Some thoughts on theatre and politics

In the last couple of months I've seen a fair amount of theatre that addresses, directly or indirectly, the rise of nationalism in this country, particularly in the East End of London. There was A Day at the Racists at the Finborough (then again at The Broadway, Barking), Moonfleece at the Riverside Studios, Ten Years From Now, a work-in-progress presentation by young people in Thurrock, Essex, and this past Friday, Pressure Drop at the Wellcome Collection. 

Back at the beginning of March I wrote a blog post for the Guardian about the effect this type of theatre might or might not have on ordinary voters’ opinions of the BNP. I argued then that presenting plays about the rise of nationalism to liberal, middle-class people (as most theatre audiences tend to be) didn’t have much hope of changing the political landscape. I still think that’s true, but seeing A Day at the Racists in Barking and listening to the responses of the audience at the post-show Q&A (where I sat on the panel alongside the author, Anders Lustgarten, among others) was a very encouraging experience. 

The audience was more racially diverse than that at the Finborough, where the play ran before coming to the Broadway (see my review for whatsonstage.com), but appeared essentially the same in terms of its political leanings. The difference however was in this audience’s reaction to the work put before them: they were thrilled that these issues were being addressed in the environment that created them. One woman admitted to having felt the same frustrations as the characters she had just watched, as well as a leaning towards the BNP as the only party that appeared to address the needs of local people. For this audience member, the second half of the play, where the true nature of the BNP is revealed and main character comes to understand that the party’s racist ideology is at odds with all his beliefs, was extremely instructive. It opened her eyes to the political and ideological game-playing going on around her.

A Day at the Racists only performed one night at the Broadway, but the overwhelmingly feeling from the audience was a desire that it return for a proper run so that more of the local community are able to see these issues being played out in front of them. There was also a call for the play to be ‘on TV’. Just think of the number of prospective voters who would be able to see it then.

I also wrote about Philip Ridley’s Moonfleece in my Guardian blog, which led to me being asked to host a panel discussion with the playwright following a performance at the Riverside Studios. The production is a fine one and the play a brilliant piece of storytelling, but I had difficulty with the way that the producers sold Moonfleece to the media as a sort of cure-all for bigoted thinking in disadvantaged areas. 

During the Q&A Philip Ridley responded to a question on this subject that he hadn’t written the play to make a political point or to persuade anyone of anything. I believe him, but that viewpoint is certainly at odds with the producers’ implied aim as described in the show’s press release. The show’s director, David Mercatali, attempted to explain that the tour to “some of the UK's most disadvantaged areas” was just about taking the show to some more unusual venues, but I left the theatre with my sense of dissatisfaction intact. Perhaps that’s my problem, not Moonfleece’s, however, as the producers did follow through and take the production into schools at the various places they toured it to, thereby reaching lots of people they couldn’t have hoped to reach without doing so.

At around this same time the lovely Amber Massie-Blomfield of Mobius PR, having heard what I was up to, invited me along to a work-in-progress performance by a group of young people in Thurrock, Essex. Following a development process lasting several weeks and involving thousands of teenagers, a company called Theatre Is… selected 20 young people to create and present a piece of work in response to issues affecting their community. The show I saw, Ten Years From Now, included spoken word, break dance, body popping and rap. It was a bit rough around the edges, but the young people involved, most of whom had no previous experience of theatre, were clearly passionate about what they doing. Theatre Is… have found an effective way of interesting young people from deprived backgrounds in theatre, as well as helping them to engage with the changes taking place in the world around them. Taking politically-themed theatre into communities that don’t usually see it – as A Day at the Racists and Moonfleece have done – is a good start, but the work that Theatre Is… is doing looks like it actually might begin to make a difference.

All that said however, I don’t think that theatre necessarily needs to affect change directly in order to be worthwhile. Even if an audience is limited to a fairly narrow band of society, theatre still has the potential to make people reexamine their own prejudices and to be entertained while they're at it. What I think these works do, or have done, most successfully is to highlight the reasons why ordinary people are tempted to vote for the BNP and parties like them. The media reports that the BNP is gaining ground and that this is because they are managing to fool ignorant people into voting for them. This may be partly the case, but ignores an important aspect of the situation: that the people tempted to vote for the BNP have real and valid grievances that no one else appears to be addressing. 

Anders Lustgarten, author of A Day at the Racists, makes this point with his exploration of the concerns of the former-Labour-activist-turned-BNP-campaigner, Pete Case (see my review for more on this). Mick Gordon, co-author (along with Barking-bred singer Billy Bragg) of Pressure Drop, does the same thing with the character of Jack Clegg (played with great sensitivity by Michael Gould), a decent man who is nearly persuaded to seek election as a BNP councillor because he feels so powerless in the face of the changes occurring in his home-town.

By forcing their audiences to empathise with the characters they present, these plays make it impossible for the left-wing liberal arts community to continue to patronise those considering voting for the BNP. We are taken into the living rooms of those whose outlook we have previously failed to understand and asked to consider what we might do in their situation. Pressure Drop is particularly effective in this respect as the piece's promenade nature means that we are quite literally led into domestic and social scenarios where characters are expounding views alien to our own. The play also powerfully presents us with an image of ourselves in the character of Jon, the working-class-boy-made-good who comes home to Essex brandishing liberal sensibilities along with his expensive-looking luggage. Jon (played by Justin Salinger) expresses his abhorrence of the racist ideas expounded by Jack’s best friend, Tony, but we can’t help but feel that Jack has a point when he says that Jon relinquished his right to judge when he ran away from the place that made him.

It’s too late to see Moonfleece and A Day at the Racists as their runs have now finished (although there are whisperings that the play will run at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe), and Ten Years From Now was a one-off work-in-progress performance (though have a look at Theatre Is...’s website for information on further events), but you can still see Pressure Drop until 12 May and I heartily recommend that you do. And speaking of recommendations, seeing the 'part play, part gig, part installation' this weekend made me pick up the book that inspired Gordon to approach Bragg about writing a theatre piece together. It's called The Progressive Patriot and it's really very good.