Verity Bargate Award

I am in a state of suspension. The silence between each blog is filled with research. I am trying to understand something about the economic foundations of theatre. I have sixteen tabs open. Fifteen of them have some form of financial theory on them. The other one is a page full of that Drunk Baby Meme.

The relentless energy of my ignorance is pushing me onwards. I rolled onto a page about the 2013 Verity Bargate Award. It's a national competition for new and emerging writers. There's a cash prize. 

I don't know how I feel about competitions for playwrights. Although the organisers are quick to stress that they do more than just pick one play - "the majority of the last shortlist have seen further development or professional productions," the idea of pitting scripts against each other feels gladiatorial. 

Then again, something like this might encourage new writers. Steve Marmion, Artistic Director of Soho Theatre, who are behind the competition, says “We want to hear a story we've never heard before, from a voice we weren't expecting."

And theatre needs new voices like death needs time and a junkie needs junkie. Marmion continues to explain what he seeks, in words that evoke a passionate future for the script. "Something that is brave with what it is trying to say, and how it is trying to say it.  Something that pushes our limits emotionally, morally and theatrically. Something that is the shout from the crowd that we have to listen to. It might just be the challenge that makes you start writing for the first time. "

I am going to go back to the solitude of my pondering, and assess whether this award is a further manifestation of the underlying capitalist structure of society (if it is, I hope the award doesn't go to a play about the socialist utopia, because I can only take so much irony). On the other hand, I don't know if I have decided that I hate capitalist per se, or just have a problem with the rather unpleasant version that is currently throwing down with democracy.

In the meantime, I might have blog readers who could use the information. If anyone does win this prize after having read about it here, I expect a name check in the programme notes at the premiere.

 Submissions are open from 1 – 30 June 2013.

No Answers and Some Lies

As I flutter around a broader analysis of Scotland’s performance landscape, I am starting to realise that some of the questions I need to ask are economic. The plethora of works in progress, or the alliance of various productions within a festival format, are perhaps the result of the specific economic conditions of 2013. My complaints that they don't represent a full range of possible performance presentations, or that they are a form of aesthetic cowardice, are undermined by the likelihood that they are the result of financial constraints.

Aside from my prejudice against Marxism, it has a fairly coherent attitude towards art. All art is created from the economic base. Art made in a capitalist society will embody capitalist values. Both Maria Miller's speech on the importance of art that has a financial return and Rob Drummond's sarcastic response in The Riot of Spring share a common foundation. Perhaps that's what David Cameron meant when he said "we are all Thatcherites, now." 

Applying this hypothesis is to go beyond the simple idea that the level of funding dictates the nature of the performance. It suggests that any message contained within the work will be part of the broader message of the society that has created and observed it. 

In other words, be as leftist as you like, chump. You are still on message. 

Unfortunately, I don't like to discuss the money. That's mainly because I don't really understand how wealth is created. I have a vague idea that it is something to do with the equation involving human activity and natural resources. I do have a good conspiracy theory, instead.

Let's assume that there is a consciousness behind the monstrous display of global capitalism. I'll call it Leviathan, and make it very clear that it is not the Elders of Zion, the Freemasons or the Rotary Club. It's a philosophical postulate that has no ontological basis, also known as a metaphor.

This consciousness has some kind of purpose: survival, I guess. And part of its survival is to make people work hard for its benefit. It has its benevolent moods, but every so often, it needs to remind the people who is the boss.

So it decides that it is time for s credit crunch. There needs to be too little money to do around. It pretends that there is scarcity. Being a Leviathan, it controls the media, and tells that to put out the message that cash is tight.

Then it cuts arts funding, convincing the artists that the credit crunch is real. 

At this point, the artists start to get interested in poverty, and DIY, and leftist politics. They make work that expresses their anger at the state, at the stock market, at the arts minister who has such a dry vision of creative value.

Being artists, they witness more than suggest solutions. A piece like Chalk Farm doesn't have an answer to the problems of alienation, but it does represent a certain experience. And this experience is made more real by being in fiction.

(If you let the Leviathan metaphor pass, that last sentence will have to wait...)

So, while the art appears to be against the dominant ideology, it actually reinforces its power to dictate the agenda. 

We Are Poets, Why Do You Stand There in the Rain?

Inky Fingers are first up in this week's trawl of the inbox. We Are Poets is a film about six Leeds teenagers as they prepare for the world’s most prestigious poetry slam – Brave New Voices, and Inky Fingers are putting it on next week. 

At the end of the evening, they are having one of their usual open mic sessions. Since the film has been called a moving insight into freedom of expression, the North of England and the slam poetry scene, it's expected that the open mic might have a touch more heat...

While I can't agree with Screen International's comment that the film "should be mandatory viewing" (critics really seem to be mistaking themselves for the school dinner lady these days, telling everyone to eat up their greens), it has won a few awards so far:

Winner Youth Jury Award, Sheffield Doc Fest 2011

Winner Best Documentary Award, Darklight Festival Dublin 2011
Winner Goethe Film Prize, Berlin Zebra Film Festival 2012
Winner Audience Award, Univerciné Film Festival 2012
Official selection, Guadalajara International Film Festival 2012
Official selection, Bradford International Film Festival 2012
Official selection, New Zealand Doc Edge Film Festival 2012
Gala Presentation, Leeds Young People’s Film Festival 2012
Official selection, Sottodiciotto Film Festival 2012

The screening will be followed by a wildcard Open Mic, running 9.30pm – 11.30pm! Come along, add your name to the hat before or after the film, take your chances for 5 mins on the Inky Fingers stage!

Why Do You Stand There in the Rain? is my second find. Peter Arnott is one of Scotland's finest writers - the recently revived White Rose  is a storming critique of gender and collectivist politcs - and this show was commissioned for the 2012 Fringe. And although the company, Pepperdine University, are from the USA, they have made it back to the UK.

Apparently, their campus is in Malibu. They must be serious about the play of they are coming here from there.

Fair enough: Arnott takes up the story of the  Bonus Army March of 1932 on Washington DC: a kind of prototype occupy movement, in so far as it represented a spontaneous uprising of the dispossessed. The press release explains:

20,000 ragged and desperate First World War veterans and their families from all over the U.S. set up ‘Hoovervilles’ around the nation’s capital, to lobby Congress for the early release of a promised compensation package for services in the First World War. Congress voted no and Hoover called upon MacArthur and Patton to drive the veterans out of the capital. Armed with bullets and tear gas, 1,000 infantry and cavalrymen pushed the veterans out of Washington DC burning everything they owned.

I am inclined positively towards political theatre that looks to the past. First of all, it's a reminder that the state has been messing about with its citizens for quite a while - and Arnott is especially skilled at capturing the way that the Big Issue impacts on the personal. It has the added bonus of not being an attempt at explaining recent events before the dust has really settled: no co-opting of last week's news for this week's cause. 

And it has got tunes from Woody Guthrie, Bessie Smith and Leadbelly. 

TOUR SCHEDULE

Friday, 31 May Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
Saturday, 1 June Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
Monday, 3 June Òran Mór, Glasgow
Tuesday, 4 June Òran Mór, Glasgow
Thursday, 6 June Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock
Saturday, 8 June Aros, Portree, Skye
Sunday, 9 June SEALL at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Skye
Monday, 10 June Lochan at Dornie Hall, Dornie
Tuesday, 11 June Eden Court, Inverness
Friday, 14 June Mull Theatre, Tobermory

Hmmm... The Real Criticulous?

Rock'n'roll's Alan Partridge

This afternoon, it’s time for a big shout out to Peter Paphides. He put up a really helpful guide to the new Daft Punk Album. Concluding with some marketing advice for record labels, it’s an object lesson in how not to write a critical response and I hope that the young critics of Glasgow are reading it, laughing and wondering why owning Sting albums is something to mention in public, let alone boast about.

Having spent a great deal of time pondering the role of the critic, and being painfully pompous in my attempts to describe possible functions, Paphides cuts to the chase. The job of the critic is, obviously, to tell people why they are not listening to music properly. He reminds me of Mr Didcot, my school music teacher, shouting at the class of twelve year olds for not showing real respect to Mozart.

Upset by the negative reaction to Daft Punk’s latest opus, which will doubtless take its place alongside Figaro in the twenty-fifth century, Paphides gets annoyed with the haters. He constructs his response in the form of a numbered list. It’s hilarious, especially when he bangs on about owning Sting albums. This apparently makes him an authority. 

Funnily enough, he starts off well enough,  pointing out that just because the album is not what was necessarily expected, that doesn't make it bad. But he quickly leaps into the worst critical persona: the arrogant know-it-all who understands the precise detail of an audience's listening experience. 

Apparently, paying for product makes the consumer appreciate it in more detail (possibly true, but I don't know if there is any evidence, and Paphides provides none). The listeners have nothing in their record collection that sounds like a particular track (no sophisticated meditation on originality or influence here, just a bold accusation). And Columbia's marketing department hadn't done enough research on how to disseminate the release. 

I mean, I like Live Art, and it is far more disliked than Daft Punk. There's a whole episode of excellent sit-com Spaced devoted to mocking it. Yet I have managed to avoid writing a list of ways to enjoy it properly...

(Actually, I did just that once. A prize to any reader who can find it.)

I'm done. Paphides has a bit of form on this - another article he wrote was about the Coldplay wristband he had glowing in the dark. Here's thanks to Limmy for starting the twitter row that made Paphides' article come to my attention - although a bit less time on the internet and more on writing sketches that don't trade on your wide-eyed innocence for the next series would be nice, Limmy. 

And for a little balance, Paphides' book, Lost in Music, is still worth a read. That's a passionate and personal account of how music shaped his life. 

Oh sorry, that was Giles Smith. It's just the quote from the song on Paphides' blog confused me....  

Marcus Roche Interview 2012

A little over a year ago, Marcus Roche was a guest on my radio show... chatting about a production as part of Mayfesto, an adaptation of To A God Unknown, John Steinbeck's novel of faith and the wide open spaces of America. A year later, and he is back at the Tron, director of The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. He had a big hit during the Fringe with that, and I am still trying to untangle the questions it posed.

However, I just discovered this old interview that I had done with him, and it reminds me of three things.

1. Roche was utterly charming and enthusiastic about the power of theatre to make changes.
2. Being on the Radio Hour is a first step to sudden success, except for me.
3. Mayfesto has been consistently political in all of its editions.

And over to Roche...



What made Mayfesto a good platform for this particular piece ?

Mayfesto at the Tron has had a focus on personal politics. In To a God Unknown the main character is finding out about his own relationship with the land and his faith. Showing a piece of such personal journey of discovery to a Mayfesto audience seems really appropriate.

 Are there any other pieces in the festivals that you either think compares to A God, or that you are especially keen to see (and why?)

I think To A God Unknown is a universal story about people trying to make sense of their surroundings and in that it might share with Minute After Midday and No Time for Art 0 + 1. I've recently been in contact with two other Egyptian directors I’ve really been struck by how profoundly the revolution has altered the way they see the world. There is a lot of confronting the truth in this programme, which is very exciting.

I also am really keen to see some of the other work that is being developed like Chalk Farm and Scenes Unseen and I’m really interested in seeing what Springtime turns out to be. I am always enthused by the diversity of the rehearsed readings that are showcasing work in various stages.

 What is your role at the tron at the moment?

I'm working as a producer on placement in the Tron to help bring together a Glasgow-wide theatre festival for the next year.

How do you think that this edition of mayfesto has evolved from earlier years?

I feel this Mayfesto has put a focus on international work coming here while showcasing what Glasgow has to say about the world. These are two key themes that we are hoping to develop for next year’s festival.