Museums with beer?
Most plays in Oxford are shit; as the discerning audiences who saw Hedda Gabler the other week will testify. Fortunately, the Government, fuelled by an unmeasurable hatred towards Johannes Leistner, are pushing through a Licensing Bill that will make it illegal for spaces to be used for rehearsal without a license. In his unstoppable drive to scupper the staging of another overlong Ibsen play, Kim Howells is willing to destroy all amateur theatre in the UK.
But would this really be a bad thing? Plays are the standard against which Homer Simpson assesses how boring something is. And what is the point of forking out over a fiver for something that doesn't even have scenery?
Next week is the OUDS New Writing Festival, showcasing four winning shows that were chosen by a panel including Suzanne Bell, and Jessica Dromgoole, Co-ordinator of the BBC New Writing Initiative. RADA and LAMDA alumni swan into Oxford and watch sailors bum each other (2001). There will be the "comic observance of student life" in The Fine Art of Falling to Pieces; or "the exploration of the darker aspects of human relationships" in Splitting Anna. The War against Terror gets tickled in Retrospect whilst "surreal and menacing events" occur in this year's winner, Too Much the Sun. As far as I can tell, the event has the tagline, "Even Shakespeare had to start somewhere (admittedly not here)."
Does Brian Mullin, author of Retrospect, think there's any point in the NWF? "Oh, it's the best thing about Oxford drama. At Yale we had very little student written drama - lots of interest in drama, but new writing was kind of looked down upon. But a week of four new plays sort of validates them, in a way they wouldn't otherwise have been. It's important because the lifeblood of theatre is new plays."
Retrospect is a good play. It has flourishes of brilliance such as the sublime moment when an Eastern European war criminal, Igocheck, presents his defence as the US President. Retrospect's marketing focuses on the satirical, political aspects but the more disturbing, powerful moments arise from the attack on reality and language, through circles of performance within performance.
Mullin uses words like "kernel" and tastefully provides the sound effects, vocally, for the press preview. He has the collar and glasses to suggest he shouldn't be anything else other than a writer. Small wonder, then, that his NWF play also won the International Student Playscript Competition, judged by Alan Ayckbourn.
The NWF has garnered its share of national recognition. Last year's Muswell Hill won a Sunday Times award for its author, Tom Green and he joined the NSDF ensemble to produce a show in Birmingham. So, acclaim, fame and fortune for the few. Great. "It's easy just to churn out the old classics that got studied at A Level, but the NWF is the antithesis of this. It's more about, 'What have we got to say?' It's important that we find our voice in theatre," says OUDS co-president, Ilan Goodman.
The NWF, NSDF and International Student Playscript awards all sound cool and everything but would it really matter if it all just died? "Theatre is part of a much wider culture of examining and experiencing, challenging and changing; the NWF is the epitome of this. If we were to lose the NWF, then we'd silence an important forum." We'd shut students up? "That makes it sound like a good thing. Students should have the confidence to be high-minded and creative and stick their necks out."
Anthony Hawkins has stuck his neck out producing plays around Oxford on numerous occasion and was the one who brought the Licensing Bill to Oxford's attention. Would the world really be that bad without student drama? "I think life would be terrible without student drama. It provides an activity for lots of strange people in Oxford who would otherwise have to integrate with normal society." And other than Oxford thesps? "I think student drama is a huge part of life in Oxford. Thousands come to see Playhouse shows and hundreds OFS shows each term."
"This won't just affect student drama, but also anyone with an interest in amateur dramatics. The annual budget for amdram groups may not be able to extend to £500 a year for rehearsal venue. It also attacks the traditional routes that we find cultural talent in this country."
What about NWF? "The festival is one of the best things that OUDS does." But would it be affected by the Bill? "As much as student drama in general. Are colleges going to be willing to shell out for rehearsal licenses? It raises the prospect of charging for just conducting rehearsal; the physical space for student drama will be diminished."
It's theatre's physical space that appeals to Mullin the most. He quotes Brecht's assertion that, "Theatre without beer is a museum." He does, however, concur with me that, "Eighty per cent of theatre is irrelevant; it rarely lives up to its potential. So it has to be the goal of anyone in theatre who wants to advance it to make it relevant." So what if it died? "If theatre in general died, it would be horrible!"
"If we say theatre is an outmoded form, there'd be a loss of human connection. In a way, theatre is an anti-globalising force because it is local and specific. It celebrates difference and specificity. Theatre isn't like a movie, it's unstable. Every performance is specific and once it's over it's gone. If we were to lose it, we'd be leaving art as a communal form. Cyberspace and cinema don't allow for that same form of connection. The best theatre makes you aware that lots of people are together in a room, in a space, even if they don't want to be."
Theatre lives (sometimes wheezes) in that space we call culture; the space we have difficulty defining and adequately describing what it's good for. I suppose, at least, with the NWF we have a chance to make a stab at articulating what the point is in theatre; why anyone would put pen to paper, or strut about in front of their friends in a silly voice. If nothing else it gives psychologists a chance to do some proper research into truly abnormal behaviour.
13th Feb 2003