Six months work is a long time for what is essentially a small youth project, most average scale tours would take less time. But then this hasn’t been your usual ‘small’ project. A piece of theatre, devised by 3 separate youth groups, directed by 3 directors, designed by 3 designers, all merged to make one play performed by the different parties in, Brynamman, Wales, Slough, England and Nelson, New Zealand. No, certainly not the usual thing you see in theatres, anywhere!
I’d first like to say a massive well done and thanks to everyone involved, it really has been a collaborative effort, and there in lies the ‘something’ that has made this project very different indeed. Collaboration’s.
Theatre is by its nature a collective and a highly collaborative experience, where different people with different ideas come together to produce a play/performance/piece of art, for an audience in a live situation. But with Strangers, how the play was made, the very sharing of ideas and melding of cultures, personalities, and the journeys taken, were the celebrated basis for the performance, rather than a component hidden form the audiences attention.
This is all unique to Strangers, and because it is unique, it has to be seen as a grand experiment. For me it was ultimately rewarding, even if the path was at times unclear. Communication was key in this, as it would be in any theatre show, but because of the nature of the project it was vital, and a lack of it would have been catastrophic. So the Blog is brilliant, an almost uncharted venue with which to show and explore ideas. It really helped when you needed to check you were going in the same direction as everyone else. Also, the 8pm/9am Wales - New Zealand production meetings, yet another unique aspect to this project. If anything, there could have been more sharing, but saying this, when do you stop sharing and start actually doing?
So, going into this not really knowing what to expect, meant it was easier to take it as it comes, trying to ground the design in the ideas of my group, as well as respecting what was happening in the other camps, this was a personal challenge for me, and one that attracted me to the project. I did have reservations however, over what we could achieve; not forgetting that this was an experiment. An experiment with a new youth theatre comprised of young people, most of whom had never devised or acted in theatre before. But I was to learn, the journey and the process was just as important to the projects ethos as the performance itself. Because as said before, the process was celebrated not kept in the theatre wings.
In fact what we created was of excellent quality. I love working with young people, you often find that they uncomplicated things and come up with amazingly clear ideas. Multiple that by three youth companies and something special happens. In particular the scene with Lt. Charles on a bench, (on the projection screen, in New Zealand) talking to Julie sat on a bench on stage (in Wales), while the ghosts of who they are discussing Waltz around stage. A scene not only symbolic of journeys and strangers, but describing perfectly the power in the collaboration. If you were to witness this done by a National Theatre, it would be celebrated and talked about for years. This just one moment of many; not forgetting ghosts coming through the cinema screen and the physical theatre creation of the black mountain, moments all worthy of a larger stage.
I learnt a lot on Strangers as I hope did all involved. With the Slough end of the project still to go, it will interesting to see in months to come how this project is viewed. But one thing is clear, ‘the experiment‘, whether successful or not, this time or next. It’s very process and collaboration has given young people an insight into different worlds and opened up the arts in a very unpretentious and non-school-type way. Long may learning like this continue.
Alex Robertson
