His Teeth

Continuing on my prison related theatre theme, last night I went to see His Teeth from creative arts company, Only Connect.  I am quite familiar with Only Connect as an organisation because I wrote a case study about their work in the resettlement and rehabilitation of ex-offenders for my dissertation.  However, I had never actually seen a full production by them.

His Teeth, written by Ben Musgrove, is inspired by the stories of Only Connect member Ralph Ojotu and tells the tale of a young man, Eric (Kareem Dauda) who comes to the UK illegally from Lagos, only to find himself under the control of human traffickers Roger (Dymond Allen) and Derek (Junior 'Mila' Miller).  Unable to run because of his illegal status, Eric finds himself minding trafficked children and is irresistibly drawn to drug addict Sarah (Eleanor Wyld).  Unfortunately for Eric, Sarah also happens to be Derek's girlfriend and when they finally do manage to run away together, Derek brutally murders (by decapitation) a young boy who was in Eric's care, thus framing Eric for the murder. The plot is complicated by a sub-plot involving the police officer (Harry Raffety) who becomes obsessed with not only catching Eric, but also with Sarah. A confident Harry Raffety handles his character's slightly bizarre progression very convincingly, but despite this, the narrative is often confusing and would possibly have benefitted from further dramaturgical work.

However, Designer Takis' gauze box, inside which the majority of the action takes place and the projection work of Mic Pool, leads us on an atmospheric journey from the jungles of Nigeria, to the council estates of London and are used to great effect to suggest the paranoid and drug-addled mental states of the characters.  Having said that, the gauze box at times was limiting as it meant that often the characters appeared to be in 'soft-focus', which was appropriate sometimes, but I personally would have liked to have been able to see the often nuanced performances of the actors.

Which brings me to the real revelation of the piece: the cast.  The majority of the actors are ex-offenders or at least have a some point been at risk of offending and similarly they have had no or little theatrical training prior to joining O.C.  Only Connect prides itself on producing professional standard theatre (as it's ticket prices will attest!) and certainly the production values here would not have looked out of place in any mid-scale theatre.  Often I suspect people are generally kinder when critiquing theatre staged with non-actors and this practice is open to debate when paying audiences are involved, but certainly these actors could hold their own with any seasoned professional.  While one must give great credit to Director, Maggie Norris for coaxing such detailed work out of her inexperienced cast, Kareem Dauda in particular, brought such vulnerability and poignancy to the role of Eric and, as the central character, he held the play together with great aplomb. Dauda is due to start professional training in the new year and despite his hang-doggedness about the lack of agents willing to come and see an ex-offender during our conversation after the show, I have no doubt that he has a good chance of being able to secure more paid acting work in the future.

Think Tank, New Philanthropy Capital recently published their research into the economic value of the arts in the criminal justice system and coincidentally use Only Connect as a case study in this report. There has also been much general discussion about the economic value of the arts in our society of late, however, much of this discussion, I feel misses the point.  Yes, there are transferable skills to be gained through participation in the arts which will improve people's chances of employment or, in the case of offenders, reduce the economic consequences of crime by reducing re-offending.  However, the focus on the economic is only half the story.  The sense of achievement to be gained from taking a bow at the end of a performance or seeing your artwork exhibited or your writing published cannot be measured in economic terms, especially when one considers that 42% of male prisoners (52% for young offenders) were permanently excluded from school (Prison Reform Trust 2011:54) and that only one in five are able to complete a job application form (ibid.).  If you have already been failed or betrayed by the mainstream avenues to becoming a functioning member of society, these not insignificant moments of victory can be a powerful catalyst to change, after all, many prisoners haven't even been particularly successful in crime or they wouldn't be in custody in the first place!

Director, Chris Johnston (of Rideout, Creative Arts for Rehabilitation) writes excellently about the 'easy dreaming' (Johnston in Balfour 2004:107-122) of the offender which often involves fantastical, but poorly thought through solutions to problems.  He goes on to say 'the act of dreaming is a kind of self-hypnosis in which unsustainable aspirations are buckled on like the armour of ancient warriors' (ibid.)  This dreaming, whilst often being compensatory and escapist, is of course a product of incredible imaginative powers and it is these imaginative powers which, when channelled in a more structured way, can allow the opportunity for participants in arts projects to explore these poorly written personal narratives, articulate the inarticulable and begin to imagine new personal narratives or at least entertain the possibility of their existence.

In the case of His Teeth, and also of Unprovoked (see previous blog post) for Ojotu, Foley and the actors, being given the opportunity to tell these stories, has, no doubt in their own ways, been transformative for the tellers and for the audience a chance to consider what one's own narrative might have been in similar circumstances. While everyone will take something different from stories such as these, one cannot put a price on these experiences.  As Einstein once said 'Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.'*

*Thanks to whoever it was at the recent Anne Peaker Debate who expressed something similar!