‘CONTINUITY IN THEATRE’

Convener(s): Michael Kustow 

Participants: Dear friends, there were around 50 of you, coming and going, so it’s: Emma Rice – Kneehigh Theatre, Jonathan Holloway – Red shift Theatre Company, Bette Bourne – Actor/director, teacher, Alastair Evans – Director, Workshop Leader, Jonny Dixon – freelance performer/maker, Shaeran Thomes – company director: Room for Pudding Theatre Company, Tina Ellen Lee – Opera Circus, Emily Lewis – freelance theatre director, founder of theatre company: Barake, Rachel Parish – theatre/live art maker, Eva Lipdrova and Alan Fielden– Central School of Speech and Drama Performance Arts, Katharine Fry – director/choreographer performance, Adeel Akhtar – actor, Greg McCeren, Claire Farrington – artistic director of Net Curtains Theatre Company and actress, Cassie Friend – Pig Iron Theatre, US, James Greaves, Michael Twaits, Cassandra Harwood, Sarah Thom, Boudicca Maloney, Tamsin Shasha (Actors of Dionysus), Ben Eaton, Charlotte Bond, James Allbrecht, Sam Yates, David Rosenberg (Shunt), Emma Stenning, Alastair Evans, jen Lunn, Mandy Trains, Natalie Querol, Michael judge, Katherine Maxwell-Cook, Christopher Holt.                       

Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations: 

I suggested we talk about continuity in the theatre – defined as the sustaining of an ensemble or group with a style, a way of working, a set of beliefs - because I think it is very close to the heart of what theatre is all about.

And so it proved. We were lucky to have represented some of the foremost companies and groups in this country with a record of maintaining a creative life and building on the continuity of their group. Among them: Kneehigh, Shunt, Red Shift, Theatre Centre, Little Angel, Trestle [if I’ve missed any, readers, please supply.]

MK began by briefly listing his own experiences in theatre with ensembles, and the quality of their work. Joan Littlewood’s band of players, with their proletarian poetry. Ariane Mnouchkine’s Theatre du Soleil bringing the French Revolution to the Roundhouse. Peter Hall’s early 1960’s RSC company, the group that, through The Wars of the Roses, created a recognizable and modern style of playing Shakespeare. The Living Theatre and Bread and Puppet from America. And Bill Bryden’s ten-year company in the Cottesloe Theatre, doing Mysteries, Larkrise at Candleford, Glengarry Glen Ross. The People Show, Pip Simmons Theatre – one could go on. He mentioned the particular delicate and powerful acting that could come from a group that knew each other really well.

The discussion circled around the definition, the benefits and the limits of continuity. Emma Rice talked about KneeHigh, and defined the quality that held it together as ‘generosity’, quoting another theatre-maker who said, ‘An ensemble is a group of performers who go out to make other performers feel good’. She stressed that Kneehigh was not a collective, it did not pay regular salary. There was a nucleus of ten performers. Being in Cornwall helped the cohesion of the group. She herself had come to Kneehigh after being an actress, doing theatre in schools and working in Poland with Gardeniscze Theatre Troupe, a radical group which lived and worked together in the countryside and performed in villages. She stressed that everybody in Kneehigh had a responsibility to do their share of ‘household and farmyard chores’.

Shunt Theatre are a collective of ten and have produced a great range of work in specific places which they inhabit. They’ve recently decided to stop doing shows for two years, having reached a kind of creative peak, but are now running a bar underneath London Bridge Station, in which small scale pieces by company members are also being performed.

Asked by MK whether he thinks that an ideology can hold together a theatre group, Jonathan Holloway (Red Shift) said he believes that good stories in theatre tend to be socialist, and fascist means bad storytelling. But he opposed any concessions to the pressures and criteria of funding sources. He was quite tough on the matter of the commitment of actors, using an employment contract to hold them to their commitment when they were tempted elsewhere. He described the way that the life of a show can be extended by dropping new cast members into an existing production as Stan’s Café in Birmingham is doing at present. He saw no reason why the original production should not go on touring with a number of parallel casts.

Tina picked up on this by recounting a contemporary music theatre piece by David Glass in which, within the grid of a score and libretto, different colours and motives were played.

Bette Bourne broke all our hearts with his account of Bloo Lips, a drag/queer theatre group which lasted no less than 25 years! One of the underlying drives that bound them all together was their ‘deep need to be in those frocks’. He described their production of ‘The Ugly Duckling’ with the entire cast appearing in the finale as swans which had the convener in tears!

Jon Beedell who has run a street and outdoors theatre group, Desperate Men in Bristol for 25 years, gave down-to-earth advice that actually ‘having the gig’ is the way to keep the group together. He also stressed that the continuity of an ensemble rested on ‘a shared understanding of what we’re doing’ – in Jon’s case doing theatre in the street for free. Emma Rice added that there needed also to be a ‘compulsion’ to make things work but that when different chemistries collide, eruptions could happen. Ensemble theatre was not a ‘drop-in’ culture.

MK said that the thrust of the whole discussion reminded him that theatre was essentially ‘nomadic’ and that inhabiting a building was just part of that cycle. Others agreed, although some said that having a building had been crucial in holding a group or holding an audience.

Among other remarks: ‘Fear holds us together’ said the leader of a recently-formed theatre group: ‘A regular salary does not make a theatre ensemble’, said a member from Northern Stage. ‘Sometimes it is absolutely vital to take a year out to recharge,’ said Jonathan Holloway who has been running his ensemble for over twenty years.

This was never going to be a clarion-call for change or a set of recommendations. But people seemed to feel that exploring this topic together brought us very close to why we do this art, or business, or activity at all. Just like an ensemble… !

Participants: Emma Rice – Kneehigh Theatre, Jonathan Holloway – Red shift Theatre Company, Bette Bourne – Actor/director, teacher, Alastair Evans – Director, Workshop Leader, Jonny Dixon – freelance performer/maker, Shaeran Thomes – company director: Room for Pudding Theatre Company, Tina Ellen Lee – Opera Circus, Emily Lewis – freelance theatre director, founder of theatre company: Barake, Rachel Parish – theatre/live art maker, Eva Lipdrova and Alan Fielden– Central School of Speech and Drama Performance Arts, Katharine Fry – director/choreographer performance, Adeel Akhtar – actor, Greg McCeren, Claire Farrington – artistic director of Net Curtains Theatre Company and actress, Cassie Friend – Pig Iron Theatre, US, James Greaves, Michael Twaits, Cassandra Harwood, Sarah Thom, Boudicca Maloney, Tamsin Shasha (Actors of Dionysus), Ben Eaton, Charlotte Bond, James Allbrecht, Sam Yates, David Rosenberg (Shunt), Emma Stenning, Alastair Evans, jen Lunn, Mandy Trains, Natalie Querol, Michael judge, Katherine Maxwell-Cook, Christopher Holt.

If your name is misspelt or we have left it off, please add or amend.