The dirtiest word in theatre
'We were riding a high, a nirvana of cultural success, of community celebration.’
At the end of last month, the theatre world was rocked by the announcement that one of our most respected institutions had 2 new Artistic Directors at the helm. Daniel Evans (current Artistic Director of Sheffield Theatres) and Tamara Harvey (current Artistic Director at Theatr Clwyd) will be stepping into a joint role as Co-Artistic Directors of the Royal Shakespeare Company in the June of 2023. Between them, they have decades of incredible, award-winning experience in the arts, and are set to do amazing things with a company that, to many, upholds a cultural pillar of the UK through their ambition to bring Shakespeare to the masses. The Bard may be a part of our shared social lexicon, not to mention a key player in our school curriculum, but when it comes to making his works feel culturally and artistically significant there’s always a great deal of work to be done. So we should celebrate, should we not, that the new generals leading this proverbial charge are so brilliantly qualified, as not only great artists but also theatre makers with a clear and conscious understanding of the kind of art that matters most in the modern day?
And celebrate we (correctly) did. Theatre Twitter was a storm of support, as we applauded a decision that made such perfect recruitment sense. These are two individuals with a history of creating spellbinding work, but also two individuals who understand that, at the centre of all that we create, sits our audiences. Both have played an integral role in leading their respective institutions to new levels of community involvement and audience development, who have shown a genuine interest in making theatre more accessible to the masses both onstage and off. The response to Evan and Harvey’s success is a clear signifier: we want the leaders of the theatre-world to be those who prioritise their audiences just as much as the works they’re creating, or their own artistic egos. We were riding a high, a nirvana of cultural success, of community celebration. And then, a crushing return to earth as enter (pursued by a bear), Michael Billington.
“My final point would be that, while education and community projects are important, they are subordinate to the main task, which is giving work on the main stages richness and texture.” - Billington, 21 Sep 2022
Ah.
How unfortunate.
Billington was off to a great start, he’d spent 400 words discussing how phenomenal a choice Evans and Harvey are, and then he threw it all away just seconds before the finishing line. And we could, perhaps, give him a chance and say he didn’t intend to insult community theatres up and down the country, and in turn insult the thousands of artists and creatives that work in that vital (and thriving) sub-sector of the arts. We could do that. But his opinion is just one example of a systemic issue in theatre: the consistent and continual undermining of community or educationally-focused theatre as subordinate in either artistic merit or social importance to ‘proper’ theatre. And so, while I could let Billington have this one, I simply don’t want to.
‘Community outreach and professional performance are not, as Billington seems to suggest, in competition with one another, but are rather symbiotic.’
Theatre sits at the centre of a cultural nexus, which feeds into (and is fed into by) everything from films and tv, to literature, education, music, activism, politics, and more. Hell, The Great British Bake Off has a musical now. The integral role theatre plays within the UK’s cultural consciousness cannot be denied, and a key part of this is the way we involve the communities and members of the public we aim to serve within our creation processes. To return to the example at hand, the RSC’s role within the theatre landscape of Britain isn’t simply to perform Shakespeare, it is to deliver a programme of work that makes Shakespeare accessible to the masses, relatable in the modern day, and help us raise generations of future artistically inclined audiences that understand the power performing Shakespeare can have. Community outreach and professional performance are not, as Billington seems to suggest, in competition with one another, but are rather symbiotic. Instead of us viewing the two as constantly warring sides, we should instead recognise how one can help the other flourish. For decades, botanists in the rainforest watched jungle vines growing around the trunks of trees as an invasive action that would eventually strangle and kill the tree. In recent years, we’ve discovered that this is incorrect, and in actuality the vines support and strengthen the tree’s ability to withstand heavy storms, while at the same time using their height to reach new patches of sunlight and fresher air. Community work and performance are the same, not contesting for the same resources, but rather helping one another to reach new, and more effective, pathways for work. Community-supportive work helps theatre become more ingrained in the lives of modern people, which it should always directly speak to, and provides the wider public with the chance to directly impact the arts organisations closest to them, in turn incentivising them to attend our performances and support our seasons of work. We invest time, resources, and manpower in the communities that surround us, and in turn they invest their money and support in us. Lyn Gardner responded to Billington’s article with grace and a measured helping of disregard, and put it perfectly when she said;
“Richness and texture grow organically when theatres and arts organisations interrogate why they matter (apart from to themselves) and how they can matter to more people.” – Gardner, 26 Sep 2022
It is exactly as she describes it. Our work becomes more valuable, genuine and impressive when we recognise that, at every stage of preparation, creation, and performance, it must be important to the audiences we serve, as well as serving our own artistic ambitions.
‘We need to change the rhetoric that places community work as subordinate to our work on the main stage, because it reeks of a privilege we simply can no longer afford.’
Now, is it worth pointing out, for anyone who may be unaware, that we here at Haywire are incredibly biased when it comes to the subject of community co-produced performance? Of course it is. A good third of the work we have done since formation has been so focused, which in turn means we have an ethical (and monetary) investment in seeing it respected. But it also means we have seen firsthand the incredible value such work can bring to the people it serves, how members of the public thrive when you give them the opportunity to be involved in work that speaks to them, or their life experiences. I alluded to a similar idea as Gardner in the opening of a previous blog post, way back last summer, where I spoke about the dilemma all artists face at some point in our careers. Where we have to decide what is more important, the work itself or the audiences who watch it? The merit in that post holds up. In involving communities in our work, we create performance that is more affecting, and more important to the communities of the UK. But it is a sacrifice. These projects like that take manpower, planning and funding that a standard performance does not. The inclusion of the general (and occasionally vulnerable) public requires a team of artists with safeguarding training, DBS checks, and experience in community grown productions. Often, it requires larger teams, to cover more ground and widen the scope of work. This all comes with monetary implications. So yes, it can, at times, divert resources away from other production runs. And yes, occasionally that may mean a shorter season of work, or a more economic approach to design budgets, or a more tactical approach to casting. But in the end, all things considered, it strengthens shows and the companies that make them. The fact that Billington cannot see that is a concerning reflection of the state of our sector. Until community performance becomes as widely respected as professional performance, there will always be a divide in our sector. And at the moment, in the wake of the pandemic, in the midst of a cost of living crisis and with audiences more careful with their spending than ever before, such a divide could destroy our industry. Right now, we need to respect the communities that inspire our work, not push them away.
Theatre is not a meaningless product. It does not sit in a vacuum of creation and delivery that would persist regardless of its cultural and community relevance. And to act otherwise would, quite frankly, be idiotic. We need to change the rhetoric that places community work as subordinate to our work on the main stage, because it reeks of a privilege we simply can no longer afford. But if we can shift our thinking, if we can (in some cases) revolutionise our approach to theatre-making from the ground up, I see a much brighter theatre landscape for all of us.
Lucy