Ecologies and Economies

Posted on by Catherine Love-Smith

Originally written for Exeunt.

Money. It’s quietly accepted as something of a grubby word in the arts. Tangled up with funding decisions, disputes over pay and that even dirtier word “commercial”, many of us would prefer to ignore the part cash plays in our encounters with culture. It’s a financial relationship that much theatre itself actively seeks to elide, masking what is essentially an economic transaction with the romance and illusion of invented worlds; the relationship is elegantly shifted from service provider and consumer to the infinitely more palatable roles of artist and art lover.

But while attempts have been made within both performance and academia to interrogate, unveil and reverse this shift, little effort has been given to examining the role of the critic in this project of economic disguise. Asked for the purposes of a recent seminar to reflect on my own economic relationship with theatre, I realised for perhaps the first time just how complicated that relationship is. It’s a fraught and tumultuous affair, in which the boundaries are ever-shifting.

As a critic, I’m in the fortunate position of rarely paying for tickets – or at least not paying with money. But if the transaction is not a financial one, just what is each party getting? Are the performers in front of me rendering me a service, or are we engaged in some vague form of in-kind exchange? And how does that exchange shift in its value depending on the nature of the words I proffer up by way of payment and on the inherently commodifying collection of stars I decide to award at the top of my review?

Such thoughts were also spurred on by a conversation I stumbled upon on Twitter – that evergreen source of column inspiration – in which Megan Vaughan stated her adamant belief that no critic should receive free press tickets. It’s a belief that is emphatically reinforced in her blog’s manifesto, in which she writes: “tickets given in exchange for words are not free and will not be accepted”. It’s a principle that, even as I read it again now, makes me squirm a little with the knowledge of how much I blithely accept for free and how that absorbs me within a larger economic system.

Of course, theatre criticism has its own set of economics. The much contested star rating acts in conjunction with the words below as a form of currency, with the stars often functioning as pounds to the prose’s pennies when we might hope for the reverse. Editors speak of being economical with language, of squeezing as much value as possible out of a necessarily limited word count. And that’s not even considering the money involved, when there is money involved, although the circular arguments about writers being paid or not being paid hardly need retracing.

What I’m more interested in probing is how the accepted structure of theatre reviewing, tweaked a little to accommodate digital media but essentially the same in its convention of giving press comps, reconfigures the relationship between spectator – now critic – and performance. If the audience member who is suddenly made aware of the performer’s labour experiences discomfort, where does that leave the critic? In that moment, can we identify with performers in the knowledge of both being workers in the same industry? Or are we irreconcilably divided by another kind of economic relationship, in which critics act as the bestowers of value?

Briefly playing devil’s advocate, I’m also tempted to question this value itself. Realistically, casting aside any hopeful delusions about the level of influence I wield, my cash is probably still worth more to theatres than my words, at least in purely economic terms. But in a non-monetary sense, I believe – as a critic surely has to – that the discourse around theatre has a value of its own. By seeing work, by engaging with it and its aesthetics and ideas, by drawing intelligent, astute links, and by assessing the overall shape of the landscape, a critic can, as Andrew Haydon has suggested, assume the role of “ecologist”. Without accepting free tickets, however, the vast majority of critics simply wouldn’t have the means to take on this role. Do we therefore buy a non-financial stake in the theatrical ecosystem through an implicitly financial agreement to be part of that same ecosystem’s economy?

I offer uncertainties rather than answers because I’d prefer to leave this column as an open question mark. I’m not even sure these are the most important questions to be asking right now, as many other unresolved debates cluster around the horizon of contemporary theatre criticism. But as we attempt to map new critical contours, perhaps we should be aware of the restrictions of the established cartography. If we accept that theatre, as much as it might attempt to hide it, exists within a web of financial exchanges, then we also need to accept our place within that same web.

I’ll end, appropriately, on one last question – one that I’m at a bit of a loss to answer. Given this acceptance, should we as critics be attempting to move beyond our current entanglement within a surreptitiously economic system? Or perhaps, instead of “should we”, the real question should be: until we find a model that eschews the concept of an exchange of anything other than ideas, can we?

Anya Reiss: Navigating Chekhov

Posted on by Catherine Love-Smith

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Originally written for Exeunt.

The moment from Benedict Andrews’ bracing new adaptation of Three Sisters on which many responses seem to have fixated is its glorious, vodka-drenched rendition of Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ – moody Russian existentialism blasted into contemporary, head-banging anarchy. But there is just as much contemporary resonance in Vershinin’s fading optimism for the future, an act of looking forward that feels tainted by the creeping threats of environmental crisis, or in Andrey’s disillusioned, shell suit-clad lethargy. The times are yet to outpace Chekhov.

As if to prove this continuing relevance, a sudden rash of new productions is rapidly spreading across London, including two contrasting Uncle Vanyas about to lock horns on the West End. If British theatre is currently intoxicated by Chekhov, however, his latest adaptor is remarkably immune. Speaking about the origins of the modernised version ofThe Seagull that opens at the Southwark Playhouse later this month, adding to this mounting wave of revivals, writer Anya Reiss bluntly confesses, “I’d never been particularly grabbed by Chekhov”. Approached by director Russell Bolam to update the classic play, her first reaction was to remember her lack of engagement when forced to study the text at school, and only when reading again with an eye to adapt could she begin to tease out some of the play’s enduring appeal.

“I understood what there was within that story and the characters and I saw that I’d been held back by its context,” Reiss says of her re-reading of the play. “We were always made to read things with a very reverential eye and it was quite hard, so reading it again and knowing I had permission to tear it up a little made me see what it was worth.”

Despite speaking of tearing up the text, Reiss is quick to correct herself when I press her on that phrase, clarifying that the approach she and Bolam have taken is one of respect mingled with reinterpretation. “We’ve deliberately not taken a sledgehammer to it,” she is keen to emphasise, characterising their production as one that treads the middle ground between faithful adaptation and radical revision. “I feel like I’ve tried to be true to the stories and the characters and the themes, and once you do that you’ve got more permission to play with the language.”

Reiss also feels that there is inherently more flexibility when working with plays in translation, as it’s impossible to be entirely faithful to the original. “Everything you read is always someone’s slant on it, so I felt freer to do my own thing – it’s what you have to do,” she says. “If I was trying to update Shakespeare by putting it in modern language I’d feel like a twat, but when it’s already not Chekhov’s phrases you’ve got more freedom with it.”

One of the integral elements of Chekhov’s play is its remote farmland setting, a space distinctly removed from Moscow and its seductive promises of fame and fortune. To replicate this “real sense of isolation”, Reiss and Bolam have relocated the scenes to modern day Isle of Man, a location at a definite remove from the lure of urban excitement. Reiss explains that she began by tackling these crucial points of contextual tension, working out their contemporary equivalents. “It was those questions and the new setting that did it all; they’re the key pinpoints, so once you change those everything else follows along with it.”

Although there are some elements of Chekhov’s nineteenth-century Russian setting that don’t have an obvious modern counterpart – “there was a lot of stuff about horses, that was the main problem,” Reiss laughs – on the whole she says that the play translated quite smoothly. “Compared to other Chekhovs I think it’s quite easy to update, because it’s all about fame and love and art, and those are kind of eternal things,” Reiss explains, contrasting this with the immobility of the Prozorov sisters, a predicament that is harder to explain in a world of international travel. “The crux problems they have are very personal,” she goes on, “they’re not time-specific.”

As timeless as the characters’ situation may be, I wonder how the playwright is handling the wider implications of playing with a classic text. Discussions about Reiss inevitably veer towards her precocity and the astonishment that attended her debut play Spur of the Moment, written when she was just 17. Our conversation actively eschews this typical focus on her youth – Reiss is still shy of her 21st birthday, with two Royal Court productions already under her belt – but my question about the level of pressure attached to this new production is implicitly coloured by the expectations that have settled on Reiss’ shoulders at such an early stage in her career. This is greeted, however, with a surprising lack of concern.

“It’s had the opposite effect,” says Reiss in response to my suggestion that taking on such a famous text might carry with it a certain level of trepidation. “It’s made me more relaxed because a lot of it isn’t really my problem. If you don’t like it then a lot of that’s Chekhov, it’s not really me.” With the same casual frankness that characterises the playwright’s tone throughout our conversation, Reiss goes on to admit that there was something lazily enjoyable about writing a play in which plot and characters were already taken care of, removing a layer of anxiety from the writing process.

While apparently unflustered by the possible pressures of tackling Chekhov, however, Reiss is at pains to deflect any suspicions that her version will be pointedly wedded to the present. “You do a modern adaptation, but you don’t want it to be too smug and wink-wink, with lots of references to Twitter and X Factor,” she says, deliberately naming modern touchstones that might easily be applied to the desire for fame that is explored in the play. “The reason you’re updating it is to demonstrate that what it’s about is eternal, so to then make it very much about issues we have now doesn’t serve the play in the same way.”

In the midst of these negotiations of adaptation, I mention Lyn Gardner’s recent piece about the timidity that often goes hand in hand with the approach taken to classic plays by British directors – a fitting reference point, given that Gardner’s comparison is Australian director Andrews’ version of Three Sisters. The same criticism might arguably be levelled at writers working with these classic texts in translation, all earnestly trying to stay true to the author’s intention, that enshrined tenet of British theatre. Do we need to be more open to interpretation?

“That idea that it has to be either one or the other can be quite alienating,” Reiss suggests, recoiling slightly from both the reverential and the radical. It need not necessarily be a basic choice between Nirvana and museum piece, as much as the commentary surrounding these plays might have us believe. The tactic chosen by Reiss and Bolam is to navigate a path somewhere between the two extremes. “You feel like you either have to love it in this very faithful way or you have to take a hammer to it, and I think there’s a middle ground that isn’t explored as much as it could be. That’s what we’re trying to explore.”

The Kingdom, Soho Theatre

Posted on by Catherine Love-Smith

Originally written for Exeunt.

Just as a man’s home is his castle, of his life he is king. Or so goes the notion subscribed to by the ambitious young Irishman at the heart of the lyrical stories told by Colin Teevan’s three toiling labourers, chipping away at secrets and received certainties with the same sweaty vigour with which they hack at the rocks littered at their feet. With unobtrusive poetry that lilts to the swing of the spade, three men weave myth, dream, tragedy and defeat, drawing a direct line from the doomed heroes of Ancient Greece to the thwarted dreams of the tortured Irishman, the chancer who seemingly grasps at fate only to find himself clenched in destiny’s stony grip.

The ironic kingdom of Teevan’s play is the abandoned Irish homeland, a country shrouded in both romance and fear. In a tale told through three generations, the other promised kingdom – that of heaven – is discarded in favour of a more earthly and all too ephemeral set of riches. But in place of the usual tale of the plucky young Irish lad seeking his fortune in England, Teevan presents us with narrative suffused with myth. The familiar echoes of Greek tragedy begin to overlay what opens as three stories but gradually emerges as just one, the trio of tales meeting with a creeping inevitability, like the crossroads at which the story’s crucial narrative hinge is located.

As hinted at by the mound of rocks reaching to the ceiling of the Soho Theatre’s small upstairs space, there is much about the building of status, of a better life, of a future just out of reach. Anthony Delaney’s grinning young man greets opportunities with wide eyes, all youthful excitement with just a glimmer of greed, while his older counterpart Owen O’Neill holds on to what he has constructed with tight fists. These grasping figures are counterpointed by the next generation above, embodied in Gary Lilburn’s bowed, broken, but grimly wise old man. As all three men shapeshift, taking on different roles and picking up dropped narrative threads, distinct moments in time collide and merge. Past and future are always present.

Often moving as heavily as the exhausted workers, Lucy Pitman-Wallace’s understated production can feel like a toil, particularly in the opening minutes. Between the labour there is a suffocating stillness, a stillness that respects the haunting movement of the narrative’s slow revelation and that evokes the thick black air of its gloomy tunnel setting, but that also threatens to let the piece turn stale. It’s a delicate line between contemplation and boredom. This stasis, broken only by the distracting movement of digging, lays all the burden on Teevan’s symbolism drenched script, a burden it fails to fully support.

In contrast with the evidence of the earth that spreads around the three performers, the lyricism of the text embraces the suffering but not the grit. Failing to acknowledge the tension between the tragic fall from grace and the grinding of the working man back into the mud from which he dragged himself, the play’s bleakness is of the same romanticised kind that is frequently attached to “the kingdom” itself. We learn much of myths, but little of men.

Photo: Robert Day

Small Acts

Posted on by Catherine Love-Smith

Originally written for Exeunt.

If global warming persists at its current rate and sea levels continue to rise, half of London might be underwater. There are maps available online outlining the potential damage; just type in your postcode and watch your neighbourhood disappear beneath the deluge.

This is just one of the grim facts alluded to throughout Platform’s operatic audio tourAnd While London Burns, created in 2006 in response to climate change and the complex, ubiquitous oil network that dominates the world’s financial markets. Earlier this week I belatedly traced this tour through the heart of the City, its skyscrapers appropriately garbed in an ominous cloak of fog that was distantly pierced by the Shard, that oddly apocalyptic splinter of steel and glass. Gazing up at buildings that had inexorably sprouted in the six years since the tour’s creation, it was hard to imagine a halt to the onward march of disaster that flooded through my earphones.

But the aim of And While London Burns is not despair. Its end point, or at least the end point that I’m told it would have reached if the audio file hadn’t hit a glitch as I stood awkwardly fiddling with my phone in the drizzle outside Lloyds, is one of action, of hope. Intersecting bleak facts with a deeply human impetus for change, the piece is delicately crafted for maximum emotional impact, making the reality of climate change powerfully felt without ever entirely eradicating an optimistic chink of light. We can still do something.

This immediately brought to mind the contrast with Ten Billion, a piece of theatre that I did not personally see but that was the subject of much conversation around the time it was showing at the Royal Court earlier this year. In essence a lecture given by scientist Stephen Emmott and placed on stage by Katie Mitchell, it was by all accounts an unflinching breakdown of how humanity, as a species, is fucked. In this vision of a future ravaged by environmental catastrophe and over-population, there is nothing to be done.

Although I’m not in any position to make judgements on the respective science behind these two pieces, they do throw up an interesting theatrical tension. Both pieces are, presumably, setting out with the intention of changing our outlook on the world in some way; And While London Burns is explicit about this aim, while it’s difficult to even read about the subject matter of Ten Billion without taking a rather blacker view of the future. The problem and source of tension, however, is the effect of this intended shift in outlook. Stepping out into Sloane Square or between the glass-fronted structures of the City, what do audiences take with them?

In the second of Chris Goode & Company’s Thompson’s Live podcasts, Artsadmin’s Judith Knight mused on just this problem. Is it better, she wondered, for theatre like Ten Billion to leave its audience with hope, however false, than to depart with incapacitating doom? The problem with being told you can do nothing is that it gives you licence to do just that. As Andrew Haydon put it in his review, there’s something “powerful and seductive” – even liberating – about the sheer nihilism of it all. No need to worry about changing our behaviour if it won’t make any difference.

And While London Burns might look our catastrophic future just as squarely in the face, but it also offers the possibility of action. Not only does it retain the promise of a small shred of hope, the very form of this piece of theatre makes it imperative for us to act in order for the piece to work. We are actors, in both the performative and real world senses of the word, made to navigate our way around the busy streets. In principle this necessity of small actions offers us belief in the fact that action on a larger scale is achievable, though in practice the difficulties of winding between human traffic and keeping in step with the audio instructions can be just as much of a obstruction to the piece as the physical obstacles that have sprung up since it was made.

While considering these questions of hope and action, another unlikely comparison presented itself. I was temporarily transported back to Battersea Arts Centre, where I spent Saturday afternoon gleefully exploring the building’s many nooks and crannies as part of interactive children’s show The Good Neighbour, a celebration of imagination, silliness and the capacity of humans to work together. An altogether different proposition, then, to either Ten Billion or And While London Burns.

Yet within the fun and games there is something distilled in this otherwise joyously silly piece of theatre that many more serious shows might take note of. In framing its frolics as an adventure, The Good Neighbour returns to its young participants, already so restricted in so many areas of life, the idea that the possibility of instigating action might lie within their power. Through the underestimated medium of play, it holds up an optimistic vision of human nature in which change is attainable as well as desirable. Unlike the distracting confusion of negotiating the suit-clogged alleyways of the City, a level of performativity that may be active but is more often than not frustrating, the gameplay here produces a sense of triumph and exhilaration.

Whether this exhilaration could be transposed onto a form of activist theatre is another question, and whether this would ultimately make a difference is an even bigger question. The extent to which theatre can inspire genuine political and social change is a well-traversed and still inconclusive debate. But if performance is to provoke action, surely the possibility of agency within the space in which it sets out its arguments is the first building block in the bridge to action beyond that space. To act, we must first believe that we are capable of action.

Beautiful Burnout, Artsdepot

Posted on by Catherine Love-Smith

Originally written for Exeunt.

Three minutes. No more, no less. That’s the precise length of a round in professional boxing, a unit of time into which matches, training and Bryony Lavery’s punchy scenes are divided. It’s just enough time to dodge, feint and land the knockout blow. Shifting constantly from foot to foot, Lavery’s play explores the individual impact of a sport dominated by the swinging of the fist and the flash of the camera, an inherently performative spectacle that she reveals to be as much about control and discipline as it is about unbridled aggression.

This study of boxing takes as it object a small gym in Glasgow, where five would-be fighters, each with their own reasons to hit out, see the sport as a way out of the city and circumstances of their birth. Backed by a flickering bank of screens, these hungry, sparring youngsters are continually haunted by the future spectre of fame, their face on a television and their fists clenched around wads of cash. Laura Hopkins’ design places the performers on a raised platform that immediately recalls the boxing ring and that simultaneously holds them up for inspection, lifting them from the ground but not quite raising them up to the bright lights.

For a sport that bears striking if unlikely resemblances to dance – the uniting and separation of bodies, the swift lightness on the feet – Frantic Assembly’s treatment is a fitting and energetic one. Though sometimes lacking in verbal eloquence, through the language of movement the finely tuned bodies of the characters speak, a physical form of communication that is as central to the piece as the words of Lavery’s script. It is by way of this speech that these individuals come to define themselves; as the observing mother of one of the young boxers remarks, “it’s like there’s a smile in their bodies”. This physical language also carries into the use of Underworld’s music, a pulsing soundtrack that echoes both pounding heartbeat and the pounding ofpunches.

Rapid and pounding too is Lavery’s structure of short scenes and monologues, shifting restlessly from one to the next. While this approach keeps the audience on their toes as much as the tireless performers, the swift onwards movement can prevent the punches from being felt before the bell rings in the next round. The blows land, but they don’t always bruise. Any shortfall in the depth of the scenes, however, is compensated for with the sheer force of the performance, more than conjuring the sweat and determination of the ring.

Beneath this thrilling, muscular production there is a barely visible glint of rage at the injustice of a society in which one’s fists might be the only passport out of a dead end life – a rage smothered, like that of the protagonists, in precision and control. Despite the controversy that surrounds professional boxing, Beautiful Burnout embraces both its danger and its ecstasy, acknowledging how fighting can be an escape and a salvation as much as it has the power to destruct. Boxing is a dangerous sport, but so is life.