Young People These Days (part one)

Although this is likely to be one of those posts that doesn't get many readers (it is another piece of Vile nonsense), I feel that it is important to set out my opinions on theatre for young people. I have seen quite a bit in the past year, and have been pondering how best to critique this work. I am vigorously opposed to the idea that youth theatre ought to be assessed by the same parameters as 'professional' theatre, but not on grounds of quality or mere snobbery.

I believe that theatre created by young people (I am talking about the wide variety of companies made up of people under 26 who are not paid to perform) can be as vibrant and engaging as anything produced by professionals (that is, companies were everybody is paid for creation and performing). But I also believe that the intentions of young people's theatre are not the same as those of the professional companies. The outcomes are fundamentally different, even if the quality is the same.

Reading through Metaphrog's comic version of Creative Scotland's 'strategy for ages 0-25' (Time to Shine), the emphasis is quite clearly on creating opportunities for young people to perform. While the story ends up with the band getting a recording contract (anyone familiar with Steve Albini's essay The Problem with Music might not think this qualifies as a happy ending) and the trumpet player gains the respect of the school hardman, the story is all about the empowerment of the students.

According to a book I read once, it is participation rather than spectating that makes the arts useful: since the days of New Labour, most arts initiatives have stressed this community aspect in some manner. While there are programmes for professional artists (I am thinking of Unlimited, which has just announced its latest funding), the particular nature of youth theatre encouraged Creative Scotland to make both access and excellence the aim of their strategy. Flicking through the Curriculum for Excellence, I found this quotation.

“The inspiration and power of the arts play a vital role in enabling our children and young people to enhance their creative talent and develop their artistic skills.  By engaging in experiences within the expressive arts, children and young people will recognise and represent feelings and emotions, both their own and those of
others. The expressive arts play a central role in shaping our sense of our personal, social and cultural identity."

The arts are not an end in themselves: they are part of an educational experience that develops the individual. Achievement is not necessarily measured in terms of performance, but the emotional and educational journey of the participants.

That isn't to say that the final product is irrelevant, but the process is equally important. The traditional outside eye of the critic does not take this into account. And this means that there might be a better way to approach the critique of young people's theatre.

See Thru Sam

The Adventures of See Thru Sam, although it marks another variation in Random Accomplice's approach to theatre, captures the vitality and character of the company as they enter into their tenth year. Writer/director Johnny McKnight and producer/performer Julia Brown are both intimately involved in the creation of the piece - recently, McKnight has been playing away, mostly with pantomimes but also in the NTS' Appointment with The Wickerman, leaving Brown at the helm for the Double Nugget tour.

It aims at a younger audience than previous RA plays - the Big Gay Trilogy and Small  Town had a far less innocent vision of sexuality and while McKnight has talked about how his own life influenced the character of Sam, it's clearly not another semi-autobiographical number. Indeed, the depiction of school and home life makes See Thru Sam far closer to the issue-based plays often aimed at adulescents.

Fortunately - like David Greig's two plays for young people, Yellow Moon and The Monster in the Hall - McKnight's take on the struggles of the young adult is driven by character, not issue. There's a slight suggestion towards the end that Sam does suffer from some form of mental ill-health, when his aversion to green becomes pathological and he takes drastic steps to escape a vicious, but childish bully. And the plot is driven by Sam's attempts to cope with his parents' death: yet the script is far more interested in the way that the mythology of superheroes can provide a sense of identity to an outsider, and in the details  of the teenage crush than any grand statements about grief or alienation.

Teaming with an illustrator allows Random Accomplice to animate Sam's expansive fantasies: the use of video projection places Sam in a world that he can constantly manipulate through his imagination. A simple blank wall becomes isolated light-house, classroom or, in the romantic scene, a bedroom full of potential and promise: Sam is literally moving through a world that shifts according to the rules of comic book art.

Sam is a sympathetic hero, if sometime inpenetrable: the scene where his uncle tries to deal with Sam's inappropriate behaviour is at once recognisable - the inter-generational conflict, the mutual lack of respect and understanding - and disappointing, since it doesn't give the uncle much reason for his worries and is set, oddly, in the school. While McKnight is appropriately serious about the gap between Sam's fantasies and the reality of his parents' death, the final scene is undermined by having had Sam narrate most of the action: if death is seen as irrevocable in the case of Sam's parents, it is sentimental, even unimportant, in the finale.

Yet McKnight's gift for comedy, and a fast pace, ensures that See Thru Sam is engaging and entertaining. It struggles with resolving the various deeper issues, but thrives in moments of evocative detail - fear of the bully, that first crush, the doubt of the teenager, the bonds of friendship. It has the qualities expected of a Random Accomplice production: the appropriate adventurousness of format, cheeky humour, energy and charm. And it adds another level to their versatility.

That Festival Date...

NTS Double Bill

The Monster in the Hall and Yellow Moon share a director, a writer, an interest in the way that music can define identity and an enthusiasm for communicating immediately with the audience. Consciously made for ease of transfer - the sets are limited to a few chairs and microphones - David Greig's scripts may be aimed at younger audiences but they refuse to simplify or pander. The Monster in the Hall addresses the anxieties of young carers - including a plug for the support group in Fife: Yellow Moon fearlessly considers domestic violence and absent fathers. Yet neither play can be reduced to an issue: through Guy Hollands' direction, and Greig's straight-talking scripts, the vitality and fantastic plots emerge through the detailed characterisation.

In both works, Greig mixes up story-telling and more conventional theatrical scenarios: the four actors slip in and out of character, inhabiting fantasy worlds, commenting on the action and narrating. Motorbike chases, visits from the social services, montages of farm work, bizarre visitors from Scandinavia, brutal knife fights: all are brought to vivid life by the cast, who jump from mime to banter to directly addressing the audience. The rough mixture of styles, only occassionally noted by the actors in brief moments of comedy, lends the stories a playful immediacy and good humour, allowing some of the more outrageous plot twists to race past without becoming absurd.

Yellow Moon is the more consistently serious: the old Stagger Lee Blues becomes a leitmotif, as a modern day teenager gangster runs into the wilds to find his long-lost father. Accompanied only by silent Leila - her attraction to this sometimes charming bad-boy is only slightly developed, a rare lapse in Greig's attention to detail - Stag Lee risks life and limb only to discover that his father is as irresponsible as the son.

Although Greig's conclusions are spotlessly moral - Lee's violence is eventually punished, and he is forced to confront his own behaviour - a sense of fun pervades even the most dire moments of the adventure. The beauty and danger of the countryside is conjured through Greig's language and the challenges of city life, along with the weight of celebrity culture on the shoulders of the excluded, are presented. Yet no grand conclusions are drawn: Lee and Leila are victims of the pressures of teenage life, and their attempt to escape is doomed to failure.

This uncompromising vision, and the respect given to teenage problems, makes Yellow Moon a mature example of youth theatre. Opportunities for preaching - Lee's loutish ambitions or Leila's self-harming - are sensitively handled, and acknowledged as part of life. Because the play imhabits a teenage consciousness, some of the minor characters are only roughly sketched, or played for laughs, yet the loose format suits the rough and ready story.

The Monster in the Hall is both more ambitious in scale and lighter in tone. Duck looks after her father, who is suffering from MS. Between trying to negotiate a romance with a potentially gay suitor - he wants a blow job to prove he is straight, she wants something more sincere - and avoiding the apparent traps of a concerned social worker, Duck longs to become a writer.

Alongside Duck's tough reality and fantasy novel escapism, Greig adapts an almost musical atmosphere: the cast sing interludes and  are plunged into comic scrapes. The tension mounts and the Monster - clearly defined as a metaphor for those hidden fears but also a literal motorbike being fixed in the house - is eventually resolved into an asset.

This time, Greig is more direct in his message: the chaos of Duck's life is mostly her own invention, and the finale, when Duck finally reaches out for help, is a less complicated resolve. The slapstick fun, however, skates over the encroaching darkness of Duck's desperate attempts to be normal and, again, the attention to teenage detail is winning.

Both Guy Hollands and David Greig are obviously committed to a youth theatre that is not patronising, that encourages discussion but rarely gives easy answers. Hollands has drilled his actors into a vibrant versatility, and chases through Greig's scripts, never rushing but always energetic. Double bills like this are in danger of giving theatre for young people a good name.