Let us speak frankly. I am present in this case study. I am present as a student and as a
practitioner, as an observer and as a participant. I am present as a fledgling researcher,
experimenting with critical, micro-ethnographic, post-modern and
phenomenological approaches to case study. Through these lenses, I hope, as
Nicholson suggests, to ‘convey something of the messiness of reality and explore
its incoherence’. (2005:65). As a result, in reporting the intrinsically
interesting areas of this project, some of my descriptions fall into the realm
of phenomenology in that they are drawn from the ‘way social reality is
produced through interaction’ (O’Reilly 2009:121) and take a more anecdotal
form (Simons 2009:76-77) At other times my observations become more reflexive in
recognition of the impossibility of ignoring the impact of my role at the site
of research when my position as ‘accepted stranger’ (O’Reilly 2009:176) shifted
to that of creative assistant, as I gained confidence and engaged in the
process. However, above all this, I am
present as someone who immersed herself in the journey of a group of young, homeless and vulnerably housed people for two months and began to find her own voice, while participants
found theirs and so I attempt to document the nature of that journey
and suggest the negotiations of ‘subjects in dialogue with each other’ (Madison
2005:9)
With these considerations at the forefront of my
research, I hope to render, as best I can, a picture of the small victories,
failures and contradictions, experienced by all and examine of the nature of
personal and creative risk, in a C.C.T.V. ridden, risk assessed, post 9-11,
post New Labour Britain, as experienced by this group of young people. Consequently, the form of this case study is
informed by its emergent content, in that some of the voices you are about to
hear are not only those of the support staff, facilitators and participants, but
those of their characters too. I have
endeavoured to clarify with footnotes, references and appendices where the
words they speak are derived from, but as it became clear during the project,
there is a very thin line between reality and fiction, so thin, that as the
young actors developed their characters and director, Terry O’Leary scripted
them, it became difficult at times to distinguish between the two at all, as
these two characters from the play can confirm.
ABDI: ‘Do
you know what? It wasn’t easy being
human. Very messy.’
CHRIS: ‘Very
confusing.’
MADDY: Well,
yes. Quite.[1]
Kathleen Gallagher states ‘One can never be sure
to what extent life seeps into dramatic writing, what liberties are taken, what
imaginative trespassing has taken place, in the journeys into one’s own or
another’s life’. (Gallagher & Fine 2007:106) In the spirit of this
statement, I will concede that the same applies to my own writing here as I
‘approximate the way of the artist.... in aspiring to describe and interpret...
encounters’ (Simons in Winston 2006:45) However, I argue that as I pledged along
with the young people at the beginning of this project to take some creative
and personal risks, it is only fair that I should remain true to my word and
follow this course to the end.
Anyway, enough about me, the young actors of
this piece are infinitely more interesting than I could ever be, but where to
start? Let’s start with comfort. Start with Tony McBride’s ‘Challenge by
Choice’[2]
model. Start with the three concentric circles of comfort, stretch and panic.
Start at the end; back in the centre, in your comfort zone and work your way
outwards, through the stretch circle, touch panic on the outside and keeping
going until you get back to the end…
DESIRE: ‘Do
you lot want to hear something?’
MADDY: Did you want to say
something about comfort zones, Desire? Sure, go ahead.
DESIRE: (raps) ‘Yo!
Who’s there to provide for the homeless?
No-one!
Got
no food to eat,
J.S.A.
money already gone,
Living
in a place we can’t call home.
Money
spent on smoke,
That’s
our comfort zone.
Depression
seems to be the issue,
She
can’t hack this, not used to being alone.
Have
it your way, see your G.P.
Get
depression pills for me.
No
way! I can’t pretend, won’t pretend.
Do
your job man!
No idea
what it is to be me!’[3]
MADDY: Thanks for that Desire, nice
to see you’re so enthusiastic! After all,
I thought your comfort zone included turning up to rehearsal hours late and
listening to your iPod during scenes?
And by the way, isn’t your comfort zone a little bit too close to panic
for comfort, if you see what I mean?
DESIRE: ‘Don’t
hate, [Maddy]: relate!’[4]
MADDY: Terry,
why don’t you pull her up about this attitude?
TERRY
O’LEARY: ‘I’ve got nothing, there’s
nothing I can say. That’s what you’ve
chosen to do and I’ve really got no time to focus on you. I need to get on, you play catch-up as and
when you feel like it... sometimes when you withdraw your love, it’s like “Hang
on a minute, that’s not what it’s supposed to be like. You’re supposed to start shouting at me. You’re supposed to be making an example of me,
but ignoring me is not what I thought”’[5]
(O’Leary 2011)
MADDY: Ok. So, basically you’re
letting her push your buttons and not reacting, to highlight to her, her
challenging behaviour? I think I get it:
Challenge by Choice, right? Choosing to step out of your behavioural comfort
zone for a while, in order to try something new.
Comfort
The Circle Bar at the Roundhouse has three walls
constructed mostly out of glass and with the unseasonably warm April weather,
combined with the afterglow of performance; it makes for greenhouse-like
conditions. There is a burble of excited,
congratulatory chatter between friends, family and staff. The cast receive their audience’s praise;
some shyly, some cockily, some warily as though still not sure how to take
positive feedback. Adrian Jackson from
Cardboard Citizens is milling around, chatting to some of them about the
project. Those familiar with Jackson’s
professional reputation are eyeing him talking animatedly to Mark[6],
a young man with a passion for Death Metal and someone who has found the process
a particular challenge. He is also
blissfully unaware of their envy: one gets the feeling that praise from Adrian
Jackson is the Holy Grail for some of the participants.
The crowd is called to attention by Terry
O’Leary, Associate Artist at Cardboard Citizens and Director of the Set the
Scene 2011’s production, ‘Audition of Dreams’ There are speeches and thanks to
everyone and then, a nice touch, awards for the cast. Someone has bought mini, fake Oscar statuettes,
each engraved with an award category:
Best Rapper/Dancer, Best Puppeteer, Best Wolf Girl, Best Death Metal
Head Ever, Best Presence in the Room. There has been much discussion over the
last two days about what the award categories should be. I am standing behind Adela, as they call out
the award for Best Vocalist. As soon as
she hears her name, without missing a beat, she turns her head and finds me
immediately, only to give me a smug ‘told you so’ look. The irony of this is not lost on me. I had
also been consulted on the award categories and heartily agreed with this one,
although some might argue, that in a one horse race, winning is a pyrrhic
victory: Adela had indeed been the only vocalist in the play. I laugh to myself, but it’s the first time I
have been able to laugh about it, since that afternoon’s dress run, but more of
that later.
Stretch
Let’s go back to a taster session at the
Roundhouse on a chilly afternoon in February.
I have to admit I was a little apprehensive about this session. I have
worked with young people before in arts and educational settings before, but
this was predominantly in China where young adults are invariably more
compliant, particularly for a foreigner.
In this context, I am aware that I am a foreigner of a wholly different
kind: white, middle-class, highly
educated, privileged and never been homeless. As I hover in the reception feeling somewhat like an imposter, there
are one or two young people waiting and so I decide to talk to them. I approach a handsome, friendly-looking, young,
black man, dressed impeccably in the uniform of the young urban male: baggy
jeans, hoodie and baseball cap. “Hello. Are you here for the drama workshop?” I ask. The young man, looks me up and down like a butcher
eyeing a particularly fine side of beef, and shifts position towards me a
little, “Er, yeah. What are you here for? Drama as well?” he says, quite softly
with a flirtatious smirk. “Yes. Kind of.
I’m... sort of... one of the facilitators...” I
answer. The twinkle in the eye and the
smirk are quickly extinguished. Message
received: I am off limits to this apparent player. However, now that flirtation
is firmly off the table, we can have a real conversation. I discover his name is Lucas and that he is
new to drama.
There is another reason why Lucas has stuck in
my memory of this day. During the
workshop, the participants were asked to talk about themselves while a partner
listened and then the partner performed an impersonation of them to the whole
group. Lucas worked with Daniel, a young
man who had presented himself as a very confident and experienced actor, having
worked with the National Youth Theatre and Cardboard Citizens in the past. I had noted that when Daniel had introduced
himself at the start of the workshop, Lucas had clearly marked him out as a bit
cocky and therefore, as he saw it, his main rival for alpha male of the group. What none of us
knew at this point was that Daniel had previously subjected himself to a three
year, self-imposed silence and freely admits that this cockiness is a ‘mask’ he
has since adopted when feeling insecure or anxious[7]
(Tierney 2011). However, that day, Daniel
shared a confident and fairly accurate rendition of Lucas, at which all of the
group, including Lucas, had laughed with recognition. However, when asked by Terry how he felt
about being ‘done’ by Daniel in this way, Lucas, laughing, said “Well… you made
me look like a cunt!” Not quite the
response everyone had expected, but the timing of this very direct feedback
caused everyone to laugh, albeit slightly anxiously on account of Lucas’
language. On reflection, I wondered, despite
it being made to seem banter-like, what Lucas had meant by that comment? Daniel’s
‘Lucas’ wasn’t unkind or mocking in any way, just accurate and yet did Lucas
really feel affronted at being faced with this image of himself?
This incident came back to me in week five, when
Lucas was asked to embody a list of characteristics which are said to belong to
the Good Wolf, in a story which is told by a character in the play.
JASMINE: “Don’t be scared” said the Granddad, “We
all carry two wolves inside us. One that
is brave, loyal, intelligent, gentle, protective, loving...”
During this list, Lucas had been asked to slowly
stand, climb up onto a chair and physicalise all of these qualities. On the first try, Lucas stands up on the
chair and as he embodies the words, his torso starts to turn to the left,
leaving him almost side-on to the audience.
Terry asks them to stop and go back, reminding Lucas to keep facing
straight out front. Again, Jasmine
begins her story and once again, Lucas’ left shoulder begins to creep back and
his body follows. This actor is trying
to hide. Why? Is this such a big risk for him? Is he scared
to take his place on the stage? This is
strange for one who seems so confident in many other respects, especially with
the opposite sex. Maybe it’s because
this actor, I later discover, is struggling to stay in recovery, is struggling
to stay on the right side of the law, and is struggling to marry his public
image of Player and his private tendency towards deep, intellectual reflection[8].
Emily Momoh, the Roundhouse’s resident
youth support worker, who supports the conception of drama as a reflection of
an internalised self, pointing out that when ‘you’re just in that zone... it
all seems ok and quite normal, but then if you see it in the mirror, it doesn’t
look so attractive!’ (Momoh, 2011)[9]
Perhaps for him, he was still looking in the mirror and seeing that image of a
young man struggling which was forcing him further into his personal stretch
zone. It is also possible, however, that
this actor just thinks it looks better played that way.
And what of the other wolf in our story?
JASMINE: [the] one that is a loner,
savage, sly, cruel, greedy, destructive.
Our gentle giant of a Death Metal fan, Mark
A.K.A. Darkhole Villain, takes his turn to embody this wolf. He slowly and gingerly climbs up onto the chair,
his large frame slightly encumbered by the black padded parka coat that appears
to be surgically attached to him, regardless of temperature. He begins to
transform into what, unfortunately, looks more like a frightened puppy than a savage
wolf! Terry stops him, asks him to stop
hiding his face and try again. Mark had
earlier that week asked both Terry and I to be much harder on him when he makes
mistakes, to shout at him; so far, all that has happened is that Mark has had
lines taken away from him. After another
failed attempt at embodying this savage wolf Terry shouts ‘I’ll give this to
you Mark, if you just dare to be! You’re
not scared: you’re METAL!’[10]
This time, (albeit, with me standing on
a chair at the back of the room physicalising the wolf for Mark to mirror), he
gets it! He not only gets it, but
improvises a lone “Awooooooooooooooooooooh!” at the end! This is major progress for someone who
admitted to being afraid of ‘a lot of things... [he] was keeping in... [his]
stomach’[11] and
had, only days earlier, ripped up his script during the lunch break and announced
that he was dropping out of the project. Emily Momoh explains that this darker side to
Mark’s identity was something he had been struggling with, in that as a young
black man interested in Death Metal music, he was aware of going against the
dominant stereotype of the young black male and as a result excluding himself from
his peers. The main challenge for him was
to decide whether that was a part of his identity that he could accept himself
and by doing so, also be able to embody that savage, lone wolf of the story.
DARKHOLE VILLAIN: ‘Got to take risks!’
Mark was also, despite suffering from dyslexia and literacy problems, incredibly articulate and vocal about feeling
let down by society and government. He
claimed to have kicked in a few windows (with his face covered) during the
previous weekend’s anti-cuts rally, despite his claims of not being very
political.
DARKHOLE VILLAIN: ‘Defy the tyrant! Don’t be
silent!’
Chris Johnston points out ‘Artists and creatives
who rage against the system, turn instinctively to others who rage’ (Johnston 2004:107)
a raging echoed by Mark and his character, Darkhole Villain. Many of the young
people on the project expressed the desire not only to do drama, but to meet
new people and there were numerous references to getting on with people they
normally wouldn’t talk to. As Lucas admitted
‘Usually, I wouldn’t have really got on with people who were homosexual, I
recollect when in the Hub when Terry asked us to put a dance together and I was
with **** (an ‘out’ gay male member of the cast), it was something different
for me.’[12]
(Tierney 2011) But who or what are these young creatives raging against? Is it
themselves, the Cop in the Head (Boal 2006:40-46), family, the Government, Society?
Maybe it’s all of these and none of
them.
These young people are a generation who have grown
up in the context of New Labour’s ‘Third Way’ policy agenda (Byrne 2008 151-168)
which would have them labelled as ‘NEETs ‘ (ibid. 160) but was actually more
concerned with ‘incorporation’ (ibid.166) back into the neo-liberal mainstream
of good producer consumers. However, I
question if exclusion is a passive action being done to them or if it isn’t
that they exclude themselves as an act of rebellion because ‘reality to a lot
of young people is bullshit’ (Momoh 2011).
DARKHOLE VILLAIN: ‘That’s it!
That’s it! You care about real
stuff. Stuff that hurts. You make me ask the question. About me.
Little sister, you make me think.
Think about what was wrong with me.
What did I lack in my liberation effort?
The revolution will not be televised.
That was a lie. They just forgot
to mention, we aren’t interested. The
Only Way is Essex! Why did I continue to
believe things will get a little bit better?
‘Coz I believed in my society, which made me the greatest second class
citizen in history!’[13]
Perhaps this raging against the system is a
hangover from New Labour’s Respect Agenda which proposed ‘to promote respect positively;
bear down uncompromisingly on anti-social behaviour’ (Home Office in Gaskell
2008:2). In a society which promotes ‘a
specific conceptualisation of... youth as potentially dangerous and in need of
(state) control’ (Gaskell 2008:3) and ‘unnecessary and excessive risk is
commonly associated with deviation from the... culturally determined norm’
(Harari 2009:174), perhaps the need to feel stretch and panic, whether a
negative or positive experience, has become an essential coping mechanism and
the level of mistrust of society’s dominant forces has led to a tendency to
react with what is commonly perceived to be ‘anti-social’ at any perceived
moment of objectification by the state.
However, to suggest that any of these young
people are really that radical would be misleading. As I have already proposed, the line between
reality and fiction is gossamer thin and the image of the revolutionary, I
suspect, is mostly fantasy (Momoh 2011).
This notion of fantastical, unrealistic thinking and that some young
people are ‘locked into a fantasy kind of idea about what [they] are capable of
doing and what [they] deserve’ (Johnston, C. 2004:109) is illustrated in a most
unnerving way by our last character.
Panic
RACHAEL: ‘Revenge
is a dish best served cold.’
Adela A.K.A. Rachael, if you remember, the award
winner for Best Vocalist at the post show celebrations, sees singing as a large
part of her identity. It was something she spoke about often and with
authority. Consequently, when she was asked
to sing in the show, she obliged willingly. She had two short songs, one near the
beginning and another to close the play.
However, at the tech rehearsal it became clear that the final song was problematic, sung acapella in an acoustically problematic space. Clearly struggling, Adela was singing the song
flat. Terry and I decided that perhaps we
could persuade her to cut the worst offending section and with my own training
as a singer, I might help her with some guidance on phrasing and
pitching. Having spoken to me about her
singing teacher, I assumed anything I had to say would be familiar to her. How wrong I was! As soon as the subject was broached, she
claimed to not understand what I was suggesting, looked at me as if to say
“What the hell do you know?” and with that, I saw the metaphorical shutters
lower over any window of opportunity to improve matters. ‘Are you OK?
I ask. ‘Yep, I’m fine’ says
Adela, and stomps off in the direction of the bathrooms. Suddenly panic hits
me. Had I been too harsh? Had I been undiplomatic in my approach? Had I not been constructive? I thought I had
developed a good rapport with her. I
tell Terry what has happened and she assures me it’s fine, but when we come to
that afternoon’s dress run, it is very clear everything is not fine. When Adela’s first line comes, there is a gap
in between cues you could drive a bus through, which is finally broken with the
most monotone, lacklustre, uninspiring response known to man. I see the eyes of cast members flick across
in confusion and I feel myself sink into my seat. She delivered every line of that run in the
same fashion, including the songs, slumped in her seat on stage in front of the
Artist Director of The Roundhouse, who had come to watch. There were also
threats to leave before the evening performance, sending a wave of panic
through the whole production. She didn’t leave, of course. This diva was going
nowhere. Later she claimed that it was
because during that week everyone had started to boss each other around a bit
too much and it had got out of hand[14],
but it is interesting that when I caught up with Terry a couple of weeks after
the end of the project she told me that Adela, who is also attends sessions at
Cardboard Citizens, is still ignoring her and she has alienated herself from
the rest of the cast of ‘Audition of Dreams’: apparently the feeling is mutual.
One last note on comfort, stretch and panic:
after the last performance, Terry sidles up to me in the pub and says “I’d have
never told you this before, but that’s the first play I’ve directed that wasn’t
Forum.”
Bibliography
Boal,
A. (2006) The rainbow of desire,
(trans. Jackson, A.), London & New York, Routledge.
Gallagher,
K. & Fine, M. (2007) The theatre of
urban : youth and schooling in dangerous times, Toronto, Buffalo,
University of Toronto Press.
Gaskell,
C. (2008) ‘”But they just don’t respect us”: Young people’s experiences of
(dis)respect citizenship and the New Labour Respect Agenda.’ in Children’s geographies, vol. 6, no. 3,
August 2008, London, Routledge: 223-238
Harari,
D. (2009) ‘Risk in performance: Facing the future, in Theatre Research International, vol.34, no.2, Cambridge, Cambridge
Journals: 173-179
Johnston,
C. (2004) ‘The Role of the Camshaft in Offender Rehabilitaion’ in Balfour, M.
(ed) Theatre in Prison: Theory and
Practice, Bristol and Portland, Intellect Books: 107-122
Madison,
D. Soyini (2005) Critical Ethnography:
Method, ethics and performance, London, Sage Publications Ltd.
Momoh,
E. (2011) Interview discussing the Set the Scene 2011 project, 27.4.11 (see
abridged transcript, Appendix D)
O’Leary,
T. (2011) Interview discussing the Set the Scene 2011 project, 26.4.11 (see
abridged transcript, Appendix B)
O’Reilly,
K. (2009) Key concepts in Ethnography,
London, Sage Publications Ltd.
Tierney,
J. (2011) Evaluative group discussion (I) with selected cast members, 14.4.11
(see abridged transcript, Appendix E)
Tierney,
J. (2011) Evaluative group discussion (II) with selected cast members, 14.4.11
(see abridged transcript, Appendix C)
Winston,
J. (2006) ‘Researching through case study’ in (ed.) Ackroyd, J. Research methodologies for drama education,
Trentham, Stoke on Trent: 41-62
[1]
Throughout, all characters and
dialogue devised by the participants, scripted by Terry O’Leary for ‘Audition
of Dreams’. Character of ‘Maddy' added by me as a device for this case
study. Any other exceptions are stated
separately.
[2]
Appendix A
[3]
Rap written by the actress
playing Desire, included in ‘Audition of Dreams’.
[4]
Field notes: said by the
actress playing Desire. Also Appendix B
[5]
Appendix B
[6]
Names of participants have
been changed throughout.
[7]
Appendix C
[8]
He had badgered me throughout
the project to give him a copy of my field notes to remind him of what we’d
done, but I suspect he was curious about why I found the process so fascinating
from an academic aspect.
[9]
Appendix D
[10]
Field notes.
[11]
Field notes.
[12]
Appendix E
[13]
Edited version of a poem
included in the play which Mark claimed to have written. I can not confirm or deny that his claim is
true.
[14]
Appendix E
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