Audience, Community and Dialogic Theatre: Actors Touring Company and Ramin Gray 2010-2015
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Audience, Community and Dialogic Theatre: Actors Touring Company and Ramin Gray 2010-2015 Christine Hannah Twite PhD Thesis Department of Drama Queen Mary University of London 2018 Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy This work was supported by an Arts and Humanities Research Council Collaborative Doctoral Award Reference AH/H034889/1 1 Statement of Originality I, Christine Hannah Twite, confirm that the research included within this thesis is my own work or that where it has been carried out in collaboration with, or supported by others, that this is duly acknowledged below and my contribution indicated. Previously published material is also acknowledged below. I attest that I have exercised reasonable care to ensure that the work is original, and does not to the best of my knowledge break any UK law, infringe any third party’s copyright or other Intellectual Property Right, or contain any confidential material. I accept that the College has the right to use plagiarism detection software to check the electronic version of the thesis. I confirm that this thesis has not been previously submitted for the award of a degree by this or any other university. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author. Signature: Date: Details of collaboration: This work was funded by a collaborative doctoral award, which allowed me to work with Actors Touring Company to complete my research. 2 Abstract This thesis is an analysis of the theatre work directed by Ramin Gray, Artistic Director of ATC (Actors Touring Company), from 2010 to 2015. It has been informed by my privileged position as ethnographer within the company as part of an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award project. In the thesis, I argue that Gray’s work explores questions of how we might negotiate living within contemporary, diverse communities, particularly in the light of recent scholarly critiques of community, and contemporary British debates about identity, migration, and community. The narratives and dramaturgies of ATC’s productions during this period draw attention to what Chantal Mouffe has called the ‘democratic paradox’, whereby liberal drives towards inclusivity and plurality are held in tension with democratic drives towards unity and consensus.1 Gray’s work for ATC stages this paradox as politically productive, exposing it in all its discomfort, rather than as something to be repressed or eliminated. I use theoretical frameworks by Theodor Adorno, Maurice Blanchot, Chantal Mouffe, Jean-Luc Nancy and Richard Sennett, particularly Mouffe’s ‘agonistic democracy’ and Sennett’s concept of the ‘dialogic’, to support my account of how ATC’s theatre has interrogated the concept of community.2 I examine three major productions where the tension between multiple voices and consensus has emerged in different ways, as Gray’s relationship with the company has evolved. This evolution has been observed in rehearsal, in production, and through my access to company personnel, meetings and archives. The productions are: The Golden Dragon by Roland Schimmeplfennig; a double bill of Crave by Sarah Kane and Illusions by Ivan Viripaev; and The Events by David Greig.3 I describe how ATC’s dramaturgical structures make explicit a link between the paradox of the individual’s relationship to the larger community and tensions pertaining to the role of the spectator in the larger theatre audience. In seeking to create this tension affectively within the body of the spectator, often creating unease or embarrassment, Gray’s work foregrounds the paradox physically as well as intellectually, a practice which I argue is fundamental to his work for ATC. This thesis suggests that contemporary debates around the term community are overlooked in much current scholarship on contemporary political theatre, and that theories of community can make a significant critical intervention in scholarship in this field. It offers a new exploration of the work that contemporary theatre and the theatre director can do to discuss, trouble and embody the concept of community. 1 Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox (London: Verso, 2000). 2 Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics (Abingdon: Routledge, 2003); Maurice Blanchot, The Unavowable Community, trans. by Pierre Joris (Barrytown: Station Hill, 1983); Chantal Mouffe, ‘Art and Democracy: Art as an Agonistic Intervention in Public Space’, Art and Research, 1.2 (2007), 6–15; Jean-Luc Nancy, The Inoperative Community, ed. by Peter Connor, trans. by Peter Connor and others (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991); Richard Sennett, Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation (London: Penguin, 2013). 3 Roland Schimmelpfennig, The Golden Dragon, trans. by David Tushingham (London: Oberon Books, 2011); Sarah Kane, Sarah Kane: Complete Plays (London: Methuen, 2001); Ivan Viripaev, Illusions, trans. by Cazimir Liske (London: Faber and Faber, 2012); David Greig, The Events (London: Faber and Faber, 2013). 3 Figure 1. The Audience and Stage Props, The Golden Dragon, Traverse (dir. Ramin Gray, 2011), Photo by Christine Twite. 4 Acknowledgements I am indebted to many people and institutions for helping me through my thesis research. Firstly, I am grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Council who granted this project a Collaborative Doctoral Award between Queen Mary University of London and Actors Touring Company that enabled this research to happen. The persuasive energy and drive of project instigators Bridget Escolme (my supervisor), Bijan Sheibani (former Artistic Director of Actors Touring Company) and Hannah Bentley (former Executive Director of Actors Touring Company) was enormously helpful at the start of my thesis. Indeed, the openness and enthusiasm of Actors Touring Company throughout my work has allowed me an unprecedented insight into their creative work and company management. I thank the members of the company, staff and actors, many of whom joined after I had begun my research: they could easily have felt uncomfortable under the scholarly gaze that they were subjected to, but remained open and supportive. Ramin Gray, former administrators Kendall O’Neill and Charelle Griffiths, former Executive Director Nick Williams, and current Company Manager Jess Banks have all provided comprehensive support. The vigour and liveliness of the drama department at Queen Mary is unstoppable: I have gained insight and inspiration from my fellow PhD candidates, the BA students I have taught and all the staff of the drama department. Without the Queen Mary Drapers Company Hardship Fund grant I could not have continued my studies. Thank you also to the photographers named below, who have all given me permission to use their images in this thesis. Personally, I would like thank my wonderful parents Carol and Stewart Twite and my sister Julie Twite for believing in me throughout this process. Without the tireless support of Eric Lacey and Alicia Rix I could not have undertaken this journey. Finally, my deepest thanks to my supervisor Bridget Escolme whose drive, endless positivity and professionalism enabled me to complete this project. This thesis is dedicated to Cazimir Liske, 1982 – 2017. 5 Table of Contents Statement of Originality .......................................................................................................................... 2 Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................. 5 Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................... 6 List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................... 9 List of Illustrations ................................................................................................................................. 10 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 11 Sing-Along with The Events ............................................................................................................... 11 Audience ........................................................................................................................................... 15 Community ........................................................................................................................................ 17 Dialogic Thought and Agonistic Democracy ..................................................................................... 19 Methodology ..................................................................................................................................... 21 Conditions of Production: Performance Ethnography...................................................................... 23 Performance: Semiotics, Phenomenology, Cultural Materialism ..................................................... 26 The Chapters ..................................................................................................................................... 29 Chapter One: Community