Shared Experience Theatre: Exploring the Boundaries of Performance
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SHARED EXPERIENCE THEATRE: EXPLORING THE BOUNDARIES OF PERFORMANCE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Kristin A. Crouch, M.Phil. ***** The Ohio State University 2003 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Lesley K. Ferris, Adviser Dr. Joy Harriman Reilly _____________________________ Adviser Dr. Edward Ziter Theatre Graduate Program Copyright by Kristin Ann Crouch 2003 ABSTRACT This dissertation provides a history of Shared Experience Theatre, a fringe theatre company based in London, England. The members of Shared Experience have earned international acclaim for their commitment to physically innovative approaches to novel adaptations for the stage. Although they are one of the few living fringe companies remaining since the 1970s, this is the first official investigation of the company that revitalized storytelling techniques for the contemporary British stage. The focus of this study is on the creative processes and survival techniques of the artistic leadership over the past twenty-seven years, beginning with Mike Alfreds in 1975, and continuing with Nancy Meckler and Polly Teale since 1987. It was Shared Experience’s work in the 1970s that sparked the contemporary British interest in stage adaptations of literature, with their landmark productions of Arabian Nights and Dicken’s Bleak House. Under the artistic leadership of Mike Alfreds, the actors employed the narrative of the novel as a wellspring of theatrical possibility, physically transforming themselves through the slightest gesture. From the late 1980s, under Meckler and Teale, the approach to novel adaptation continues to be physical and innovative, yet takes a significantly different path. The style is distinctly and powerfully physical and ‘expressionistic’; their rehearsals are an exploration of what the story ‘feels like’ rather than what it looks like in reality. During the past ten years, ii Shared Experience’s work has been most successful with the adaptations of classic and often nineteenth-century novels such as Anna Karenina, War & Peace, Jane Eyre, and The Mill on the Floss. The use of ritualized gestures, visual images, split characters, and the physicalization of characters’ fantasies and dreams have all become hallmarks of the Shared Experience ‘approach’. With these tools, Meckler and Teale have cracked open the secrets ‘hidden inside’ the heart of the novel for the British stage. This dissertation also examines the economic and administrative context that supports the continued existence of Shared Experience Theatre. The purpose of this dissertation is to gather together pieces of evidence implicit within the eclectic variety of documents accompanying the creative and administrative lives of this company. This study brings contemporary British theatre scholarship closer to a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between fringe and mainstream theatre practices. It also provides a platform for further investigation of novel adaptations, the language of gesture in performance, physical theatre, fringe theatre, and above all, further meditations on the company fascinated by the potential to ‘dream out loud’ on the British stage. iii Dedicated to the memory of William Stuart Adamson iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank the many educators and mentors who have guided me to this point, especially my adviser, Professor Lesley K. Ferris. I will be forever grateful for her insight and the patience she provided for me during this process. Thanks also to Drs. Joy Reilly and Edward Ziter for their time and effort as members of my dissertation committee, and for their comments, suggestions, and words of encouragement. I am indebted to the artists and staff at the Shared Experience Theatre of London, England. I would especially like to thank Jane Claire, Kylie McCormack, Liz Holmes, Ian Whitaker, Kate Saxon, Brian Lloyd, Rachel Tackley, Polly Teale, and Nancy Meckler for being so generous with their time and allowing me to invade the Shared Experience office for so many hours during the summers of 2001 and 2002. Kylie McCormack and Jane Claire were especially helpful with materials in the office and the archives, and extraordinarily generous with allowing me access to the office photocopier. I could not have finished the research without their extra efforts, and the occasional offering of a cup of tea. I extend tremendous appreciation to the numerous individuals who granted me interviews or responded to my inquiries, including: Mike Alfreds, Helen Edmundson, Nancy Meckler, Polly Teale, Liz Ranken, Rachel Tackley, Jane Claire, Ian Whitaker, v Kate Saxon, and Giles Havergal. I would especially like to thank the actors who gave time out of their busy rehearsal schedules to respond to my queries, including: Penny Layden, Harriette Ashcroft, Helen Schlesinger, Simon Andrew, and Paul Bazely. I am extremely grateful to Christina and Stephen Sidebottom, who provided me a place to live during my field research in London. This project would not have been as enjoyable without your help. This research was supported in part by the Coca Cola Critical Difference for Women Dissertation Grant for Research on Women, Gender, and Gender Equity, from The Ohio State University’s Department of Women’s Studies. vi VITA September 2, 1970……………………Born – Muskegon, Michigan 1993…………………………………...B.S. English and Secondary Education, Carroll College, Waukesha, Wisconsin 1997……………………………………M.Phil. Theatre Studies, University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK 1999-2003……………………………..Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio PUBLICATIONS 1. Kristin Crouch, Rev. of Plays and Players 4, Edited by Robert Smallwood, Theatre Studies 45 (2001): 74-76. 2. Kristin Crouch, “’The Silent Griefs Which Cut the Heart Strings’: John Ford’s The Broken Heart in Performance,” Shakespeare and His Contemporaries in Performance. Ed. Edward J. Esche. London: Ashgate, 2000. 261-74. FIELD OF STUDY Major Field: Theatre vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………ii Dedication………………………………………………………………………………...iv Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………..v Vita………………………………………………………………………………………vii List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………..x List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………..xi Chapters: 1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………… 1 2. A History of the London Fringe…………………………………………………32 3. The Mike Alfreds Years: The Art of Storytelling in the Theatre………………..72 4. Administrating the Mike Alfreds Years…………………………………………99 5. Made in America: Background on Nancy Meckler …………………………...128 6. The Meckler Years: The Return to Storytelling………………………………..143 7. Women at the Helm: Nancy Meckler and Polly Teale as Joint Artistic Directors………………………………………………………………………..184 8. The Shared Experience ‘Process’………………………………………………213 9. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...239 viii APPENDICES: Appendix A Case Study: Shared Experience’s Mill on the Floss in Performance…...248 Appendix B List of Productions ……………………………………………………..292 Appendix C Selections from Interviews with Shared Experience Personnel………..326 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………353 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page A.1 Mill on the Floss company on platform (1995)………………………...258 A.2 Mill on the Floss—ducking of a witch (1995)………………………….260 A.3 Mill on the Floss –Helen Schlesinger as Third Maggie (1995)………...266 A.4 Mill on the Floss—Anne Marie Duff as a water-soaked First Maggie (1995)…………………………………………………………..270 A.5 Mill on the Floss—The Maggies (1995)……….……………………….281 A.6 Mill on the Floss—Joseph Millson and Caroline Faber “rowing” (2001)……………………………………………………………..…….286 x LIST OF TABLES Table Page 2.1 London Fringe Theatre Arts Council Grants Increases for 2003/04……….69-70 xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION In the past twenty-seven years since its inception by Mike Alfreds in 1975, Shared Experience Theatre of London has established itself as one of Britain’s most inventive and enduring alternative theatre companies, producing an eclectic body of work including novel adaptations, experiments with classic dramas, and new scripts. Throughout the company’s existence, the focus of the creative work has centered on the power of the physical presence of the actor, and the process and possibilities of storytelling. It was Shared Experience’s work in the 1970s that re-invigorated the British interest in stage adaptations of novels with their landmark production of Charles Dicken’s Bleak House (1976).1 Today, under the leadership of joint artistic directors Nancy Meckler and Polly Teale, Shared Experience has earned international acclaim for its innovative novel adaptations, including productions such as Anna Karenina (1992), Mill 1 The British have been staging novels for more than a hundred years. Philip Bolton records the performances of novels by women writers in England until 1900, in Women Writers Dramatized: A Calendar of Performances from Narrative Works Published in English to 1900. Bolton’s study is certainly not exhaustive, and, of course, novels by male writers were also given a second life via the theatre. For instance, the works by nineteenth-century novelists such as Charles Dickens were staged by his enthusiasts as soon as they appeared in print. In time, the obsession with novels waned as prospective theatrical source material for twentieth-century audiences. Later, the new media of radio and television picked up this fascination with novels, a trend well-evidenced in the lavish