Review: 'Gutted' by Rikki Beadle-Blair, at the Theatre Royal Stratford East

Last night, I saw a new play, ‘Gutted’, by Rikki Beadle-Blair at the Theatre Royal Stratford East.  First of all, let me say that this play is fantastic.  The writing provides a rich, hard-hitting story with characters that are sensitive, funny and sharply realised through Beadle-Blair’s direction, and I was utterly absorbed by it.  Dealing with current issues, the play’s main message is told through the conventions of family, in which children vow to grow up different to their parents, yet inevitably become their mothers and fathers and repeat the same mistakes that they made.  The character Frankie, a transgender black woman who is beautifully played by Ashley Campbell, confronts the Prospect family’s mother and asserts that this need not be so inevitable.  She says that there is always time to learn, to “become yourself”, the real meaning of which I will allow you to discover in going to see the play yourself.

But, what this production made me think about, beyond denying the penchant I share with my mother for excessive stationery shopping, is the idea of a play having something to confess.  In this instance, the real issue is told in stark stillness and silence through the chilling words of Matthew Prospect, deftly played by the electrifying James Farrar.  Despite revealing that his father used to molest him within the first few minutes, the sense that this is a secret that should be shared and yet, is being kept, remains throughout the play.  Him, his brothers and their mother are desperate to talk about it, which sparks a conversation between the performance and the audience which is honest and thought-provoking. We are inadvertently asked, “What would you do?  How would you make the situation better?” and are ultimately brought to recognise similar instances in real life.  Orion Lee, who I saw the play with, highlighted that theatre is always about human beings.  He said this in response to the effect of such a minimalist set design, in which the focus was rightly placed on the characters and the story.  But it is in this respect that theatre is a reflection of ourselves.  I have been told, many times, that the story that you cannot bear to write is exactly the one that you should.  What do we have to confess?

The question of whether it is a sort of fate that we become our parents is left open to interpretation, but we are invited to accept that sometimes it’s nice to be wrong.  Have there not been enough instances, in our own lives, where we wished to be wrong about something?  Ideas change with each new generation which, with any luck, means that we will one day live in a society devoid of racism, welcoming gay marriage and accepting that gender is nothing but a social construct.  But, this does not mean that previous generations are too old to learn.  To be “set in one’s ways” is irrelevant, and as the mother of the Prospect family comes to realise, keeping the truth a secret, whatever that truth may be, is detrimental to progress and improvement.  As a society and as people, we need to talk, and listen to plays such as this one.

Immersive Theatre and Theatre Delicatessen

I am continuing my little exploration into the divide between the audience and the actor.  I've been doing some reading on the work of Theatre Delicatessen, and found an interview by Charlotte Skeoch for Huffington Post with Roland Smith.  What intrigued me most in his responses, was this:

"For us, immersive theatre means immersing the audience in the world of the play. Key to this idea, however, is that the audience remain audience and performers remain performers. If the audience are present in the barracks, alongside the other squaddies, they will relate to King Henry in a different way to if they were seeing him from the stalls through a proscenium arch. You can't escape from the action, as it surrounds and engulfs you - and that is why it is so exciting."

 I like the idea of being engulfed by the action, but even beyond the proscenium arch, if the writing/direction/acting is good enough, an audience can still feel engulfed by what they see.  I will never forget Edward Bennett stepping on the Novello stage as Hamlet in 2009 to begin the "To be or not to be?" speech, and before even uttering a word, held the entire audience as if on a wisp of his breath.  He didn't need to move or speak for us to feel immersed in the play.  And, it is here that I begin to see that the whole stage, auditorium, foyer, bar and building are devoted to that silence, the invisible connection between actor and audience that tells the story of a play.  For me, this is what defines a great play, immersive or not: it is when it allows this silence to happen.

Audience, Actors, Equilibrium?

"One cannot have literature in the complete absence of language, or music in the complete absence of sound." (David Osipovich, 'What is a Theatrical Performance?' 2006)

So, I offer this old question, what is it that theatre can't do without?

When I think of a theatre, it's true that my initial image is of a red curtain, a proscenium arch and velvet fold-down seats. When I think a little more adventurously than this, I imagine something like the Cottesloe theatre at the National Theatre, or the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court: something that maintains the functions of lighting, sound, and a backdrop, but is open to experiment. Beyond that, I jump straight to a street scene, where a group of performers are surrounded by a clear-cut circle of spectators, clapping and dancing along to music from a stereo. In this scene, the backdrop is non-existent, if you want a seat you can sit on the floor, and the theatre bar is probably a nearby Pret A Manger or Wetherspoon pub. But what all of these images have in common is that the audience and the performers are separate to each other. It is they who are engaged by the performers, whereby a margin between them is created. Nay, unavoidable.

I've written before about how I view a potential in theatre that takes a step further than 'breaking' the fourth wall, by instead extending it. Immersive experiences such as the work of Theatre Delicatessen or Secret Cinema come somewhat close, where the audience are part of the action, but what if the script were to depend on the audience? Of course, the audience and the performers are already in mutual respect of their need for each other for a production to take place. To create the unique mood of a performance, a play needs the laughter, tears, coughs and sneezes of the audience as much as it needs the words and gestures of the actor. It is in this respect that no performance is ever the same as the next, like tea, or a sunset, or the way leaves grow on a tree. But what if they really needed each other? What if the play could not exist without that very audience? And here, I don't mean those productions that utilise the sounds and movements of the audience to narrate the action on stage, because in that way the audience become the act. No, what I am searching for is an equilibrium.

The closest thing I have seen to this was a piece of street theatre in Covent Garden. The performer had placed a ladder against a pillar of the market place, taken a seat in the audience, and joined us in applauding the ladder. He asked a man to time how long he could juggle swords for, and physically moulded us into the shape of an audience that allowed others to pass through the market, unheeded by our presence. In this way, the audience, essentially, consisted of the whole of the market, because hearing or seeing him was unavoidable. We needed to see him to understand the commotion, and when we applauded the ladder, we looked to him for guidance as to why or for how long. Likewise, his act would not have existed were it not for us. But can we bring this equilibrium into a theatre? In honesty, I don't know how, or what it would look like. But I am confident that if my idea of it exists, then it can too.