The Biggest Impact Blog
After an epic, amazing, very (Very) busy, deeply interesting, energised, creatively stimulating and poignant three or four weeks, two projects have come to their conclusion. There is always a sad, melancholy kind of feel at these times. The companionship with fellow artists mixed with a surge of energy and enthusiasm is a momentum building wave. It is stressful and worrying (probably needs rethinking with health and care point of view), but those emotions are swept along with pure excitement and aliveness. It is a spark, a shining in the eye, I get a strong image of my eyes twinkling like stars in my own imagination. There probably not, but that sense of falling over one’s thoughts because they are tumbling faster than language or imagery or computer processing power…..yeah people, I’m not on drugs, I was on two journey’s which felt so meaningful!
This sense of loss and boredom is both amplified and mitigated by external factor and ongoing practise journey which I will get onto in a bit. The misery is being compounded by the FIFA Men’s world cup final in ……. well we all know where it is. I’m boycotting the games – first time I’ve missed an England game in a major tournament since I can remember. I could detail multiple reasons why I’m not watching the games live. The horrendous human rights record by an elite government is a good place to start. The greenwashing, the fact that they don’t play football (cricket world cup in Norway anyone?), most women and disabled people are banished from football stadiums and through oil-stained money, the government has all but imported a team. Links available for further enlightenment…
But let’s not waste blog time on this, let’s bring it back to the practise and self as community. My boycotting is mainly about my emotional and mental state. It is extremely hard to believe that the world cup is going ahead, and I think if I don’t watch it, I can lean into that and soon enjoy football again – for all its corruption and mind-blowing wealth it is a beautiful game and we can reclaim. I want to take you on a reflective through two journeys.
The first one came from an email from the brilliant writer, artist and co-director of Down Stage Writing, Sam Parker. I was honoured to be asked to write a short play about the climate emergency, called Climate/Change. I try and share and shout about climate justice as much as possible. It is really the biggest elephant in the room we are facing as society, community, individual. The imbalance of big oil and businesses, even to the point that governments are subsidising/paying for, continuing to ignore the warning signs of scientists and the planet compared to extreme weather events and the loss of the natural world is scary. It’s easy to learn about this stuff and become totally disillusioned and the offer from Down Stage Writing to shape a short play which would allow me to use my creative word playing skills to begin to contextualise the disaster we’re in, was inspiring. Along with three other talented local artists, my short play was written, rehearsed, and performed during COP27 – the sweet irony, audience were experiencing our last show night as COP was extended, making this evening of original work more poignant. The plays all had a sense of desperation in different measures, mirroring the desperation of the COP27 presidency to try and get a planet first deal agreed.
Image Source The Independent
Above, my play, Resource, being performed by James Murphy Stevens and Sam Hunter. The play is sort of set in the future but is a bit confused with time as the characters language and culture is quite contemporary but they find themselves in a scenario where money is all contactless and code and sea levels have risen significantly leading to constant flooding in the local area. The ambition for our creative process to match COP27 timeframe meant that we had to write the pieces as quickly as possible. It felt important though, to take time to research and to be storytelling fact and truth about the climate emergency but with a fictional license. I think each script achieved that. It was great to have the opportunity to just be a writer. To be super picky about the script and play with lines – read them out loud and edit them. Then apply notes from Jon Nash, (the other co-director of Down Stage Write, who worked with the actors brilliantly and directed a high-quality community-feel set of short plays) before handing over the text to him and the actors.
After opening the email from Sam and feeling chuffed that he offered me a place on this project, I hesitated before accepting the opportunity. In the spirit of balancing practice with general life and managing workloads, I was aware that this opportunity came at a super exciting but busy time. Also, the project was a slight detour from my main practise narrative (although I did channel the script to support my overarching aim: create work for and about the disabled experience, by amplifying how cutting disability funding affects us all). However, this new angle for my creative voice allowed me to enjoy the writing process more – I could enter a new headspace and focus in on the writing knowing that all the other elements to this project was held. I loved being part of Down Stage Write Climate/Change short play project. As a writer, it was a great process, mixing opening my eyes and having the time and space to truly researching/appreciating/listening to the Climate Emergency whilst being able to escape into imagination writing a script. As a theatre maker, the team brought plays to life brilliantly!
The process of just writing was really helpful, brought different perspectives of appreciation to my ongoing projects and I am so glad I said yes!
The second project which I want to share with you as Wales are kicking off against England is shifting back to the more surreal, self-reflective, nitty and raw work which I have found to be my bread and butter. Somewhere between total Dadaism and dream-like see’s Steve and I reimagine Paignton pier and reclaim Torbay from a confused cultural vacuum. We have spent months on this project; that’s not to say that we’ve been at the grindstone for months, but more like we have paced ourselves with the true meaning of R&D. We’ve built up focus steam in recent weeks but for the most part, enjoyed the play, experimentation, awkwardness of the content and way of catching, each other’s company, a cultural exchange of our very own (Steve sharing knowledge of The Waste Land, T.S. Elliott and myself reliving ‘post-classic’ Greek myth) and making work for the process rather than stressing about producing something….
To quote a genius line in the work, we were able to ‘enjoy the doubt’…
We are distantly mesmerised by Paignton pier. Our perceptions of the pier as a permanent fixture of Paignton, a symbol of nostalgia, a tourist attraction, the dangers of monopolising culture and the damage that it does to a community, an Aladdin's cave, even a temple to some capitalist idol… and multiple metaphor beside! As Paignton based artists, we have re-imagined what the pier could be and how we can claim back its narrative. On the pier there are references to Marvel super-heroes, soap operas, 1920 circus, 'the war', Ukraine and even Van Gough - we thought Greek myths should be in the mix too!
But we created an unsatisfactory legend, an appropriated mismatch of wrong-ness. All too easy, all too bold and attention-grabbing with its soul shrunken and beaten under a bombardment of easy beginning, obvious middle and satisfying ending – where the hero is mighty, he can do no wrong and the bad guy is slain in the form of demons and mythological monsters.
This dug us into a meta hole and Humetheus and the Quest for the Bronze Cloak heartbeat was about how we as artists, friends, people found our creative voices in amongst it all. We had to rewind and unpick and question ourselves – the piece did that by a literal rewinding of the first act. A moment which made the narrative land for us but took many a writing session to get there (I am taking back to a session many years ago with the amazing Erin and Jen which we were stuck in a similar dead end creatively but through collaborations and belief in each other the essence of You, Me and My Voice was found!).
Amongst the genius connection and juxtaposition of sound and visuals and the rewinding of this awareness of cultural appropriation – both literal and in the text/sub-texts of unravelling and constructing reality at the same time: there is something about us artists beginning this process with big political anger of lack of funding/structure for local artists, cultural vacuum, capitalism sucking the soul out of Torbay etc but what this piece is mainly about, for me, is truth in the everyday and real simple but over powering narratives of just being able to cope, love, empathy and supporting each other.
Steve put it like this: ‘I think the rewind led to those places, going back to points in the project where there was proper darkness. The fact of [myself, Steve] not being onscreen encouraged me to show up in other ways. For me, it's also about perspective - the mirror and reverse trick being too literally flip the world and look at it from another angle. I can only speak for King character, but in act one he is a villainous foil to Humetheus, but like all bullies, he is coming from a place of fear and inner conflict. And yes, I totally agree, for all the nods to the big issues, it does come down to coping/supporting/noticing’.
We are proud of this piece. We put our process and wellbeing as creators first. The amazing platform opportunity with Barrel Organ Thursday 24th November was just what we needed to take the next step in our creative journey (thank you to all those who came to Scratch event, both in person and online – we so value your support and found the feedback so far heart-warming and useful). The team at Barrel Organ demonstrate the real value of artist-led organisations. We were held and allowed to fail. They were always on the end an email and allowed the process to shift around our creativity. They set expectations but happily changed this to suit the process and the artist. The Scratch night matched this. It was wonderful to be part of and there needs to be more platforms like this.
To add to this safe but ambitious project, we welcomed a creative producer onboard, Mair George! To dip into the essence of our story, Greek myth in a modern world, Mair was a messenger sent by the gods. Mair helped with everything, from paperwork to communications to holding the rehearsal schedule and finding us space to play in. We have been crying out for support like this but didn’t quite know what it would look like, and Mair was great in helping us unpick what we needed from a producer in practical terms and creative guidance terms. I hope we can work with Mair again soon and think our creative output benefits immensely from her guiding hand.
These two commissions/processes were relatively small in their timescale and platform but were mighty in both their impact on me and supportiveness. As the aftershocks of the result of ACE latest round of core funding continues, leaving Doorstep Arts as the only NPO (National Portfolio Organisation) in Torbay and dance and children’s theatre left behind, we need to work harder than ever to demonstrate that Devon needs the cultural funding it deserves… and, for me the small but mighty audience for Climate/Change plays, with the ‘permission to fail’ vibe of Bradford LIVE felt like the biggest impact.
Bonus Content – reflection from Steve on the Bronze Cloak process and platform event in a interview style:
What was the piece about in the end for you?
Perspective.
What one key moment stood out the most for you?
Halfway through the forward path [first act], the soundworld shifts from the true diegetic noise of the pier into a musical segment in which the two voices converge both musically and emotionally.
From a process/making perspective;
What three key moments in the process stood out for you?
i Hugh’s performance - in r and d days when we first went out with the drone. We were only tentatively talking about Greek myth at this stage, but it felt like a really forward push into the space and an attempt to mine some psychic connections to the pier. The visual metaphor (big themes/narrow location) seemed to always really stand up to whatever ideas we were throwing at it.
ii When the musical congruence between Hugh’s voice and mine began to form. Bringing the Hero and King, Hugh and Steve into a musical/emotional timing – repeating the melodies of Hugh’s line readings with sung call-backs. As all this took shape, so did thoughts on Side 2 [second act].
iii Asking Hugh if I could rewrite my Dear Hugh parts for the Side 2 bit. As I wasn’t in it physically and visually, I had been wondering about the justification for my voice being there at all. King effectively goes unchallenged for his goading and exploitative practises at the end of the first half. In a slight worry, I had proposed cutting the King character entirely, as there was no narrative pay-off for his inclusion - he was a villainous foil in one-dimension. The answer was always to commit to making the Steve voice counterpart more real, by pulling from personal experience, as Hugh has always done. The possibility of growth, or a new feeling of hope, feels like a really satisfying conclusion to each narrative angle the pier reveals.
General discussion about our three roles in the process and what were the main useful things about a creative producer on board?
I feel like Hugh and I were devising this across a considerable chunk of the year – the process of making this has been, for the most part, about conversation and writing together. So I guess we are writer/performers for the main, but a chunk of story happened through the final edit/curation – and slightly going off piste in isolation, particularly around those interventions as Steve Voice. I guess a takeaway from doing this is realising that this is how I work, yet I feel really understood by my collaborators, warmly speaking. I think I’ve been a bit down on being a curator, because I shift voices and things around and it does feel like too much power [as an editor of the sound and visuals]. It is always tempered by a (healthy?) fear that I could be getting it wrong in terms of the balance of our voices.
Having Mair on board as a creative producer was so good for us. We’ve spoken on previous projects how her presence could have really helped – personally, I’m a disorganised person and these things have become really overwhelming in the past. Mair’s creative support was invaluable and her communication really clear – also very good to be devising at times as a three.
What would be useful to feed back to Barrel Organ?
I thought the platform was really inspiring – the commitment to access and inclusivity feels totally authentic. So glad they supported the work and a satisfying ending.
What’s next in terms of this concept and general collaborations?
In ideal-world terms, I’d be really keen to share/perform this somehow. Could Tim [Dollimore, filmmaker, projection artist and fellow collaborator on other works] help us with tech realisation? Beyond that, there is a glorious realm of possibilities concerning Paignton, us and other myths to steal.
In some sort of tribute to the condemned Crossways - we are not sure how we feel…