Full of Fire music video/ short film

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AN INCITATION FOR CAPETONIAN THEATRE PRACTITIONERS FOR 2013: AN OPINION i.e. take it or leave it

It's a new year.

I haven't blogged since 2012.

Amongst my resolutions are to write more and to own my opinions.

This is a step in that direction.

DISCLAIMER:

I understand and appreciate what a difficult, and often thankless, task it is to make theatre in this country. The hours are long, the pay is terrible and to top it all off, there is a significant chance that you’ll play to a house of five or six die-hard theatre fans (probably your mom, dad, gran, lover and a lone Fleur du Cap judge, if you’re lucky). I therefore have a huge deal of respect for any individual who names theatre as their profession. But just because I admire that you do what you do, doesn’t mean that I have to like how you go about it. Nor does it mean you should stop. I reiterate my subtitle: this is an opinion. My opinion.

Please note that by and large, I have not entered into an analysis of the financial implications of my opinion. I am writing specifically about the annual Maynardville outdoor Shakespeare production and I am going on the assumption that it possesses secure funding and will continue in some way, shape or form every year. If this assumption is false, please correct me.

In fact, if you are in any way moved by what I have to say, I invite you to express it.

ON TO THE JUICY BIT:

Last Thursday evening I braved the wind to watch a preview of Maynardville’s most recent Shakespeare, Cardenio. (If Cardenio is, indeed, a Shakespeare text. The the origin of text debate is not one I am interested in entering into nor, for the purposes of this article, is it necessary.)

After the show, as always, my companion (a fellow young theatre-maker-ess) and I sat down to a cup of tea and a discussion of what we had just encountered. Our analysis? On the whole we liked it. The story is entertaining, some performances are notable, the costumes are pretty and the boys of the cast even prettier. In summation, Cardenio is one of the more decent Maynardville offerings in recent years.

And yet, for me, the production is an unsatisfactory one.

The reason? Although it is arguable that all the theatrical elements come together to form a cohesive whole, a week later, I am not sure what the whole is. Why was I watching the piece? What is it that is being conveyed to the audience? In terms of concept and analysis Cardenio, along with almost every Maynardville production I have ever watched and I would go as far as to say most (but not all) professional re-workings of existing texts in Cape Town in recent years, presents little more than a high school production of a Shakespearian text does. The use of metaphor is either non-existent or not realised. Cardenio shows us what the text is already telling us i.e. when an actor makes a reference to sex, they usually thrust their pelvis and/or gestures towards their genitalia so that we understand that we're currently experiencing a sex joke. This is not to say that people are not doing their jobs. Text analysis and a creative process are evident. My problem with Cardenio specifically is that there seems to be a lack overall vision from the director and so what is conveyed is murky at best.

On a platform such the annual Maynardville outdoor production, I don't think that's good enough. 

I think it's time that we started making more intelligent and provoking work. Many would argue that it is not the function and aim of Maynardville to do what I am suggesting should be done. There is this statement to consider: the audiences are not ready.

I remember presenting a similar argument when discussing with a peer GIPCA’s Live Art Festival of 2012. We were debating why the majority of works were of a poor quality and/or not ‘live art’ per say. As the fateful words tumbled out of my mouth, said peer looked at me as if I’d fallen out of a tree and hit my head very hard. He simply replied, “They’re begging for it.” Upon reflection, I realised why I had said what I did. "The audiences are not ready" is a euphemism. When I said, "the audiences are not ready" what I really meant was, "I am not ready. I am scared. I do not know how to move forward and solve the problems. I am not really sure how to do what is required of me."

Furthermore, I believe we vastly underestimate the intelligence and capability of our audiences. As evidence I offer these pictures of Benedict Andrew's 2011 production of King Lear at The National Theatre of Iceland.

 

As the pictures illustrate, Andrews presents a barren and exposed stage, stripped of curtains, backdrops, wings etc. The play opens with Lear's court seated in a forest of helium-filled balloons. The image is easy to understand: in this place, something is about to burst. A heavy and hot rain pours down onto the stage for the next hour. The balloons burst, the action unfolds. Andrews uses simple visual (and sonic) metaphor to convey concept and context. He illustrates the collapse and disintegration of man and a society within the play, which refracts into a contemporary context; the economic crisis in Iceland.

Benedict Andrews gives the text a vision. He is creating a contemporary theatre language.

A large portion of Maynardville's audiences are school children and I do not think it is beyond  the average fourteen year-old, let alone adult, to understand the use metaphor described above. Using metaphor in this way will transcend the archaic (albeit beautiful) language that often hinders comprehension of Shakespeare and other such texts. And if I am wrong and if it is beyond the average individual to understand, presenting works in this way is essential to developing analytical skills.

Of course, it must be taken into consideration that Andrews' circumstances are different. He has a bigger budget, for a start. Capetonian theatres are not yet equipped to support an hour-long rainstorm onstage. But they don't need to be. The point is that the way we think about theatre  and how we make it is aching for a shift and that the shift is possible. I need only refer to Guy de Lancey's 2011 and 2012 productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream and King Lear at the Intimate Theatre or Christiaan Olwagen's Politik trilogy to illustrate that.

This is a written challenge to my peers, the theatre institutions of the Cape and to myself. Cue rousing music and inspirational voice (in my head, that’s the forever-chocolate that pours from Liz Mills’s mouth but you may prefer James Earl Jones or Adrian Galley or Siri):

Let's, as a collective of theatre practitioners, work towards more considered and better realised visions.

Let’s not undermine or underestimate ourselves or our audiences.

Let’s conquer our fear of the unknown.

Let’s break some rules.

Let’s make some new shit.

(And if you don’t want to. I can’t make you.)