The Tempest (not as we know it, Scottie)

In my last blog I expressed my gratitude to ‘Forced Entertainment’ – Is there something accidentally betrayed in the name? You will enjoy this cutting edge theatre, or else! – for the supply of helpful terminology. Theatre must ‘excite, frustrate’, still not sure about that one, ‘challenge, question, entertain’ and ‘confuse’. Errm. Yes. Not sure still about that either, except that there must be some degree of challenge or we leave our audiences just where they were before and, maybe, when they have finished their journey with us, we need to drop them off a little further on from their bus stop, just to give them a little bit of cultural exercise?

 

 Well, this week I saw a piece of theatre – theatre, yes, or rather ‘theatre but not as we know it, Scottie’ – that really did blow me away (Note my efforts at contemporary from the hip lingo). It was Kate Tempest’s ‘Brand New Ancients’ at The Royal Court. Let me apply the FE–ometer to begin with. (Forced Entertainment! Come on! Catch up!) Did it excite me? Good lord! Yes! Did it frustrate? Errr, no. Did it challenge? Absolutely. Like a sentry’s bayonet at my throat! Did it question? Ditto. Did it entertain? In cart loads. Did it confuse? (Pause, while he thinks.) Yes, at times it did - and in little ways, but not without a series of mini-epiphanies (which suggests FE might have a point).

 

For a bit of background to help things along, Kate Tempest is a young person. Not exactly a ‘youff’; she’s 24. Not a grisly like me, in other words. She left school early and spent some time homeless before making a few waves as a rap artist. Began writing plays (success in Edinburgh). Among them ‘Glass House’ for theatre for the homeless company, Cardboard Citizens, and ‘Wasted’ and ‘Hopelessly Devoted’ for Paines Plough. I’m not sure that’s the right order – and won the Ted Hughes Prize for innovation in poetry. Sit up and listen! This is a serious artist.

 

The theatre experience? Well, the ‘set’ was just the band with a mic stand for Kate. She was the only ‘actor’. (More on that anon.) A very complicated drum kit with a lot of electronic things that were new to me. A tuba with an ENORMOUS mute the size of a dustbin! Literally! Something I would have given my right eye for when I was a teacher! A violinist and a cellist. There was a lighting scheme, not dissimilar but on a smaller scale to that at a rock concert. The music was ‘classical’ - without being Classical at all - fed through the electronic ‘things’. Stockhausen, but more friendly. Kate comes on and talks to us. She chats in her Sarf London accent. She wants us to relax. Hopes we don’t get ‘fucking bored’ (Her words not mine). It’s a 90% young person’s audience, by the way. Twenty and thirty somethings. I kept my head down. If this is theatre she’s broken several rules already. She helpfully tells us, however, that she hasn’t actually started yet. It’s not Brecht. Not alienation technique. She just hasn’t started.

 

Then the lights dim and she starts. Inexplicably a deep resonant emotion wells up inside me and I begin to cry. Privately. I don’t want to appear a wimp. Besides, it might be just because I know she was homeless. Perhaps I’m just pleased for her because she’s ‘made it’. Maybe it’s because she’s young and the father in me is reaching out to her. Maybe, perhaps all of those things a bit. She raps. But the rhymes are tucked away. Subtle. If words were flowers hers were picked in the cracks between paving slabs. The unmown corners of suburban litter strewn recreation grounds. By the side of railway tracks. She is no Marvell or Donne. But the words breathe. They rustle and hiss – and underneath are the rhymes and rhythms (tucked away) conveying it orderly along.

 

It strikes me she’s a bit like a gospel preacher, especially when the words swell up and burst from her as they do from time to time (in alternate waves and troughs). Is she in fact an actor at all, or just some sort of pedant shouting at me to ‘get real’ about the pain of her life and that of her kindred? Pain certainly pervades at a subcutaneous level. If she isn’t an actor, then is it really theatre? Yet she isn’t preaching as such.

 

I’ll use Pete’s cutting-edge-ometer again to test it out. Is there a good story? There is a ‘Sarf London’ story of poverty. (Spoiler coming up.) He dies (in Thailand with his Thai bride smiling at him). Taken out of context it doesn’t seem much, but I really did want to know what was going to happen next – and the ending did hit me between the eyes. Why should I care that this down and out died in Thailand with his cute little sex slave? But I did. So that’s theatre at least. And did her voice tell me a story? It really did control me with its rhythm and cadences. And did her body tell a story? She was clearly not a trained actor. How do I know? Well, there is a paraphernalia of performance, a way of moving, certain give away devices (Actors have habits and short-cuts), a self-consciousness about performance, the sort of stuff that makes it difficult for a theatre director like me to take some acting seriously - because I can see through it. Yet she did take on a role. The word ‘possessed’ springs to mind. I am an atheist and absolute non-believer in the spirit realm by the way. Yet the words and characters did seem to ‘possess’ her. When she sat she rocked like a disturbed child. When she stood she swayed. Her arms moved and hands flicked as if she were poking at invisible objects. I have seen some of these movements among rappers before and from young black men. It is a highly expressive and almost involuntary movement of the streets. Part defensive, part chin up saying: This is what I am. So if she is not an actor, what is she? Maybe we need to distinguish between different kinds of acting. Acting by definition implies that someone has taken on a role – and she certainly did, and just as quickly snapped out of it when she was ready to.

 

This was indeed ‘theatre, not as we know it’ and that probably makes it the first example in my quest for ‘cutting edge’ – unless it is just a return to the beginning. The witch doctor. The adept of the tribe. The priest. Maybe it is all acting. According to Pete’s cutting-edge-ometer, she certainly controlled me like a priest and seduced me like a whore. Maybe ‘cutting edge’ is about going back to the beginning. Seeing again. Afresh. A kind of ‘possession’.  

 

I had intended to talk more about Henry Goodman this week in his wonderfully physical role as Arturo Ui, but I have been waylaid. Maybe that’s the point. ‘Cutting edge’ and ‘breaking barriers’ stops us in our tracks. It waylays us. I will go back to Henry Goodman next week. In the meantime I look forward to seeing Forced Entertainment’s ‘Tomorrow’s Parties’. We shall see.