

Summerhall – Red Lecture Theatre

Tickets from £8    

What was the inspiration for this performance?

In the lead up to the Scottish Referendum the issue of Trident was being used as a political linchpin for both campaigns, I became aware that I was desperately uninformed about this issue despite my family have worked in Faslane my whole life. I felt torn between what I wanted for my family and what I thought I wanted for my country, so I started asking questions and attempted to find out what people at the frontline of the nuclear debate really feel.

How did you go about gathering the team for it?

We have a really small team, Callum Smith, producer, and Louise Stephens, dramaturg, have worked with me on previous productions and I'd been in conversation with them about Faslane during it's research. At the beginning of the process for Faslane, I knew I didn't want to use the aesthetic of nuclear war, so it felt natural to turn to sound design. A producer friend of mine suggested I speak to Kim Moore. Kim and I had never worked together, so we met and talked about the show and Kim immediately became a hugely important part of the show. 

How did you become interested in making performance?

If I'm honest, I used to watch the TV show Playdays when I was a kid, and I loved the Tent Stop. In the Tent Stop episodes they'd create lo-fi performances and I couldn't get enough of it, it felt really special with the presenters acting out a story 'live', I was hooked. Sadly, the PlayBus would usually stop at the Patch stop, or the bloody Why Bird stop, I had no time for that Why bird.

Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?

Absolutely, my research always involves talking to people, and then discovering how to best represent those people and their stories on stage. I guess what is different with Faslane is that this piece is obviously very political. 

credit: Mihaela Bodlovic

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

I hope audiences will feel challenged both politically and personally.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

I'm presenting a perspective that will be, at times, difficult for people with polarised views on the debate to swallow.

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?

Nope, but I'm sure plenty of other people do.


Jenna Watt is an award winning Scottish theatre maker and has been working professionally in Scottish Theatre for 10 years. Her recent production How You Gonna Live Your Dash undertook a Scottish tour in January/February 2016. In 2012 she won a Scotsman Fringe First for Flâneurs, which went on to tour the UK. 

Jenna is currently working as an assistant director with Magnetic North and Rob Drummond through the FST Assistant Director 

Kim Moore (Sound Designer) is a composer who records and produces for theatre, dance, film and visual arts. She is currently composing and performing with Barrowland Ballet, Tom Dale and Rick Holland, Julia Taudevin Blow Off with live musicians from Tuff Love, and with her own project WOLF. 

Diderot Did Decline Democratic Dramatic Discussion

As it happens, I am off the Happy Pills again. I am experiencing considerable friction within my nervous system. I'd like to apologise to the lovely and patient people who share my workspace at the CCA, and the duty managers who have had to put up with a higher level of distraction than usual from this hairy little bloke in the suit who seems to have lost his keys again.

I am in a real temper today. I was looking on Twitter to find somebody to flame, but the always intriguing @thejennawatt diverted me. Instead, I am going to have a go at Diderot.

The ever growing list of UK theatres where I can't afford to see shows is growing ever longer.

— Jenna Watt (@thejennawatt) April 8, 2016

It's ironic: Watt makes theatre, but she can't afford to see as much as she'd like. My research into the history of theatre allows me to pretend I have a long-dead culprit. When Diderot challenged the status quo of pre-revolutionary France, he advocated a bourgeois theatre. In the following centuries, architects, playwrights, companies and philosophers followed his lead, culminating in that day when Wagner turned off the lights in the auditorium, and forced audiences to make a pilgrimage to see his latest epic cycle. Basically, it got expensive to keep the riff-raff out, the kind of people that used to go to the Globe to have sex with a prostitute, shout at actors and occasionally listen to Shakespeare's poetry.

Of course, it is really Aristotle's fault (he did say that tragedy was for a noble class who had time and money), and a by-product of capitalism - oh, and the replacement of live theatre by the cinema, then television, then the internet, leaving what used to be the top entertainment as an esoteric taste.

Speaking as someone who decided that romantic opera is the pinnacle of live theatre, and is preparing to take his place with the Werthers Original set, I am worried that Jenna Watt has spotted the massive problem with any research into theatre. It has become expensive, exclusive and the means of production have shifted it beyond the financial reach of many people. This removes it from the public sphere what Habermas talks about - no good being part of public debate if only the rich can afford to see it - and the political content of works like Iphigenia in Splott is belied by the price of the ticket. For  rough guide, if the class of characters that a play is about can't get a ticket, it's not serious about them. 

It doesn't solve the problem entirely, but when Scottish Opera are offering bargain tickets to students (do they still do that?), or Buzzcut is pay-what-you-like, maybe the directors of the theatres could, like, offer cheap seats at the last minute, or go out into the street and give away any tickets that are left half an hour before the show? I know that last suggestion would cause problems. 

Anyway, access to culture might not be a human right, but I think it is part of a democratic society. I'll get around to that some day. I've got withdrawal symptoms to enjoy. In the meantime: I try not to forget that there is an economic dimension to Watt's question, and probably a class one, too. That neoliberal mantra about choice is a right load of hot air when that choice depends on how much spare change you've got.

Dashing Dramaturgy: Jenna Watt explains how...

Jenna Watt presents

How You Gonna Live Your Dash

A co-production with Platform & in association with Showroom

The latest thought provoking production from Jenna Watt, one of Scotland’s most visionary theatre makers. Following on from her award-winning production Flâneurs, this shattering piece explores the life-altering decisions we make in order to get the most out of our time on earth.

Based on real life testimonies and featuring beautiful pyrotechnic effects, this epic performance looks at the moment people choose to detonate their own lives, the smokey fall out and how they piece together a new future.

From giving up a high-flying career, confronting an addiction and dropping it all to move to a new continent, How You Gonna Live Your Dash looks at how people live their lives and the momentous decisions they make.

A departure from her solo work, How You Gonna Live Your Dash is a two hander performed by Jenna Watt and Ashley Smith (Scot Squad, Butterfly, Uncle Varik, The Sash). Pyrotechnics play a significant role in the production and are fired by Jenna and Ashley as part of the show.

Where did the process for Dash begin for you?
It began one afternoon about three years ago when I watched Werner Herzog's documentary Into the Abyss.  It was here that I first heard the phrase 'how you gonna live your dash' and within the context of the documentary, and at that point in my life it felt very pertinent.  I remember quickly scribbling the phrase down on a post it and putting it on my wall, and thinking that's my next performance work.


Would you describe your work as within any particular tradition - or are there artists you recognise as working in similar areas?
I would describe it as contemporary performance with a live art influence.  My works tend to start out life as pieces of live art before they're shaped into works of contemporary performance for theatre spaces.


What kind of response are you hoping to get from the audience?
A contemplative one.


And are there any particular strategies that you have used towards this end?
Our pyrotechnic effects have a particular quality that allow space for an audience to be reflective.


Is Dash  typical of the way that you make work?
In some respects, for example it's previously been staged as a live art installation at Buzzcut Festival and I've worked with a dramaturg.  However, this project has received support from Creative Scotland in its development and production, which has made the making of the performance quite different. It's allowed me to surround myself with a supportive team, and open up my practice to more collaborators, which I've really enjoyed.


How far does the content of Dash  determine the performance format?
I would say the aesthetic of the smoke effects has determined more of the performance format than anything else, because I knew before I'd finished writing the show what it would look like visually.  

So much of the performance format has been influenced by how to frame the pyro effects.

What made you feel that performance was a good medium for your art?
It's live.

Jenna Watt is an award-winning writer and theatre maker based in Glasgow. Jenna is best known for creating work that explores socio-political issues using real life testimonies as source material. Jenna’s work includes: Remote by Stef Smith (Macrobert Young Company/National Theatre Connections), Parents Be Like (Macrobert Young Company), Flâneurs (co-production with Capital Arts), It’s Okay It’s Only Temporary and Little Vikings Are Never Lost.

In 2012, Jenna was awarded a Scotsman Fringe First for her production Flâneurs during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, it then toured around the UK in 2012 and 2013.


In 2015, Jenna was awarded a Flying Solo Award from Contact, Manchester and is currently on an artist attachment with the National Theatre of Scotland to make a new work about Faslane in summer 2016.