Author Archives: Dorothy Max Prior

About Dorothy Max Prior

Dorothy Max Prior is the editor of Total Theatre Magazine, and is also a performer, writer, dramaturg and choreographer/director working in theatre, dance, installation and outdoor arts. Much of her work is sited in public spaces or in venues other than regular theatres. She also writes essays and stories, some of which are published and some of which languish in bottom drawers – and she teaches drama, dance and creative non-fiction writing. www.dorothymaxprior.com

Peeping Tom: Father (Vader)

Memories, dreams, reflections… Oh, what it is to be old.

Father is old. A ‘dirty old man’. The life of the patriarch is almost done, and he spends his days in an old folks’ home, sitting in a wheelchair, whiling away the hours. What a difference a day makes – or not, if one day rolls into another, time measured out in tea spoons. But outside appearances are one thing: inside his head live the sons and lovers; the acres of land, the seven horses and the one wife; and the songs from the dancehall days. He jitters out a jazzy tune on the old Joanna, a crooner serenades us, and a beautiful young woman twirls and twists her body into impossible shapes. But oh, what now? The music distorts into a growled and plucked parody, and the woman has turned into a Siamese cat, snarling and pouncing on her partner, the two, with unbelievable dexterity, dancing around the room on their knees. Surreal scenes tumble over each other: the Swing band and its audience become a roomful of crowing cocks and clucking chickens, Samba-ing across the coral-red carpet; a demented version of Latin Lounge favourite Feelings features Father and a coterie of older ladies, all desperate for his favours, fighting for a look or a touch from the beloved one.

But then the everyday reality of care home life crashes in: the clothes-stealing, the annoying mosquitoes, and the endless tureens of soup – it’s always soup, whether it’s lunch or supper. Come and eat your soup, Father, says the visiting son, who dutifully turns up every Monday to take Father for a walk, but finds it hard to keep his temper with his old Dad and with the staff. What is going on here? Why isn’t he ready to go out? Where are his trousers? There’s only half an hour for the walk, and ten minutes are lost already…

Peeping Tom’s work is stunningly visual – scenography and dramaturgy are intertwined. The company state that their work employs a ‘hyperrealistic aesthetic anchored to a concrete set’. In this case, the set rises up at the start of the show, a marvellous statement that fixes the notion that everything we will witness is an illusion, a ‘play’. We see tall columns of teal and sea-green, hospital style swing doors, and borrowed light entering from high windows. The live band emerge surprisingly from the dark, placed on a stage within the stage. The deep coral red of the carpets and furnishings complements the greens, an old fashioned combination of colours that manages to suggest both an institution and a faded cabaret setting. The use of props is magical, bringing us close to object theatre at times. Extraordinary dances with brooms (one ridiculously long, sweeping over the heads of performers and audience to the sound of oohs and aahs), the manipulation of wheelchairs, the entwining of human body and piano, an enchanting duet with a mirror…

As for its core themes: at the heart of the piece is a no-holds-barred investigation of father-son relationships. That history repeats, and the distresses of patriarchy are passed down from father to son is played out in numerous ways, but most starkly in a long and unnerving text-based scene (in a production that is mostly movement and visual image based, with minimal words) which sees a younger man deliver an onstage speech, on the stage-within-the stage, in which he rants in an ever-more distressed and emotional manner about the damage done to him by his father’s lack of love and care. This is shot out to the man we’ve previously seen as the son, with the third (eldest) man – the original Father – in the picture too, our gaze moving between the three components of this triangle, everyone else onstage reduced to the role of mere furnishings. Will the cycle be broken? Will the younger man treat his own children any differently? Will he treat his own father differently when he is old and feeble and taking leave of his senses? We doubt it.

But goodness, this is all getting a bit serious – let’s dance! And dance they do – to the tune of whimsical waltzes and breezy bossa novas, or as the dancehall band dissolves back in to the shadows, to the accompaniment of the constant bass-note institutional drone that underscores everything else, a clever sound design decision that reminds us that wherever else our imaginations are taken in the piece – ballroom, nightclub, family party – we in fact never leave the care home. The choreography and movement work is of a quality rarely seen – fluid, rhythmical, surprising, often funny. An opening scene featuring company stalwart Yi-Chun Liu in a cleverly contorted tussle with a handbag sets a ridiculously high marker which is lived up to. There are seven superb performers in the ensemble: older actors Leo De Beul and Simon Versnel play father/son (or grandfather/father, depending how you look at it), and the other five actor-dancers multi-task as sons, daughters, wives, nurses, crooners, cats and whatever else. The seven-strong ensemble is complemented by a team of ten ‘supernumeraries’ – older performers who provide the chorus of care home inmates.

Echoes of Pina Bausch and Ballets C de la B are evident in the piece, particularly Bausch’s Kontakthof, which also investigates ageing and references dancehall days – but there is only a fleeting similarity in the themes and the choreography, Father is very much its own self. It is specifically interested less in ageing per se than in the archetype of the father figure, and how it is when a god is torn down from his pedestal and made ridiculous by the ravages of age.

Father (Vader) is the first part of a trilogy of works by Peeping Tom, premiering in Belgium and Germany in 2014. Mother (Moeder) followed on in 2016 – although it was Mother that was presented first in the UK, at the London International Mime Festival 2018. I found Mother a more difficult and less immediate piece, which makes much more sense now that I know it was the second show in a trilogy: although they are stand-alone shows, it is perhaps best to see them in the order made. The third show, Kind (Child) is in production for 2019 – and will hopefully also come to the UK. It is also worth noting that Father was directed by Franck Chartier, and Mother was directed by Gabriela Carrizo – although there is a signature aesthetic and style of choreography in the company’s work, there is a notable difference in the two company directors’ approaches. We can also note that the two shared the directing credits on their award-winning 32 rue Vandenbranden, for whatever that is worth!

It feels an honour to be able to see this brilliant company once again – and for that a big thank you to the London International Mime Festival for bringing them back. When it comes to satisfying Artaud’s demand for a theatre that ‘furnishes the spectator with the truthful precipitates of dreams’ you really can’t beat Peeping Tom, currently amongst the world leaders in physical/visual work that sits between dance and theatre. Father is a wonderful show – taking its audience on a rollercoaster ride through the borderlands of fantasy and reality– such a delight to see so much skill teamed with such great artistic vision.

Total Theatre Artists as Writers

A new Total Theatre Artists as Writers initiative has been launched, managed by Associate Editor Beccy Smith, as part of phase two of the Total Theatre Magazine Print Archive project.

The pilot for this project includes workshops in critical response and writing skills, plus a one-to-one writing development plan put together in bespoke packages to support the artists involved over the period November 2019 – March 2019. The project will in the writing and publication of an extended essay/article on their own practice in relation to the Total Theatre Print Archive and, we hope, new conversations about writing on contemporary theatre in the UK.

The scheme was launched with a workshop at Jacksons Lane (London) on 8 November 2018.

The eight chosen participants are drawn from across the UK, and from experience in a variety of artforms and practices including devised theatre, circus, clown, storytelling, live art, new technologies,and dance-theatre. The participants in this pilot phase of the scheme are:

Anna-Maria Nabirye, Bernadette Russell, De Castro, Florence Brady, Joe Stevens, Katherina Radeva, Maisy Taylor, Skye Reynolds.

Biographies can be found below:

Anna-Maria Nabirye

Anna-Maria Nabirye is an artist working across a variety of mediums. She has co-created work for the Edinburgh and Brighton Fringes, developed work at Mana Contemporary (USA), the Showroom, no.w.here and Delfina Foundation as well as writing and directing short film. She continues to collaborate extensively with artists Noor Afshan Mirza and Brad Butler, works include Hold Your Ground, Deep State and The Scar.

As a professional actress credits include; Informer(BBC1), The National Theatre, Improbable, The Almeida and Redladder. She is currently an associate artist with The Faction and in rehearsals for Macbeth at The Shakespeare’s Globe playing the role of Macduff.

Anna-Maria is currently developing social practice piece Up In Arms, with support from British Council & Arts Council England.

https://annamarianabirye.com/

Bernadette Russell

Bernadette Russell is a dramaturg, writer and theatre maker who has created work for Southbank Centre, Birmingham Rep, National Trust, Duckie, BFI and LIFT Festival amongst many others, alone and with the company she runs with Gareth Brierley (White Rabbit). She is writer in residence at Talliston House, and associate artist at the Albany, Deptford.

Her latest book The Little Book of Wonder (Orion) is a practical guide to the magic of creativity, imagination and curiosity. She is currently directing an intergenerational performance inspired by Midsummers Nights Dream at the Royal Albert Hall and a cabaret in sheltered housing with Emma Waterford.

www.bernadetterussell.com

De Castro

De Castro is a Brazilian performer, theatre clown, actor, director and teacher who has toured over 34 countries with her work. She has won two awards for her poetry, including Honours of the Union of Brazilian Writers.

In the 1980s, she was part of the New Circus movement and worked with circus theatre companies Mummerandada and Ra Ra Zoo. She has directed shows for No Fit State Circus, Gifford Circus, Circus OZ, to name a few, and created her own award-winning pedagogy and method for teaching theatre clowning. De Castro devises her own shows and is currently writing a book on clowning.

www.contemporaryclowningprojects.com

https://thewhynotinstitute.com/

Florence Brady

Florence Brady is an actor and singer based in London. Her work favours the interdisciplinary, and the European. She is interested in music theatre, multi-lingual performance, and literary adaptation. Prior to training as an actor, she studied for a degree in medieval literature, the result of childhood spent reading fantasy and watching too much Time Team.

Joe Stevens

Joe Stevens is a full-time father of two and self-styled artist, athlete and academic. His background in fine and performance art, combined with his interest in technology, led him to do an MA in Interactive Media in 2007, where he incorporated critical theory into his participatory performances. More recently an alter-ego, the Wine Man, has helped him to develop, produce and facilitate a work called FLIGHT CLUB, where he collaborates with an audience to produce a playful spectacle within game-like structures. He is currently making work and writing about the issues surrounding his practice at home in Greater London.

https://wineworld82.wordpress.com

@winegames82

Katherina Radeva

Katherina Radeva was born in Bulgaria, and has resided in the UK since 1999. Katherina is a theatre maker, a set and costume designer, and a creative collaborator. She is one half of Total Theatre Award winning duo Two Destination Language whose intercultural dialogues in theatrical forms tour extensively in the UK and internationally. Her work brings striking visuals to audiences across theatre, dance and interdisciplinary work.

In addition to making live performance, she paints, draws and writes in response to her lived experience while resisting the label of autobiographical work. Living in a rural place, Katherina is fascinated by the interplay of communities large and small. She really wants a dog, but worries she’s away from home too much.

www.twodestinationlanguage.com

Maisy Taylor

Maisy Taylor is an artist, actress, writer and aerialist living and working in London. She strives to make work that is both thought-provoking and aesthetically unusual. She is interested in the cultural and political significance of female sexuality and its relationship with performance. She wants to understand how the human body can be used to ask and answer questions, and how words and ideas translate into movement. She is most at home in the place where theory meets live performance.

www.maisytaylorcircus.com

Skye Reynolds

Skye Reynolds is a Scottish-based dance artist, performance–maker and educator, originally from Australia. Her practice is experimental, collaborative and influenced by politics of real life. She has worked across professional and community platforms for over 20 years, including festivals, schools, post-war zones; and once-upon-a-time was a music journalist!

Her current work integrates language and movement into ‘Stand Up Dance’ seeking to embody the artist’s voice and exploring the question: how to make art as action? She supports platforms for dialogue and exchange with a curiosity about developing creative resilience in the face of contemporary challenges.

https://skyereynolds.com

@skyereynolds

Vessel: The Radiance of Survival

Dorothy Max Prior sees vessel, the new production by Total Theatre Award winner Sue MacLaine, and talks to the writer about the personal and the political, about power and privilege – and about whose voices get heard and whose silenced

Let’s talk about what defines my reality

Four women, each sat on a chair, each chair inside a circle. Circles that have morphed from squares, delineating their personal space. They are alone, but together. The floor and the wall behind them are a rich rusty orange. Their attire is simple but not overly frugal; plain-coloured dresses in a luscious palate of blue-greens. Turquoise, leaf green, peacock blue, cyan. Jewel colours. Tapestry colours. It makes for a pretty picture. Birkenstock-style felt shoes on their feet. A metal water bottle by each chair. A book in each lap. They sit in silence, watching us watching them, looking out and smiling gently. There’s a low-key drone and murmur of voices in the background, as if coming from elsewhere, the sound only just at an audible level. A veil has been drawn back. The invisible made visible. We are allowed in.

We are in the world of vessel, the latest production by Sue MacLaine.

Read. Pray. Sew. Counsel.

The inspiration for vessel is the medieval practice of Anchoritism, which saw women choosing a life of confinement within a locked cell housed within a church. Once admitted to the cell, the women were dead to the world, and thus were often given funeral rites as they entered. In some cases, they dug their own graves within the cell, scraping the earth with bare hands. But they were not imprisoned for a life of mortification; they were there through choice, for a life of contemplation. Much of the day would have been spent in silent prayer, but there was contact with the outside world via a small window or ‘squint’ allowing for those outside to consult with, and take advice from, the Anchorite, who was seen to be closer to God through her choice of abstention from the hustle and bustle of the world.

What might the modern equivalent be? A life without Twitter and Facebook and Gmail and mobile phones, perhaps? A life in which personal space was valued, cherished? In which listening to others, rather than being heard – forcing through ‘your truth’ – was seen to be of paramount importance?

While the world spins out of control outside, take refuge. Women only spaces. Political separatism so that people can find their voice. Withdraw in order to look after and heal yourself. But don’t withdraw to hide, to pull the covers over your head and hope it all goes away. Withdraw in order to understand better, to re-arm, to learn to be a better ally.

These are some of the musings that have informed Sue MacLaine’s powerful new piece. It is a work that is determinedly not autobiographical. It is about us all. It is about speaking out about violence and oppression. It is about fostering a new inclusivity in politics and in everyday life. It is about emotional literacy. It is about understanding that the personal and the political are always in dialogue.

Let’s talk about the view from where you are sitting and the view from where I am

The women speak. Individually, at first, solo voices; then overlapping, in cannon, in chorus, in rounds. The words are important for their semantic meaning, but there is also the semiotic qualities of the sounds; the rhyme and rhythm, alliteration and repetition. They speak, they listen to each other speak. They face front to speak, they turn their heads towards each other to listen. Chairs are sometimes angled in. Sometimes there are gestural responses to another woman’s words. As the words flow out from mouths as sound, they also flow in visual form across the orange backdrop as projections – creative captioning giving us clear, concise rows of white text placed above a talking head; or forming arrow-heads shooting out at us as a multitude of voices overlap; or arranging themselves into a Merz-like concrete poem breaking a silence.

Ideas around personal space, public space, political space, patriarchy, prostitution, power, and privilege are played out. Oh, and while we’re at it, who does the washing up? The public and the private. Who’s to say what is more important, the big issues or the supposedly little things? The domestic narratives. The spotlight is on agency, privilege and representation. Who gets to speak? Who gets listened to?

Writer and director Sue MacLaine, talking to me after the first previews of the show at the Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts, cites the inspiration of the writings of Judith Butler, and in particular her collection of essays entitled Precarious Life: Who has value and who doesn’t? Why does our focus go here and not here? Whose life is worth anything? Princess Diana is killed and the world weeps. But what about the 800 dead babies and children found in graves in the grounds of a home for unmarried mothers in Tuam, Ireland? Who weeps for them?

Who’s life is grieve-able?

Let’s talk about mass-mediated tragedy. Let’s talk about that

Let’s talk about taking a stand, taking the stand

Vessel is performed by a diverse cast of four women – Karlina Grace-Paseda, Tess Agus, Angela Clerkin and Kailing Fu. Sue MacLaine, writer and director is not amongst them; has chosen not to be in this show. ‘I can do my job better from outside,’ she says. The performers are also credited as collaborators. ‘We arrived on day one of rehearsal with all of the text and more’ says Sue. Quoting the legendary comedian Les Dawson (‘I can play all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order’) she speaks of the intensive process in those early weeks of workshopping the text with the actors. In the original script, no lines were assigned. The painstaking process started of working out not only who would say what, and when, but how all the voices and physical actions would be choreographed into one harmonious whole. Not, says Sue, that everyone needed to have exactly the same number of words to speak – but she wanted ‘everyone present and engaged at all times – speaking or in silence or in movement’.

She came in with a new version of the script almost daily in those first two weeks: ‘They were incredibly generous…’ she says of her actors, adding that she really enjoyed that process of asking ‘what do you think?’ – adding, I knew what I thought, but I wanted to know what they thought.’ These conversations inspired the subsequent revised script. Whole sections of text were cut. Luckily, Sue enjoys the editing and revising process: ’I like cutting things as much as I like writing them.’ She quotes Cindy Oswin quoting Ken Campbell when she worked with him in the original production of The Warp. ‘Say it or cut it’ said Ken. Sometimes a line might be good, but the rhythm of the line is ‘not helpful to the actors’. If words or phrases are tripped over when read aloud, it’s a sign they need to go elsewhere or be cut – ‘cutting through choking’ you could say.

Let’s talk about taking more than your fair share

Who gets to speak, and who gets listened to, is a recurring theme in the text of vessel, and an ongoing preoccupation of Sue MacLaine’s research. ’Do I have to be everywhere and visible?’ she ponders, ’Might it be better to keep my gob shut? Don’t disrupt the discourse!’ Repeatedly, Sue mentions her desire to be a good ally, and this being key to current forward-thinking politics. Whose revolution is it? Who have we excluded from the table? One person’s liberation can be another person’s oppression… Those of us with privilege need to look to what is being asked of us, rather than rush through the door with our own solutions. She quotes as an example the right of Deaf people to have Deaf-only spaces where they don’t have to negotiate the hearing person’s desire to communicate. LGBTQ+ people need safe spaces where they can operate without having to explain themselves, away from the gaze of those who see them as ‘other’.

As a BSL interpreter and longterm ally to Deaf people, Sue was keen to find a way for every performance of the show to work for people with or without hearing. The show thus uses creative captioning throughout, designed by digital artist Giles Thacker, which works harmoniously with the lighting and set design by Ben Pacey, creating a complete and interweaved scenography.

Inclusivity, genuine inclusivity not tokenism, is of paramount importance to Sue in the making of her work. In the casting calls for the show, it was stressed that the company were looking to put together as diverse (in every sense of the word) a group of women as possible. The cast chosen ranged widely in age and ethnic heritage, and included people with and without physical disabilities.

‘What is my “in” to empathy?’ asks Sue. ‘My “in” to action; to becoming an ally?’ Sue talks of ‘not becoming enamoured by our own oppression’ and whilst respecting the individual needs of us all, looking beyond the purely personal to a political perspective that gives more space to neglected voices. When weighing up the pros and cons of rival rights, Sue’s go-to question is, ‘Does this do harm?’

Let’s talk about knowing when to leave and knowing that you can leave

Vessel is a piece of many words, but soundscape and choreographed physical action are also crucial to the dramaturgy of the piece. The sound design is by Owen Crouch, who has built a complex multi-layered world of sound that ebbs and flows throughout the piece. Sometimes it is so low it’s hardly there – a kind of hum or murmur in the background, as if heard through three-foot-deep stone walls. At other times, the sound rises to occupy the space, most noticeably in the word-free choreographed section that ends the show. Sue talks of her desire to have a Butoh-esque relationship between sound and physical action, in which the two operated in tandem rather than one illustrating, or providing the impetus for, the other. Terry Riley is also cited as an influence on the sound design.

Owen, together with designer Ben, and projections artist Giles, were involved from the early days of the project. Choreographer Seke Chimutengwende was the last of the creative team to join, the introduction coming via project dramaturg Jonathan Burrowes. Sue speaks of her admiration for his generosity of spirit. ‘He and I have a similar aesthetic’ she says, ‘He is a less-is-more man, who likes to take his time.’

At the point at which Seke joined, Sue had a pretty clear idea of the structure of the piece, and what she wanted from a choreographer. She knew, for example, that having delivered a barrage of words to the audience for most of duration of the piece, she wanted it to end with a movement section. Although there is a choreographic sensibility throughout the piece – every opening of a book, every turn in a chair, or turn of a head, is carefully planned – it is this final 8-10 minutes of vessel in which Seke’s work comes to the fore.

Seke’s choreography for this section was informed by the gestures created by the women in rehearsal – movement motifs that needed to work for everybody. Every body. Here and elsewhere in the piece, gestural movements derived from sign language feature, Sue saying ‘I wanted to create an etymology from within sign language’. The sign for imagination features strongly. This, says Sue, because of ‘the power of the imagination to transform’. At one point there were over 700 Anchorite cells, and, she says, ‘although the Anchorites follow their practice in isolation, they are joined together in an imaginary community.’ She is also interested in the role of imagination to make the cell not a cell, but a site of spiritual growth.

Other sign-language informed gestures derive from signs related to history, and signs for delineating time. She demonstrates one of these, calling it ‘the Back to the Future sign – the past coming into the present, the present going back into the past’. Another denotes a moveable timeline, expressing the carving up of time.

The final few minutes of the show give us a powerful blend of dramatic gestural movement and intensive waves of sound; the accumulated power of the words we’ve heard washing over us for the past 45 minutes still ringing in our ears.

Four women, four unique individuals, in their own space yet also in a shared space. Each engaged in a spiritual struggle ‘on behalf of herself and the wider world’. Their radiance shines out.

Photos by Hugo Glendinning.

Vessel is currently (autumn/winter 2018) touring the UK, dates below.

The Attenborough Centre, Brighton (preview) 25 & 26 October, 2018

Battersea Arts Centre, London 6–24 November, 2018

DaDaFest, Liverpool, 3 & 4 December, 2018

For more information about the company, including further dates for vessel in 2019 to be announced, see www.suemaclaine.com

Wise Children/Emma Rice: Wise Children

A name in lights, a vintage caravan, a chorus warming up, stagehands sweeping, a band running through a soundcheck.

The houselights dim. The caravan spins to reveal an open-fronted side, showing a comfy pink-cushioned den. Two ‘ladies’ in identical embroidered satin kimonos look out. Our narrator, Dora Chance, tells us that she was born on the wrong side of the tracks (at 49 Bard Road, Brixton, South London) just five minutes before her identical twin sister, Nora – illegitimate (in every sense) daughters of a maid called Pretty Kitty, raised by the owner of the lodging house for theatricals they were born into, who they called Grandma Chance.

We look at these two bodies of varying build/gender who seem nothing like twins, and we suspend disbelief.

Today, they still live in Bard Road – although we will learn that there has been a grand life journey to get them back where they started – and they are celebrating their 75th birthdays. ‘Something will happen today’ says Dora. ‘Something exciting. Something nice, something nasty, I don’t give a monkey’s. Just as long as something happens to remind us we’re still in the land of the living.’ The ‘something’ turns out to be an invitation to attend the 100th birthday party of the great Shakespearean actor Sir Melchior Hazard, with whom they share a birthday, and who happens to be their father.

So far so good.

Wise Children is Angela Carter’s great last novel. It explores family ties in general, and paternity in particular; the magic symbolism of the twin; UK theatre and showbiz history throughout the twentieth century, high and low rubbing noses; Shakespearean tropes of identity confusion, gender reversals, and father-daughter relationship. It is bursting to the brim with ideas, beautifully written in one of English literature’s wittiest and most beguiling first-person voices. How on earth can all that translate to the stage?

This adaptation, by director Emma Rice (who probably needs no introduction, but still, here goes: director of/with Kneehigh Theatre for many years, of Shakespeare’s Globe for a shorter run – acrimonious departure, setting up of new company which shares a name with its first production, Wise Children) is the culmination of a long-held ambition. Having tackled Carter’s Nights at the Circus in 2006, she has apparently been chomping at the bit to get at this one.

And so the first question is: what is it that makes people want to adapt favourite novels for the stage? I can understand the reluctance to invent plots when so many exist already – myths, fairy tales, historical derring-dos. Shakespeare knew this, and often went for ready-made stories; Rice has usually found a suitable fairy tale or true-life story to hinge her work around. But having the skeleton of a story to build flesh on and breathe life into is very different to attempting to adapt a novel brimming with plots and sub-plots, featuring a hundred years of family history and cultural commentary, all told in a distinctive first-person voice: ‘the history of the world in evening frocks’ as Dora would have it.

The voice is the main challenge. Everything in the novel is filtered through Dora. This translates theatrically into a narrator who rattles through the telling of the tale at full speed, the resulting narrative replacing much of the distinctive wit of Carter’s Wise Children with pantomime bawdiness, as so much of the reflection and insight characteristic of Dora has to be ditched in order to fit in this incredibly long and convoluted plot. Even at two-and-a-half hours length, the show feels immensely hurried, with scenes frequently shorthanded – I wonder if anyone who hadn’t read the book could possibly keep up. And there are some very strange choices made about what to keep in and what to ditch. Oddly, in a production that has so many contributors on and off stage, the one thing missing in the credits is a writer. Or a dramaturg. Here’s a show badly in need of one or other. Preferably both. So, as far as the script goes, it’s a no.

But luckily the show does have very many other things in its favour. Dazzling dance routines from Melissa James and Omari Douglas, who play the Lucky Chances, the twins in their showgirl heyday. (One body is male, one female, and they look nothing like twins – again, we are asked to suspend disbelief – but as so much of the book, and this show, is about fantasy and illusion and role-playing, that’s fine with me.)

There are, in fact, five versions of the Chance sisters seen onstage: puppet babies in a bundle, puppet children, real-actor older children, the showgirls, and Nora and Dora aged 75, played by Etta Murfitt (who is also the company’s choreographer) and Gareth Snook. Other characters – including absent father Melchior Hazard, the great Shakespearean actor, and benevolent Uncle Peregrine – also appear in various forms, both puppet and human. Told by an Idiot’s Paul Hunter makes a splendid older Melchior, and he also appears onstage as end-of-the-pier comedian Gorgeous George, in Max Miller-ish striped socks and rude gags. George’s ‘It’s OK, he’s not your father!’ punchline is the crux of the book and show. And Hunter playing the kings of high and low culture is a nice touch. Kneehigh Theatre’s artistic director Mike Shepherd plays the older Peregrine with his usual aplomb. Katy Owen gives us an ultra-bawdy clown take on Grandma Chance that is highly skilled, but it’s an interpretation that is a little too grotesque for my taste.

The excellent puppetry, which includes the figurative work and a lovely recurring motif of fluttering butterflies on wires – comes courtesy of the Little Angel team of Lyndie and Sarah Wright. There is also a lovely animation scene, line drawings of London images projected onto the caravan. Circus gets a foot in the door in the form of contortionist and hand-balancer Mirabelle Gremaud (playing the pre-adolescent Nora Chance.) The fifteen-strong cast chop and change roles repeatedly throughout – there’s that great raft of main characters at various ages, then also all the smaller roles: the ‘legit’ Hazard twin daughters Saskia and Imogen; object of the twins’ desire, ‘the blue-eyed boy’; Melchior’s first wife Lady Atalanta (aka Wheelchair). And if not that, then there’s work to be done as a chorus member.

Music always plays a key role in Emma Rice’s productions, and here she works with Kneehigh comrades Ian Ross (the new company’s composer and musical director) and Stu Barker. The production features an eclectic mix of live and recorded music, from a repeated playing of Let’s Face the Music and Dance in different forms, to a live sleazy-jazzy version of the Louis Jordan tune Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby? and an anchoring in the present-day of the narration (the 1980s) by the inclusion of a dance routine to Eddie Grant’s Electric Avenue (about Brixton, innit?) and a whole cast rendition of Cindy Lauper’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun.

The scenography carries a lot of the show. The stage within the stage is a familiar Emma Rice motif, seen repeatedly in Kneehigh shows such as The Flying Lovers, Tristan and Iseult, Rapunzel: here, we have the caravan that twirls on its axis to reveal a front parlour or a dressing room at whim; a flimsy fire curtain that drops down to allow for peeping under, or transformations behind; or the delineation of separate spaces determined by the physical actions of the actors – typical physical theatre tricks of the chorus becoming a car full of people whilst the one left behind stands and watches them gad off, or two characters playing out a stylised sex scene, seemingly invisible to others onstage. Wise Children, written in lights above the action, is cleverly manipulated to reveal key words within – Wild, for example.

Eventually, after tackling the whole of the legit Hazard and illegit Chance family histories, we come full circle, back to the birthday in 1989 that Nora and Dora share with their father, and the party they’ve been invited to (to their surprise).

Once more into the breach go the Chance sisters: sequinned mini-dresses at the ready; full make-up to be applied, because ‘the habit of applying war paint outlives the battle’. Is there resolution? Does everyone live happily ever after? The ending hurries the narrative at an even faster pace than earlier, leaving the Chance twins with another set of baby twins who have arrived with very little explanation. Again, in its desperate endeavour to be true to the novel, we have things thrust at us that haven’t been properly set up. It’s frustrating – but it is hard to know what else could have been done.

Wise Children is Carter’s best novel, and she’s one of my favourite authors – so perhaps nothing would make me happy other than just going home and re-reading the book. But it has to be said: this is not Emma Rice’s best show. I understand the standing ovation; the Old Vic audience’s obvious enthusiasm for this glittering showbiz homage. But I leave feeling dissatisfied – for all the merits of the production, it felt like a long night, and I’d have much preferred an hour-long ‘inspired by’ than this frenetic adaptation.

‘Hope for the best, expect the worst’ says Dora repeatedly. Wise words.

Co-Creation, Consent and Criticism

I’m standing outside Summerhall in Edinburgh, talking to a well-known journalist, whose daughter is a circus artist. We’re talking grandchildren, and I mention that mine (aged 20 months at the time) was already a seasoned performer, having appeared in two Spiegelcircus shows with his parents.

Have they thought about the issue of consent? asks my companion.

Which is food for thought. Of course, a toddler can’t give consent to appear in a show – although in this case, his parents are always very sensitive to his needs, and there was at least one day at this year’s Brighton Fringe that he didn’t go on because he was feeling grouchy. But most days he seemed very happy to be invited in on the action, if that counts for anything. Particularly as it involved wearing a tiger suit…

Children have always been part of the circus story. In traditional circuses, the kids sell popcorn and learn their craft and just as soon as they are ready, they are out there in the ring, playing their part. Even in contemporary circus, it’s not unusual. Chaplin’s grandchildren James and Aurelia Thierrée famously made their performance debut, aged 4, as suitcases with legs, starring with their parents, Jean-Baptiste Thierrée and Victoria Chaplin, in the legendary Invisible Circus. Did it do them any harm? James went on to become one of the most respected circus/physical theatre performers of this generation; Aurelia ran away from the circus as a young woman, but found her way back eventually. It’s a family affair.

And it’s not just in circus: Welfare State International, led by John Fox and Sue Gill, were always a company with a strong sense of family and community, and the children were part of it. John and Sue’s children, Dan and Hannah Fox, were an integral part of the company, riding horses or carrying lanterns from an early age. Both have grown up to be leading outdoor arts practitioners, continuing the traditions and practices trail-blazed by their parents.

More contentiously perhaps, physical comedian Trygve Wakenshaw brought Trygve Versus A Baby to the Edinburgh Fringe 2017 – a show which aimed to answer the question: What’s more entertaining – a world famous mime, or a standard baby? Trygve played opposite his own one-year-old baby, Phineas, ‘inducting him into the family business as early as possible’, setting up a number of scenes in which he tried (and of course failed) to be upstaged by the baby. It was a great show, but I did worry what would happen if the little one (like my grandchild) had not wanted to go on one night – in this case, he was not an ‘extra’, he was the main attraction, which seemed pretty risky. I note that Trygve didn’t continue the show after its Edinburgh run.

Basically, when considering the issue of children giving their consent as performers, it is worth noting that we don’t ask consent of our children about many of the activities that we include them in from the youngest of ages – and traditionally that includes accompanying their parents to work. If we run a corner shop or cafe, our little ones will be sitting in a pram in a corner while we do our work, and as soon as they are old enough, they’ll be behind the counter serving. Babies are carried on backs during harvest time; children are expected to muck in with the mucking out on the farm. Across the world, throughout history, children have been expected to play a role in the family business. Of course, this is not to condone the exploitation of child labour, but being part of the family’s activities (including work) is normal in all places and times outside of the strange little bubble that is here and now. Is performance any different? If it is wrong to put children ‘on display’ without explicit consent, does that include photographing them or videoing them? Or writing about them? Where do you draw the line?

Further thoughts on consent for child performers were sparked by seeing the Ed Fringe show Katie & Pip, by Tin Can People. This show features two professional theatre-makers, and the 15-year-old sister of one of them (Katie) plus her dog (Pip). The subject of the show is Katie’s type 1 diabetes, and the role her medical alert assistance dog plays in keeping her safe. The show raised the issue for Total Theatre of how to review work that features children and non-professional performers. Indeed, should this work be reviewed at all? One one side: it’s being presented by a professional theatre company, and needs to be viewed and judged in the same way you would any other work. On the other hand – if children or vulnerable adults and/or non-actors are involved, should their work be judged? Basically, the rule of thumb seems to be, if the review is a good one, and there is nothing much to be critical of, then a review is fine. But if there are reservations, it isn’t. And that is something I am not comfortable with, and I therefore then decided that in future, I won’t be running reviews of co-created work – although such work will be covered in other ways, such as in feature articles (or indeed blogs, as here).

So, ’co-creation’ – let’s stop and reflect for a moment on that most contemporary of arts practices, which comes with its own terminology. The word was originally a business term, coined in 2000 to refer to a management strategy ‘that brings different parties together (for instance, a company and a group of customers), in order to jointly produce a mutually valued outcome’. (I can hear your sighs from here…)

It is certainly riding high as a word with ‘currency’: Battersea Arts Centre has set up a co-creation network, and it’s one of the key words of the moment as far as the arts funders are concerned. In brief: it is work in which professional artists work with non-professionals – real people, if you like – in presenting true life stories or real experiences in a theatricalised context. ‘Agency’ is another key word. How to give agency to the people who own the stories, or whose lives you are throwing a spotlight on?

Although it could be seen as just another way to reframe ’community engagement’, at its best, it is work by companies such as Mammalian Diving Reflex, whose mission is to focus on ‘creating social acupuncture – playful, provocative, site and social-specific participatory performances with non-actors of all ages and demographics’. Their always-excellent shows include Haircuts by Children (which is exactly what it says on the tin), or Nightwalks with Teenagers (ditto). Operating in a more conventional, theatrical context (even though the work itself is highly innovative): Bryony Kimmings made a fabulous show with and about her nine-year-old niece (Credible Likeable Superstar Role-model, 2013); Quarantine regularly place non-performers at the heart of their work, for example in Susan & Darren, an ’event with dancing’, created with and performed by dancer Darren Pritchard and his mum, Susan, a cleaner; and Scottee is currently touring Fat Blokes a ‘sort of dance show about flab, double chins and getting your kit off in public… made in collaboration with Lea Anderson and four fat blokes who’ve never done this sort of thing before’.

Another contemporary example is the recent work of Vincent Dance Theatre, who worked extensively with teenagers and young adults in the creation of installation works Virgin Territory (exploring the experiences and fears around sexual violence of young women) and Shut Down (which did a similar thing for young men). Their latest work, Art of Attachment, is a co-creation piece commissioned by Brighton Oasis Project – a substance misuse treatment service in Brighton.

Throughout 2018, Charlotte Vincent worked with women in recovery from substance misuse, ultimately creating a performance piece in which ‘real-life testimonies combine with visual metaphor and movement to reveal the physical, emotional and psychological impact of drug and alcohol use on relationships… celebrating the everyday resilience of women and children overcoming adversity, whose stories demand to be seen and heard’. The resulting performance is presented by Brighton Oasis Project at the Attenborough Centre of Creative Arts, in an evening of related work that has come out of the project that also includes an uplifting set by poet Lemn Sissay, and a beautifully constructed film by Becky Edmunds.

Vincent Dance Theatre’s piece is an excellent example of co-created performance work,which is not only careful to honour and enable the ‘non actor’ participants with care and respect, but also a dramaturgically sound, satisfying performance piece in its own right.

Four women’s stories are presented, the four women – Annette, Louise, Leah, Vikki (no surnames given) – live on stage, each seated behind a wooden table placed side-by-side upstage, taking turns to speak out, then move out or under or around the table to occupy space elsewhere on the stage. Each testimony is heard as a straightforward text, in each woman’s own voice, but is also deconstructed and re-presented in a poetic blend of rhythmic sound, gestural movement, and intense physical action. Two professional dancer-actors, Antonia Gove and Robert Clark, are there to echo, shadow, illustrate or provoke.

I toy with the idea of reviewing the show for Total Theatre, but decide in the end that my self-imposed ‘rule’ needs to apply both ways. If it is not right to review a co-created work you have misgivings about, on the grounds that it might hurt feelings or worse, then even if (as in this case) you feel something does stand up on its own legs as a performance piece, it shouldn’t be reviewed.

That said, it comes highly commended.

The Art of Attachment, presented by Oasis Project Brighton and featuring Lemn Sissay and Vincent Dance Theatre, was seen at the Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts, 18 October 2018. The Involvement of lead artists Charlotte Vincent and Lemn Sissay was funded by a Wellcome Arts Award.

Featured image: Vincent Dance Theatre: Art of Attachment in rehearsal.