As we watch the destruction of our welfare state, we’re asking: why is this happening? Is it what people want; have we actively chosen this path? Have we been told that we’re in a crisis so many times that we’ve come to believe it?
Pleasance Jack Dome, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Wednesday 5 to Sunday 30 August (not 17 or 24), 3.50pm.
Combining Dumbshow’s trademark storytelling style with urgent contemporary issues, Electric Dreams is a brand new show inspired by Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine -a vibrant, unsettling and bold examination of the state of the nation explored through a human story, a love story.
Michael Bryher: Electric Dreams began with a book – The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. It was published in 2007 and I read it in 2009, so its taken us 6 years from to make the show. The other inspiration for making the piece was the 2008 financial crash, and the resulting course that the UK has taken since. Dumbshow are a group of relatively politically engaged theatre makers, and we felt an urgent need to make a piece of theatre that responded to the world around us, that tried to shed light on what was happening in both a provocative and entertaining way.
What can the audience expect to see and feel - or even think - of your production?
First and foremost, the audience can expect to be told a story. Although our initial inspiration for the piece is a wide-ranging piece of journalism which covers the history of psychiatry, global politics and economic theory in a variety of contexts, in Electric Dreams we have focused on one woman’s story and the closure of a library in today’s Britain.
Our style of storytelling changes depending on the show we are making and Electric Dreams is quite different from anything we’ve done before. Our last show was a rustic, poor-theatre retelling of John Steinbeck’s The Pearl, whereas Electric Dreams uses live cameras, video projection and live music to tell a multi-space, multi-time story that traverses history and the globe.
We have worked with New Adventures dancer, Edd Mitton as movement director, and composer Rollo Clarke to make a multi-layered piece of theatre that explores ideas around memory and agency; the audience can expect to be drawn into a fascinating story based on a real woman who lost her memory, discover why that happened, and realise what implications it has for the rest of us.
Klein’s book was a call to arms eight years ago, and with the continuing crisis in Greece, it could not be more prescient – Electric Dreams will both entertain and provoke the audience to think about how they interact with the world around them.
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My instinct is that dramaturgy is incredibly important in our work, but we have never worked with a dramaturg per se. I also imagine that the meaning of dramaturgy is different for different people. We pride ourselves on making work that has a clear internal logic, that is rigorously researched and structurally sound.
The company is made up of people with a variety skills (there are about 15 of us in total), but in Electric Dreams we have Nicola Cutcher, who is a free-lance journalist and researcher for TV and Film. Her natural instincts err towards what might be called dramaturgy, so maybe she sometimes fulfils that role, but we wouldn't call it that.
Maybe this is because we are a company who has developed practice through making work; we didn’t all study on the same course, none of us went to the same drama school and so we are a mongrel theatre company. So the roles we fulfil in the creative process tend to be more fluid and less systematised.
What particular traditions and influences would you acknowledge on your work - have any particular artists, or genres inspired you and do you see yourself within their tradition?
Like many theatre makers who grew up in the 90’s/00’s, Kneehigh have been a big influence on our work, but more in terms of process rather than product.
I was lucky enough to work with Kneehigh on a project with the National Youth Theatre when I was 19; a group of NYT members went down to the barns, made work, ran along the cliffs, played together, ate together and had a life-changing experience. When returned to University that autumn I wanted to recreate that feeling of ensemble. Dumbshow was born, and here we are 8 years later.
Kneehigh instilled in me a sense of commitment to the work, and commitment to the people who make the work that is hard to find in this industry. When I think about the 3 pieces of theatre that have had the biggest impact on me: Kneehigh’s Tristan and Yesult, Steppenwolf’s August: Osage County and Pina Bausch Company’s 1980, the common theme through all of this work is the ensemble that underpinned it. We aspire to be a great ensemble company that makes popular challenging work.
Do you have a particular process of making that you could describe - where it begins, how you develop it, and whether there is any collaboration in the process?
I'm always quite resistant to describing our process as it shifts and changes depending on the project - we rediscover our process every time we make work. Not to sound too pretentious, but I think of making theatre collaboratively as a kind alchemy. It depends on so many different things; the people in the room, the room itself and the ideas that are floating about, what else is going on in the world etc. There are, however, commonalities in what we do
1) We always tell stories; we make sure that there is a story we want to tell and then we use our instincts to work out where to go from there.
2) Often there will be a few moments that we have an inkling about so we will start to explore these moments or ideas.
3) We write on big pieces of paper and stick them up all over the place.
4) Our work is rooted in text, so whether we are working with Sam Gayton (our writer) or through a collaborative writing process, we will write in the room.
5) Where possible we work with our composer, Rollo Clarke, in the room. He’s 6’7” and says very little, but his music is inspirational and has often been a driving force in our work (even if it doesn't all make it into the show).
6) We spend too much time playing games and dancing i.e. procrastinating.
7) We argue and disagree with each other, we challenge each other to justify the choices we make (about 98% in a good natured way) – the ethos of saying “yes” to everything can lead to some seriously woolly work.
8) We use whatever comes to our minds to create the work: pictures, videos, other bits of text (it has become increasingly apparent how dependent we are on having Wi-Fi in the rehearsal room – we are like magpies, constantly picking little bits up here and there)
9) We try to take the work seriously, but not ourselves.
10) We eat together. Very important to reset at the end of the day (often this can be when the best thinking happens)
11) We ask ourselves: Why Us? Why now? Why in the theatre? If we can’t answer these questions, a rethink is necessary.
12) Hold your nerve (learnt from Kneehigh’s Mike Sheppard)
What do you feel the role of the audience is, in terms of making the meaning of your work?
The audience is absolutely central to our work – they are the reason we are there. We are utterly, unashamedly audience focused. That isn’t to say that we don’t make the work that we want to make for fear of an audience’s sensibilities (our second show, Clockheart Boy was a family show about grief), but we put audience pleasure and provocation above everything else.
Are there any questions that you feel I have missed out that would help me to understand how dramaturgy works for you?The question that I think you may need to ask, before you ask about the relevance of dramaturgy, is: What does dramaturgy mean?
As a company that (largely) didn’t study theatre in a University setting, I think that our understanding of the word ‘dramaturgy’ may differ from people who developed their practice in a more academic environment. I'm not 100% sure what a dramaturg would do if they came into our rehearsals, but I feel that our work is dramaturgically strong.
Rose can’t remember the first 18 years of her life. What happened to her?
Seeking to unravel this mystery she turns investigator, piecing together her history from fragmented memories, documents and dreams – aided by staff in a soon-to-be-closed library. Can Rose’s story wake us all up?
Using live music composed and performed by Rollo Clarke, and video, Electric Dreams journeys from 1950’s Canada to the Iraq war to the present day where standing up to a library closure in the UK can have you labelled a domestic extremist.
Director, Michael Bryher said ‘Dumbshow is making a stand. We want to be part of a political debate about what kind of country we want to be, because if we don’t, soon it might be too late.
‘In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein challenges the myth that over the past decades free-market capitalism triumphed across the globe democratically, and considers whether often its advancements have been forced on populations unwittingly when they were too shocked or distracted to realise what was happening. The Shock Doctrine was published in 2007 before the financial crisis. We’re applying Klein’s ideas to a post-financial crash Britain. Was Britain in a state of shock in 2008?
‘We’ve been exploring this question, which has made us question Klein’s thesis as well as our own ideas and values, and it is a question that we are still trying to answer. Electric Dreams certainly feels like the most political piece we have made, forged in the fires of anger at the current political situation. We want our audiences to reconsider both where we’ve come from and where we’re going. But we are still asking questions - and I suppose that’s the point.’
Dumbshow was established in 2007 at The University of Warwick and creates fabulous and visually inventive theatre that asks questions about the world through telling stories.
Dumbshow’s previous shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe include The Pearl (2013), Roar (2011), Clockheart Boy (2008), The End of the World (2007).
Electric Dreams is created in collaboration with Camden People’s Theatre and supported by the Wellcome Trust Arts Award, the Arts Council and the University of Warwick.
Dumbshow
The Dumbshow ensemble was established in 2007 by Artistic Director Michael Bryher and has been working together ever since. We have a shared history, complicity, a common language and confidence in each other. We love playing games together (which sometimes get dangerous), we eat together and enjoy each other’s company. We share a belief in the power and importance of telling stories as a way to understand ourselves and the world around us, but we have a variety of skills and backgrounds, all of which go towards making a Dumbshow show what it is.
Dumbshow make visually arresting and textually rich storytelling theatre. Our aims are:
· to tell stories that fire our imaginations, that are important and that need to be told in the theatre;
· to create live events that celebrate the collective experience;
· and make plays that are intellectually and emotionally challenging.
The stories we tell might be be out-of-this-world, or based on a real life true story; they might be accessible for children or strictly for adults; they will always entertain and hopefully stimulate your mind; they might make you laugh and they might make you cry, but we hope that having experienced our work you will feel more alive and ready to face the world.
We believe in the power of live theatre – where an audience gathers together to sit and be told a story. For everyone at Dumbshow, we think that this collective experience is a unifying force that deeply enriches our society. So for us, making theatre is a serious business (but we like to have some fun along the way).
Composer Rollo Clarke is writing an original piano score for the show, which he will be playing live on stage.
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