Atlantic Dramaturgy: RCS @ Edfringe 2017

From Sondheim’s twist on classic fairy tales to two new works that bring together a transatlantic team, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland students are gearing up for the greatest arts festival in the world.

Atlantic: A Scottish Story

Written by: Scott Gilmour & Claire McKenzie (S&C)

Atlantic: America & The Great War

Written by: Ryan Bernsten, Christopher Anselmo & Desiree Staples (R, C & D)

What was the inspiration for this performance?

R, C & D: The international collaboration has truly been the most inspirational aspect of our process. The entire Atlantic team met for months via multiple overseas phone calls to kick-start the development of this then untitled project. The conversations about our respective countries and our respective experiences allowed for such a ripe beginning to the work. One theme we all kept returning to was the question, ‘is it a curse to stay in, or a curse to leave your homeland?’ For the Scots, their families have been rooted in the same location for centuries. 

For the Americans, quite the opposite. All three of us come from such different backgrounds - even Chris is a first-generation American - and we wanted to find a story that really explored what it means to be American. And, as we believe theatre should in today’s political climate in the States, we put an emphasis on responding to current events through our historical lens.

S&C: As the American team have already mentioned, Atlantic was a collaborative project inspired directly by our differing cultural and family heritage and how that affects us now as individuals in the modern world. 

Our piece, A Scottish Story, looks at the ties we have to home and, in many cases, how difficult it can be to escape them. Is it a curse to stay or to go? What happens if you never leave home - can you still be happy? If you have no need to discover where you’re from, because you’re already there, can you be content not knowing what the rest of the world has to offer? These questions of isolation and identity were fundamental in discovering the world of Atlantic for us.

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas?

S&C: I think it’s becoming a more sacred space for discussion. We can now experience some of the most powerful and moving stories from the comfort of our own bed. We can communicate, lecture, debate and discuss with whole communities without ever having to leave our room. 

Live performance, however, is something that’s yet to be replicated by technology. As a result, the forum of theatre and music, and the discussion that takes place between a performer and the audience, remains this uncanny thing that is vital to the sharing of ideas and sensibilities for everyone.

R, C & D: We think performance is more vital than ever to discuss ideas and see lives that are different from our own. We have an empathy shortage across the world and allowing to see real people in front of us experience lives that may be in different centuries and different countries that still hit universal notes and themes. 

The unique opportunity to have two writing teams from both Scotland and the United States has allowed us to have discussions on the most important topics: what makes our countries alike? What makes our experiences different? How does heritage fit into our consciousness? Why is beer so much cheaper in Scotland?!

How did you become interested in making performance?

Ryan: I’ve been a part of theatre since I played Captain Hook at the age of eight and there’s something about creating new work for the stage that is more satisfying than any other endeavour. The collaboration of a team of artists, both old and new, creates something that can only come from those particular artists. 

This international team truly has reinvigorated my belief that making live theatre is more worthwhile than ever as we’ve learned from each other not just as writers but as world citizens and general goofballs (we do a lot of impersonations of each other’s accents).

Chris: I got into the performance world through music. I was your typical American garage band kid; playing guitar to impress friends and getting into trouble. I knew I loved telling stories through my music and so musical theatre was such a natural leap. My sophomore year English teacher encouraged me to write my first musical as a book report assignment, and it just clicked and avalanched from there.

Desiree: I personally became interested in making performance in college. I’ve always been in the school of thought of ‘write what you know,’ so in college I became interested in taking the challenges and issues that were on my mind and performing about them (whether it was in song, in comedy or a more serious production). I also think it’s more important now than ever to question, dare and open people’s minds rather than give them a definitive answer of what to believe. I’ve discovered that performance, especially musical theatre, is the ideal forum to risk and tell these kinds of human stories that do just that - which has been very inspiring to me as an actress and writer in this process.

Scott: I always liked reading stories. I tried to become a novelist when I was younger but

failed and ended up working in a Spar … I started at an amateur theatre group on my days

off and that led on to drama school. After that I met Claire and we formed our partnership company, Noisemaker. I still like stories just as much. But now I get to make them.

Claire: I originally found music through a love of dance as a child. I think my parents noticed I had some sense of rhythm and thought it might not be a complete waste of money to send me to recorder lessons. Quite a few years and instruments later I ended up studying classical composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, followed by a Masters in Musical Direction in their drama school. 

It was this degree that led me to realise that I wanted to use my composition skills to help tell stories, collaborate and create unique pieces of theatre.

Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?

R, C & D: Both teams started with a commitment to community storytelling. Because Atlantic: America & the Great War is set at such a turning point in American history where the U.S. decided to truly join the world stage, we as writers wanted to capture the aspirations of not just our main characters but of the nation as a whole. Therefore we hope the aesthetic of the show resonates with the themes of a nation on the precipice of change, and our main character Annabelle swept up in forces beyond her control as she goes on a journey to find her sister in the war.

S&C: During our initial discussions, both writing teams were drawn to the idea of exploring folkloric traditions, and the differences in storytelling style between our two nations. It was fascinating to discover more about American folklore and how relatively modern their stories are compared to our centuries-old Scottish tales. From these initial discussions, we were keen to find a story with universal themes that also had this timeless quality within it. For this particular production we were lucky to have two development periods, one with the Scottish cast in Glasgow, followed by another with the American cast members in Chicago. Both of these workshops have significantly shaped the piece and allowed us to devise and create characters with and for the young cast playing them.

The Atlantic process has been incredibly collaborative from the outset and has been a unique writing and development experience for all of us involved.

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

S&C: Atlantic: A Scottish Story has been a bit of a departure from our usual style of storytelling, which has made it so enjoyable to make. As our writing partnership, Noisemaker, we have chosen to take the form of musical theatre and push its boundaries to challenge the expectations of an audience. That can be structurally, musically or simply in the style of production. On our last visit to the Fringe we brought our choose-your-own-adventure musical, The Girl Who, a show where the audience made the characters’ decisions resulting in 128 possible permutations of the story and score. A Scottish Story is a little different, as we're returning to the roots of classic musical storytelling, combining Scottish folk music and myth to create a piece that feels of the time but also relevant to our lives today.

R,C & D: What is exciting is that Atlantic is all about home, heritage, adventure, and the relationships you make along the way in discovering who you are - tied in with the tumultuous political, social, and global times of 1917, exactly a hundred years ago. We have always been passionate about telling stories that resonate now, and we think that looking at the past is not only very poignant and important to our lives right now, but can unlock so much about how we want to shape our future.

Chris: For example, this process has been perfect because my style of music, both as a musical theatre composer and as a singer-songwriter, leans heavily towards folk and Americana. I also tend to compose almost exclusively on the guitar, and the texture that comes from that method has really opened up a really interesting soundscape for the piece. It’s something that’s rooted in a Scottish folk tradition, but distinctly American.

Ryan: For me as a playwright, most of the plays I’ve produced have been in the genre of contemporary political satire and drama, so a historical setting presented a challenge upon first impression, but ultimately it was surprising how cyclical history can be. The development of the piece began while I was working as a staffer on the Hillary Clinton campaign, so it really became important in the aftermath that this musical answered to what America’s legacy is and how complicated it can be at times.

Desiree:  For me, currently writing for the LA Fringe and sketch comedy, it’s been an exciting challenge to bring these skills back to the musical theatre genre. I think the relationships in this story are very true to my past work. I've wanted to explore how to tell a family story, a love story, and a story about home in a way we haven’t seen before and Atlantic knocks it out of the park. 

I think our characters are complex, determined and will very much resonate with young people right now who want to be in control of their destiny and change the world for the better. 

Creating an ensemble piece has also always been something I’ve wanted to write, and our ensemble is such a foundation of this show, it’s going to be very thrilling to see it performed.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

S&C: We hope that the audience will be led to question their own heritage and sense of belonging, by falling into this simple and poignant story of a girl who couldn’t leave her island. Using a rich, folk score with plenty of song, dance and dynamic storytelling we hope Atlantic: A Scottish Story creates a world far from the buzzing streets of Edinburgh - even just for an hour!

R, C & D: The journey across the Atlantic is epic. We’re hoping the audience will become enraptured in that journey with Annabelle but also take the unique opportunity to reflect that the American chapter in Atlantic: America & The Great War is set exactly a century ago from today. During the process, we’ve discovered a terrifying amount of parallels between then and now, from the military industrial complex to fake news to discovering one’s heritage in order to find identity to not having a sense of belonging. 

And though Annabelle’s journey is arduous, we’re really hoping audiences will enjoy the heart and humour of the piece, because it would be impossible to discuss the American identity without these moments that make us human.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

R, C & D: Considering the length requirements for the piece and the epic scope of the story we are aiming to tell, we had to experiment with the way our play flows, both musically and lyrically. Building upon ‘story theatre’ techniques such as ensemble narration, object puppetry and movement sequences, we’ve been striving to ensure that the score follows suit and supports the fluid (pun intended) motion of the piece as a whole. 

While traditional American musical theatre favours the ‘song-then-scene’ method, our play opts for a more ‘mosaic’ approach, in which many songs explode into sequences, and sequences shrink into personal moments. We’re really excited about seeing how it plays out with an audience and we hope that it helps tell this massive story in a very personal way.

S&C: Whilst incorporating many similar techniques to the Americans, we also turned to traditional Scottish storytelling to capture the world we wanted to place our audience in. The music, song, text and movement all flow as one big thing, capturing the pace and motion of a time long forgotten. We look forward to sharing the product of what's been a unique and special collaboration with audiences at this year’s festival!

Musical Theatre Masters students will stage three productions, including two world premieres, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August in what is a milestone year – the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is celebrating its 170^th anniversary in 2017 while the Fringe turns 70.

The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland launches its dedicated Fringe website www.rcsedfest.co.uk  to coincide with the release of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme. The website is a hub for all things Fringe-related with information on performances – including alumni – events, reviews, media galleries and ticket details.

Students from across the globe come to study on the Royal Conservatoire’s 12-month MA Musical Theatre programme which culminates in a fully-staged run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which attracts millions of international visitors to the capital every year.

The Royal Conservatoire will present a main stage musical and two new works at the Assembly Hall from Thursday, August 3. The two new works are in partnership with the prestigious American Music Theatre Project (AMTP) at Northwestern University and Noisemaker, the award-winning music theatre company run by Royal Conservatoire of Scotland graduates, Scott Gilmour and Claire McKenzie.

The American Music Theatre Project brings together leading artists in music theatre to work with Northwestern’s faculty, staff and students. AMTP’s goal is to nourish and invigorate American music theatre by developing and producing new musicals, increasing opportunities for education and training with Northwestern’s theatre, music theatre and dance programmes and creating new connections between professional and academic communities. 

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe will play host to:

• Into the Woods: main stage musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Lapine and directed by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s Michael Howell.

• Atlantic: A Scottish Story: written by Scott Gilmour and Claire McKenzie of Noisemaker. Directed by Scott Gilmour. 

• Atlantic: America and the Great War: written by Northwestern University alumni Christopher Anselmo, Ryan Bernsten and Desiree Staples. Directed by David H. Bell, Artistic Director of the American Music Theatre Project at Northwestern University.

Hugh Hodgart, Director of Drama, Dance, Production and Film at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, said: “Creating meaningful professional opportunities is a defining aspect of life at Scotland’s national conservatoire.

“Performing and producing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe – the largest arts festival in the world - is a once-in-a-lifetime student experience. Our Musical Theatre Masters students have a unique and wonderful opportunity to showcase their talents – whether it’s on stage or behind the scenes - to an international audience.”

Professor Andrew Panton, Artistic Director of Musical Theatre at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, said: “The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland has performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for more than a decade and it offers a rich learning experience for our students, where they get to share their passion  on a global platform. 

Fairytale characters meet and clash in Into the Woods as they pursue their happily-ever-afters. In the woods, as in life, it’s easy to stray from the path. Into the Woods is a full-length musical at the Assembly Hall, directed by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s Michael Howell.

Atlantic: A Scottish Story and Atlantic: America and the Great War will explore similar themes from two different national perspectives and will be performed in repertory by students from Northwestern University and the Royal Conservatoire in the Rainy Hall at the Assembly Hall.

Atlantic: A Scottish Story is a new musical from Noisemaker. What if we couldn't travel, leave home and see the world? Would we still be happy? With a soaring score and dynamic storytelling, Atlantic: A Scottish Story is a collaboration between the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the American Music Theatre Project at Northwestern University and the award-winning musical theatre partnership Noisemaker. 

Atlantic: America and the Great War, an ensemble-driven adventure with a rousing folk score that explores the timely uncertainty of what it means to be American. On the eve of World War One, two African American sisters uncover their complicated European ancestry, but when one disappears while tracing their lineage overseas, the other must leave home for the first time to find her. 

The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s MA Musical Theatre students have been performing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for over a decade and have produced many Scottish premieres. 

For performance dates and tickets, visit: 

• https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/into-the-woods 
• https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/atlantic-a-scottish-story 
• https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/atlantic-america-and-the-great-war 

About the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

• The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is ranked in the world top three for performing arts education (QS World Rankings 2017) and is ranked number one in Scotland for graduate employability (HESA) endorsing its status as a national and international centre of excellence for the performing arts.
• The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is celebrating its 170th anniversary in 2017. During its existence, it has built on its roots as a national academy of music to become one of Europe’s most multi-disciplinary performing arts higher education centres, offering specialised teaching across music, drama, dance, production and film. The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is encouraging trans-disciplinary learning throughout its innovative curriculum. 
• Around 1100 students are currently pursuing degrees at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland across its specialisms. The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland works in partnership with the national companies, including the National Theatre of Scotland, Scottish Opera and BBC Scotland, to provide students with the very best learning experiences the Scottish landscape has to offer.
• Based in the heart of Glasgow, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is also a busy performing arts venue; it hosts more than 500 public performances each year and issues around 64,000 tickets from its box office annually. Additionally, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland teaches over 3000 part-time learners every year through its Junior Conservatoire and Lifelong Learning departments.

Peter Smart's Front End, Back End @ Into the New

There has been a great deal of hot air on this blog since November: the lack of theatre to review caused me to retreat into a big load of critical theory that I barely understand. However, maybe it is time to, like, actually, use that theory for a purpose: inform the theatre writing that is supposedly my passion.

Peter Smart's Front End, Back End @ Into the New

Smart's script tells the story of how he got into trouble at the Royal Conservatoire by spilling paint on the floor of a dance studio. It is performed by his flatmate, who had never seen the script before going on stage, and has some cheeky interludes in which the performer makes some (clearly scripted) comments on what he is reading and his relationship to Smart.

From the beginning, Smart reminds the audience that they are watching a staged event: the technical team set up the microphone on stage, at length, then Smart appears on video to excuse his own absence. The performer, reading unsteadily from a folder, is consciously 'bad at acting' - he laughs at the jokes, gets distracted and has weak vocal projection. It is crafted to appear unprofessional and uncomfortable.

The story of the poster paint and the damaged floor is relayed through the reading of a series of emails between the concerned parties. The daily life of the Conservatoire echoes in the conversation, with mentions of relevant health and safety issues, the uses of various spaces and the social consequences of Smart's misadventures (he becomes the butt of various jokes).

As interludes, music which was intended for other productions within Into The New is played, with no commentary beyond referencing the source performance which intended to use them (but did not).

The self-conscious detailing of student life is filtered through Smart's flatmate's awkward presentation. The events are prevented as facts. 

Round Table on Live Art Part 3

Bearing in mind we saw about six pieces in total, can we call this a vintage year for Into the New?

Naw.
No.
No.

So what is the problem? The quality ranged from good to poor, with many fragments of promise in the middling work. That seems consistent with the usual experience...

We end up saying the same fins evry year. And that means sayin wun year's a vintage is pointless. 

Can you go on, Cyril?

I get all the shitty jobs. Awright then.

Inta The New is necessary, and gives space to emerging artists. And seeing how they cope with the rigours of performance is fascinating, if not really for a general audience. And Bodyhoods was a great mash-up of queer ballroom aesthetics and meditations on the appearance of disability. If ya like, it was this year's 'winner'.

I hear a big but...

And I cannot lie: any critique of the festival is a critique of the CPP training. And what I see, what I feel, is that the course is asking a limited range of questions. We get 'what is performance?' - the extended theatre business. We get 'how can autobiography be performed?' which has a dash of 'where does theatre end and 'real life' begin?' 

There's also the emphasis on solo performance. So much of it... the odd duo, but it is mostly one person shows. I guess that makes marking easier, but it also becomes... it feels like all the songs sound the same, eh?

They all need a dramaturg, huh? There's a surprise. 

Roundtable on Live Art (part 2)

Awright troops. We got The Mondays on Spotify and we are ready for rahnd two. Let's talk art!

I'd like to get a little deeper into the overall feel of Into the New. This annual event is pitched... well, who do you think the intended audience is?

Lovers of experimental art, innit?

I disagree; this is a degree show, of sorts. The actual audience will consist of fellow students, friends and families. The audience are only there to provide a sounding board for the artists.

This is a work in progress type affair?

After a fashion: but even more than a WIP, Into the New is for the benefit of the performers more than the audience. That might explain why one of the pieces we saw was a big in-joke about the CPP and the RCS.

That was farkin shite.

Either that, or we ought to congratulate the artist on knowing his audience so well. He was playing to the crowd, who got the joke. 


That mentality is wat causes problems for Live Art all ova. It's self-congratulatory, self-indulgent.

Perhaps we could more generously assume that the artist in question is displaying a sensitivity to the audience...

You sed. But if is jokes had bin funny..

Moving past this... we have mentioned the nudity, but did anything else crop up for you, in terms of themes.

I didn't get past the jubblies.

But feminism came up a few times...

Mainly in the durational piece... it felt a little obvious to me.

Let's remember that this is a student work; obvious is going to happen. If I remember, the piece had two elements. The preparation and the catwalk. The preparation was all about the 'creation' of femininity, the catwalk about its performance.

I think it did its job, but there's little to add. I have that same problem I always have with CPP 'feminist' performance.

That it reads like a response to Judith Butler?

More than it seems pretty old fashioned to juxtapose make-up and the body as twin signifiers of the female and its exploitation. It's all a fiction, I know, I know. I am pleased to see the ideas being rediscovered, but I would like something that speaks to 2015, not 1978. 

Yer jus gettin old.

Mad Cyril almost apologises

Vile Arts Roundtable on Live Art... (part 1)

Good evening and welcome to The Vile Arts Roundtable. We've been avoiding this particular discussion for the past day, for reasons that might become clearer as we go on, but I am going to hand you straight over to Mr Criticulous, our host.

Thank you, Gareth. You'll be able to recognise the different speakers by their fonts - I've got a rather dashing Georgia tonight. Our guests will be representing different perspective on our subject, which is Into the New. As a seasoned entertainer, I'll be bringing a few dramaturgical perspectives...

While I'll be commenting on the quality of the ladiez. The kind of Live Art that comes out of the RCS' CPP degree is usually full o burds wiv their kit off.

That, of course, is Mad Cyril, and he has an interest in sexual

representation...

And violence, natch.

And I shall be sitting in the corner mumbling polysyllabic jargon.

Thank you. First of all, a little background. Into the New is the annual showcase for the final year students of the Royal Conservatoire's Contemporary Performance Practice course. Traditionally, it is rooted in live art - in the sense of expanded theatre - and has given us artists like Elaine Black and Nick Anderson. 

And burds wiv their kit off.

I think perhaps we could address that, then, Cyril. You see nudity as being intrinsic to the live art experience?

On the one hand, I reckon it's completely inappropriate to bang on abaht the nudity. We ought to be above checking awt the jubblies, and examine wat the nudity represents. We got to see two naked wemmen this year, and one nuddy bloke. 

In this particular conversation, I think we ought to agree

http://www.sciencedump.com/content/projecting-video-falling-snow

some rules... we won't be mentioning the names of the performers who were naked.

Absolutely: I am more interested in the overall use of the naked body within the context of Into the New, because there is undeniably a consistency between its use in 2015's edition and in previous years.

It's a lazy farkin shortand for emotionally vulnerability, innit?

I think it is also used as a symbol of gender identity, too... it opens up a discourse about essentialism.

So that sort oo was naked and goin about the stage was confrontin the audience with her essential femaleness?

Yes: she was asking questions about what constitutes 'the female'.

And the bloke?

He was doing vulnerability.

RSC DOES MADNESS

NEU/NOW

Today I am having a wee moody, mainly because I got up late and read Facebook before doing any work. I am a bit sick of the political self-pitying that seems to be inhabiting my timeline at the moment, and the constant reposting of articles from mainstream media. I don't read the BBC news for a reason... or The Guardian... and I am concerned that posting up an article with a comment is becoming the new thinking. 

Anyway, I was just cheered up by an email from The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (The RuCuS, as the critical thug likes to call it). They have a

festival next week. And it features these performances.


21st Century Clogs 

Sarah Jeffery and Félipe Ignacio Noriega Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten (AHK), Netherlands 

21st Century Clogs is a music-theatre triptych that uses traditional English clog dance and live wireless electronics to create unique ways of expression to communicate a message. 

12 NOvEmBER 19:30 REID GALLERY, GSA 

13 NOvEmBER 20:00 NEW ATHENAEUM THEATRE, RCS

As it happens, I love clog dance. I never thought it would team up with European experimental theatre. I am very happy that two of my loves are together at last. 

Nothing to be Done 

Chaseplay Theatre Company Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, United Kingdom An absurdist, all-female tragicomedy inspired by Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot. 

14 NOvEmBER 20:00 NEW ATHENAEUM THEATRE, RCS 

15 NOvEmBER 20:00 NEW ATHENAEUM THEATRE, RCS

An absurdist tragicomedy is not the most inspirational response to Godot, since it is an absurdist tragicomedy. However, I am up for it. The all-female bit is what pulls me in: is this a reading of Beckett that recognises that he is a bit of a man's man?

Our Country's Good @ Tron

Roll up, ladies and gentlemen, roll up. As you watch, I shall perform an act of four fingers and one thumb criticism - save the jokes, son, I've heard them before. Using only my powers of memory and the digits on my hand, I shall review Our Country's Good, as performed on the Main Stage of Glasgow's Tron Theatre.

First I present my thumb - that all purpose digit that allows us to grasp, hold and hit the spacebar on our computers. The thumb represents, in meditation, the Universal Self. Being a humble critic, I have no idea what that means, so I take it to mean the direction. The work of the person who takes the blame, who tells the actors what to do... His name is Gerry Mulgrew and he is known for his work with Communicado, one of Scotland's bold companies that have been putting out classics, and more, for years. Does a bit of acting on the side, truth be told, and is very good at it, too.

Not much to complain about here: Mulgrew does nothing fancy with the script, has all the actors in the right places, keeps the pace tight - better in the second act, and adds a cheeky musical finale for fun. The doubling up of some roles may have been necessary, but too little is done to make it clear who plays whom at various points. Of course, the director is responsible for the casting, and there are a few problems here: one lad plays two roles both comic (and excellently) and tragic (dismal). The scene changes are generic, it is all well contained... it is a safe three stars out of five...

Now my index finger - meaning the individual self or, as I prefer, the performances. And here, gentles, we have problems. There are some rough routines in this prison drama. One accent travels the world, never arriving in the Devon it purports to represents, and there is even a bad Scottish accent (I would fix it somewhere around Aberdeen in intention, and around the level of an extra in Taggart in result). There are solid performances from David Kirkwood as a funny little sexually frustrated man, and Jess Thigpen as the bad-ass bitch made Pygmalion-style lady by acting, but there is also someone playing a jew who rubs his hands together throughout... and that really bugs me. Overall, two stars, since the weak performances prevent deep engagement.

Better get onto the right finger: the scenography (also known as the tech stuff). Music fades in and out between scenes - pretty predictable, but done effectively. Nice stage set - gives the action two layers to play across, and the bottom part is a good prison, officers' quarters, grubby hut. Lighting - evocative and discreet, giving us another three stars.

Ah, the text, the middle finger. In this case, the text is a script: Timberlake Wertenbaker's, and it is a cracker. I intend to come back to the script later, but it is a good four stars, able to survive despite the wandering attention of the performers...

The little finger is ethics, but this is already running long. Let's say there were no problems - which reads as a three. Add up the results, divide by five, and we get a three star show. That doesn't quite match my experience, so perhaps this magic process has flaws... or I am wrong about one of my categories....

Barkin' Mad (Sigh)

It's only one of the completely uninteresting ironies surrounding my consumption of the media that it takes me a very long time to read a newspaper: a copy of The Metro can provide me  with toilet reading and paper for a week, although I sometimes throw them out after I mess up  the easy sudoku. Consequently, I get most of my  political understanding from Nick Cohen. Since I buy his books from Oxfam, I'm only now getting around to having an opinion on the invasion of Iraq. 

I regard Cohen as one of the great political polemicists of this, or any, age. That's because he shares both my instinctive distrust of Conservatism and an outraged disillusion at the failure of the left to provide a moral opposition. There are times when he loses me - usually when he calculates how the left reaches a particular nadir of intellectual bankruptcy by reciting their various opinions. And he frequently uses 'liberal' when he is talking about movements inspired by the SWP. I might pose as an anarchist,  but I don't see the SWP as being part of the same tradition as Gladstone, or Nick Clegg. I suspect he's doing a "Real Scotsman" argument there, to disassociate his instinctive socialism from the opportunist left.

At the heart of my political ignorance is a splendid idiocy. I insist that theatre must be politically and socially engaged, citing The Trojan Women as the prime example of how the stage can comment on immediate events. Then I have barely any idea of what the actual issues are, unless Kieran Hurley, AJ Taudevin or Rob Drummond have written about them. And when they do write about them, I become suspicious if I agree with them, fretting that the artistic community shares common political assumptions and is unlikely to challenge the audience with startling ideas. 

I have been especially petty about a superb sequence in Hurley's Rantin. I ought to acknowledge, as Hurley does, that the piece was a collaboration between four artists, including Taudevin and the wonderful Wounded Knee. But this scene - in which a young checkout girl bemoans both her teacher's lack of faith in her intelligence and the increase in automatic tills in the local supermarket. Sitting on a hill, overlooking her town, the young woman decides to take a golfing iron to the machinery, realising that the machine is taking away her job and that she is part of a bold history of direct action.

This moment - the most explicitly political in Rantin and a rare moment in Hurley's work where the rage equals the compassion - has changed my shopping habits. My father has always refused to use those automatic tills (he even threw his shopping basket on the floor in anger once). Now I aspire to his revolutionary activism. After years of berating him at Sunday lunches for his failure to address systemic inequality, I accept that his tiny actions of resistance are more powerful than my rhetorical bellows about injustice.

Apart from this being a brilliant theatrical moment, it also attacks the consumerist false  consciousness at a point that encourages meaningful action. I was asked a direct moral question - am I going to ignore a tiny change without acknowledging the impact it has on people's livelihoods?

I mention this episode again and again because it is a model for what political theatre means to  me. It doesn't expect me to join a lofty cause, or dwell on a fashionable assumption about the bad guys in the modern world. It connects daily life to the political. And it is very well written, coherent and angry.

As I trawl through the Fringe brochure, I am confronted with a large number of plays that present themselves as political. I'm always enchanted by the possibility that a play can present a resolution  to the mysteries of the world. Having spent a weekend watching Howard Barker's Victory (seriously, it is a long play), I was reminded of theatre's potential to make incisive points about big ideas, marrying the intellectual rigorous with an emotional immediacy. Rather like Nick Cohen's polemics, and the opposite of the news reporting in the Evening Standard that is serving duty in the Vile Bog this week. 

The newspapers - or the BBC website,or Radio 3, or the political magazines I buy when I have to get the bus to a staff meeting at The List offices in Edinburgh - hide their bias behind the moderate tone that symbolises objectivity. Of course, the news uses this bland measure in the way that Live Art uses nakedness - to signify something that it can then avoid. Theatre emotive intensity operates to alert the audience to potential bias, even as it gives concepts a powerful impact.

If Victory has a theme, it is less about the corruption  brought on by power than the corruption necessary to get power in the first place. It reverses the equation: King Charles II, usually the cheery chappy who restores the monarchy and gets saucy with the actresses, is pictured as an East End  Thug. Barker identifies the oppression of women, then reveals their complicity in the oppression. There's killing and raping, all performed with a degree of  emotional detachment. Seduction is, as some feminists suggest, on a continuum with sexual assault. 

Using the Restoration as the context, Barker cracks open the jolly version of history taught in schools, and makes the monarchy a distillation of the state's innate savagery. God, who inspired both the revolutionaries who devised the Commonwealth and the monarchists, comes in for a pasting. But this isn't the predictable  contemporary antagonism towards Christianity. Barker's critique might take in the specific protestant theologies that made Merrie Englande turn into battlin' Britannia, but God becomes a symbol of any creed based on absolute values. And these are revealed are toothless in the face of nature's urgings. 

Somehow, all the brutality avoids nihilism: the heroine's quest to collect her husband's broken corpse gives her a new, tractable husband and a baby. Her daughter learns Latin, despite her mother's attempts to keep her ignorant (although that education is probably going  to cause more trouble). Barker picks up on Brecht's vision of Mother Courage. In spite of the total shit-storm that engulfs humans, they maintain. But while Brecht's vision still has saints and heroes, Barker has survivalists. 

Brecht is easier on the mind. His Marxism allows for a justified death by sacrifice (Mother Courage's daughter does an impromptu drum solo to warn a village of impending invasion, gets shot but dies doing the Right Thing), and hints at a future society of equality. Barker prefers a bleaker vision: sure, there is hope, but its operation is mysterious. 

Barker is quite clearly political, but he avoids any hint of partisanship to either side of the monarchic/republican divide. And unlike the newspapers that I slowly digest, he isn't writing politics shaped by the format or the hidden consensus of western opinion. He might give his characters a dialect that is grounded in the language of East End gangsters ("poetry is dick" being my favourite line), but he respects the values of the historical period. God, for example, is a going concern and motivation. It's another contrast to Brecht, who takes real  liberties in Galileo, trying to convert a renaissance entrepreneur into a scientific saint who battles the tyranny of a church more contemporary than historically accurate in its fundamentalist anti-modernism.

In this ostentatious display of theatrical brilliance, Barker reminds me of why I am so slow to engage with the newspapers: they are driven by the need to be current. Back in the early days of the War on Terror, public opinion flip-flopped between opposition to Blair's plans and support. There was a massive demonstration (Not In My  Name, et c), then a quiet support when Our Boys were Over There. When Blair's chat about Weapons of Mass Destruction was exposed as a pornographic sheen of glamour, support waned. Rationality went out the window, with both sides changing their justifications for their positions more frequently than their shreddies. 

The complexity of Victory, meanwhile, means that different audience members are going to read it in different ways in different contexts. At a quick reckoning, I could see a justification of the Restoration (the republicans are generally undersexed intellectuals who hide their inability to relate to each other behind Big Ideas), a critique of monarchy (the King is an over-sexed thug), a tract that fits nicely within the tradition of misogyny (women are whores and shallow), an analysis of the way men abuse women by reducing their physical bodies to a symbol, a sardonic interlude on the virtue or arrogance of poets, a defence of being a sycophant, a message of hope through procreation. Plus it has the most creative use of swearing outside of a rant by Gordon Brown when he forgets to switch off his microphone. 

This is Not a Review @ Into the New

Dust Yourself Off and Try Again begins with Aby Watson making a series of statements about the show, including "this performance will not receive a review."

Aby is set to graduate from the Royal Conservatoire's Contemporary Performance degree this year, and Dust Yourself Off and Try Again is part of her final year's work. A standard review is not appropriate: much of the pleasure of viewing a piece like this is in seeing an emerging artist play with forms. In twenty years time, following the inevitable cultural shifts that see Live Artists replace pop stars as celebrities, this performance will be the equivalent of hearing U2's early demo tapes.

Not that I am saying Watson is in anyway as arrogant as Bono, or that her hour long fusion of personal revelation and Swan Lake is a theatrical analogue to The Joshua Tree. This particular comparison breaks very quickly.

Definitions of Live Art are difficult. I spend far too much time trying to find one that makes me happy. At its most literal, it can mean anything that exists in a certain time and space. More commonly, it is a type of work that is personal and idiosyncratic, that does not respect boundaries of taste and convention.

Watson doesn't embrace bad taste, though. There is that bit where she is acting out an epic puking and shitting session, and she does mock the grandeur of Swan Lake. She's certainly messing about with the conventions of genre though. She hands out roses to the audience and asks them to throw them at her. Then she gets another audience member to read out a prepared statement, saying that Dust is rubbish.

She is trying to show how the grandeur and poetry of romantic ballet is a poor imitation of the difficulties of real life.

She is trying to draw a contrast between the person she would like to be and the person she is.

She is trying to indulge a fantasy of the one woman show.

She is expanding the possibilities of stand-up comedy and staking a claim for a female version of humour.

She is trying to do none of the above.

She is fighting the conventions of theatre to find a way to tell her own story.

"There's no success like failure and that's no success at all."

"Develop success from failures."

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure."

Success implies a particular outcome is preferable. Does the outcome tally with this intention?

In the crucible of Live Art, expectation and meaning are heated beyond their boiling point until they evaporate. If the art form is abandoning the habitual behaviour on the stage, why does the audience feel beholden to maintain its own traditional role?
























(This is not a review that makes any attempt to assess the quality of the work in question. Rather, kit adopts a posture to mimic the broad feel of the piece, to provoke an emotional response in the reader that they might experience during the performance. It's an uncomfortable way to write, critically: by avoiding the usual structure, the critic is forced to imagine possible readings and experience a paranoia that they are going to be misunderstood.

When addressing work made by undergraduates, that paranoia is all the more intense: on the one hand, this is not work that is expected to be as accomplished as that by the National Theatre of Scotland, but to somehow adjust the response to that, to "let the artist off the hook" is to present a dishonest review to the reader and the artist, to pretend it is something other than it is. On the other, to review it with the same intensity as that given to the NTS would be to expect the artist to have an ability, and resources, well beyond their situation.

The compromise here was to fragment a series of responses to Dust and attempt to structure the responses in a way that might transmit how the piece made me feel.)

What A Fanny @ The Arches

What A Fanny has been on my mind for most of this week. Leyla Josephine's  entry for Into the New, it is not really appropriate for review in my usual fashion (a student work, it's not in the same category as the latest touring production by the NTS) and alongside moments of brilliance - as when she segues from arrogant exhibitionism into shameless desperation - there are uncomfortable lapses when the traces of educational process (copying existing theatre, clumsy matches of form and content, and a painfully personal monologue) undermine her uncompromising vision. And yet, in her simple question - roughly, can a feminist wear hot-pants - Leyla  opens up an intriguing discussion.

The strongest moments of the show capture the tension in her understanding of feminism. A romantic interlude set to Disney music is brutally interrupted by bellowing, misogynist hip-hop. When she describes a disco and its erotic frisson, she undermines her brittle sexual confidence by collapsing into a desperate begging for attention. A rhyming summary of her introduction to sex, and how she became "a woman with a reputation" is contrasted with a visit to a hospital for procedures unnamed, possibly an abortion. Throughout, What A Fanny is clear: a modern woman might see her seductive outfit as empowering, but it unfortunately makes her an objectified fantasy figure for men.

It's an idea that Ruth Mills is set to address later this year in Girlfriend, and although the actual question is less challenging to older feminists (rejection of lipstick as an intrinsic tool of the patriarchy has not been fashionable since the 1970s), O'Coll-Reilly deals with the issue not as a philosophical ponder, but a lived experience. That she wipes off her make-up and dresses in a modest outfit to finally present herself as a feminist does destroy her hopeful suggestion that a feminist could wear "that outfit": but the battle between looking glamorous and identifying as a woman ready to stand up for her equality is engagingly portrayed.

The actual question of whether a feminist can wear hot-pants - or whether hot-pants and high heels are only worn by women in a severe state of internalised oppression - does depend on which strand of feminism is under consideration. The crop of female artists, from Rihanna to Lady Gaga, who stomp about half-naked and claim that they are making a statement about individual liberty, are useless: never mind the social impact of videos that would have passed for pornography in the 1980s, no major recording artist has made a decision for themselves since Radiohead dropped Okay Computer. They are commodities whether they wear lingerie or a boiler suit. But since Madonna, the idea of wearing provocative clothing and believing in personal autonomy has been current. Those hot-pants could just be a way of attracting attention or an expression of individual liberty.

What A Fanny's trick is to move the discussion beyond the abstract and into the real world of the nightclub: bitching in the toilets, judging other women's outfits, grinding against an unwelcome stranger, grooving to lyrics that make Eminem sound like an intellectual parody of rap's excesses. Of course, the emotional nakedness of the performance is, in itself, a form of exhibitionism and to judge her outfit while accepting her monologues is to miss a serious danger in the sort of Live Art that encourages such confessional honesty.

Ultimately, What A Fanny exercises a dialogue between the woman's right to control her appearance and her recognition that her choices might give a certain impression. She gives no obvious answers, no solutions, but offers an intelligent and sincere attempt to put feminism back into the public sphere.