Download Forum Theatre: Performance as Research?

Warwick University PG Conference
May 2014
Forum Theatre:
Performance as Research?
Julie Hudson
Materials used with the permission of Cardboard Citizens..
Photo 6th Mar 2014
Warwick Research Interests
• Thesis
– The environment on stage; the impact and efficacy of ecotheatre.
– Event research – audience reception research.
– Identifying theatre productions that successfully shift the
environmental perspective of their audiences and
communities. (c.f. Kershaw 1992)
• Cardboard Citizens Project
– Theatre seeking to shift perspectives on homelessness.
– Forum theatre - Performance as Research
– Opportunity to test out the idea of efficacy in another
context.
Glasshouse by Kate Tempest
• Rhea, Jess, Paul. Sundry small characters played
by Kathryn Bond.
• In a nutshell:
– Jess is 18, living with her mum and step-dad in his
house. Rhea wants to follow her dream instead of
washing up and working on the checkout. Paul’s
struggling at work. Jess is trying to find herself (and a
job).
– Two fights (Jess/girlfriend, and Jess/Paul/Rhea).
– Downward spiral – homelessness, job loss, baby.
www.cardboardcitizens.org.uk
Forum Theatre as Audience Reception
Research?
• Watch the play.
• Decide whose perspective
you want to explore.
• Offer solutions. “Where
might you have done things
differently?” (Joker).
• Actors replay a scene, you
shout STOP.
• Opposite the relevant actor,
you, the spectactor, play
out how you think it should
have gone.
Roundhouse London, 15th May 2014
Terminology: Joker - forum theatre facilitator.
Spectactor – spectator-turned-actor.
Cast
Johanna Allitt –
Rhea
Kathryn Bond –
Rachel, Clint, Reg,
Pickles, Jackie.
Michelle Cobb- Jess
Andre Skeete – Paul
Adrian Jackson - Joker
Terry O’Leary - Joker
Kerry Norridge Understudy
St. Helens Central
Library, 24th April
Theatre Event as Dialogue
• ‘When spectators observe the actors, they actively
participate in an event, the theatrical performance […]
as a co-creative participant.’ (Sauter, 2010)
• ‘Conventional theatre is governed by an intransitive
relationship, in that everything travels from stage to
auditorium. […] Lest the magic of the stage be
shattered, silence is required. In the theatre of the
oppressed, by contrast, dialogue is created. This
theatre asks its audience questions and expects
answers.’ (Boal, 1998).
Feedback Form as Audience
Engagement
• ‘I understood the play better after the forum.
If I hadn’t experienced the forum, I would
never have wanted to fill in a four-page feedback form. But, the feedback form took me on
another step in my understanding of the play.’
(Spectator, in the bar, Battersea Arts Centre,
March 2014).
Listening-to-the-Audience-as-Research
The Curve. April 2014.
Corby, January 2014
Research Questions
• Research questions
– What impact did the play have? How did the
audience react to it?
– Is there a relationship between the reaction to the
play and the reaction to the forum?
– Co-creative participation – Evidence of Impact?
• Methodologies
– The audience survey – What did the audience think?
– Documenting audience reactions on the spot.
– Observing spectacular spectactorial performativity!
Size Seems to Matter for Audience Surveys
Response rate
Performances
Audience Number
The Word Cloud Game
• Did the audience take a view on one of the
three main characters?
– Word selection: prominent words or phrases from
the text (e.g. ‘out of control’), or about the
behaviour seen in the play (e.g. ‘in denial’).
– Instruction on the form: “Choose one character
and think about how they came across to you.
Draw a circle round any word you agree with.
Cross out anything you disagree with.”
Methodology note: Semantic
differentials rejected as less likely
GENTLE
than a game to engage the
audience.
SELFISH
CONTROLLING
LOVING
DOING THE RIGHT THING
CARING
IMPULSIVE
DISHONEST
UNLUCKY
STUPID
JEALOUS
OUT-OF-CONTROL
DESTRUCTIVE
CONFUSED
TRAPPED
BULLY
SELF-INDULGENT
IN THE WRONG
STRESSED
VIOLENT
VICTIM
SUPPORTIVE
RUNNING IN CIRCLES
IN DENIAL
IN THE RIGHT
MISUNDERSTOOD
REASONABLE
DESERVES BETTER
UNCARING
AFFECTIONATE
Cloud Sparks Creativity
A shift in
perspective,
greater
complexity
after the
forum.
Evidence that
the play , and
then the
forum, had an
impact on this
spectator.
Hypothetical Responses
Playing Games: What the Audience Did
Audience Profiling Characters
RHEA
PAUL
70%
70%
60%
60%
50%
50%
40%
40%
30%
30%
20%
20%
10%
10%
0%
0%
The Forum – Feedback Forms
• You can have the conversation you normally
have after the play with the audience.
• After the forum I understood Paul better. I
could empathise with him more.
• Before the forum I thought Rhea was
powerless. After the forum I realised she had
agency.
• After the forum I could see how hard it was to
change the outcome for Jess.
Listening to the Audience
• Evidence of audience engagement?
– In the play: Laughter (singly, in groups, in ripples).
Sighs. Clapping/applause. Cheers. Whoops. Other
noises: sssss, ooooo, arrgg, yuk, oh no!, foot-banging
– In the forum: Laughter (singly, in groups, in ripples).
Sighs. Clapping/applause. Cheers. Whoops. Other
noises: sssss, ooooo, arrgg, yuk, oh no!, foot-banging
and, the “buzz” (audience in discussion).
• All plays are different.
– Benchmarking the sound-points in the play.
Idea inspired by the Meyerhold notation.
Counting Noises:
Sounds per Spectator Minute
• A. Single noise. 1, 2, 3 etc.
• B. Group noise. 1, 2, 3, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 * the number
in the audience.
• C. The spectator minute. Duration of the play or
(as appropriate) the forum in minutes * the
number in the audience = total spectator
minutes.
• D. Total number of noises = A + B (for play,
forum).
• Intensity of reaction = D/C for each of the play
and the forum.
39 Performances
Play Accounts for 31% of Variance in Forum Noise
25 Performances (No Theatres)
Play Accounts for 38% of Variance in Forum Noise
21 Performances (No Theatres or HMPs)
Play Accounts for 51% of Variance in Forum Noise
Re-Writing the Play (1)
• "Jess" : Hopping theatrically around holding onto her fist (laughs from the
audience).
• Paul: You think you're a big woman now?
• "Jess": No, but you thought I was last night. (Oooo from the audience). Mum.
Sorry. I didn't want to tell you this way. I got home and Paul came back, and
found me crying in the dark. He was trying to make me feel better.
• Paul: It's true so far.
• "Jess": And we kissed.
• Paul: This is not true and you f***ing hit me. (Oooo from the audience).
• Rhea: Why would you say this, Jess?
• Paul: (getting louder and louder) She punched me and now I'm supposed to
have kissed her.
• Joker: Is this progress?
• Audience: No. We had a bit of fun but it didn't get us anywhere. She needs to
get her mum on her own.
• Source: Notes, Leicester Curve performance.
Re-Writing the Play (2)
• "Paul": What we 'avin? Curry'll do me. I've got something I need to talk about.
Something's happened. I've been made redundant. But don't worry. I'll get
some redundancy, about three grand, and I'll start a little business.
• Rhea: That's wonderful my darling.
• "Paul": And there's something else. You know I smoke a spliff now and again?
(Pause. Puts his hands over his face). You know, I don't think I can tell you?
• Rhea: Tell me what? What? Is it cancer?
• "Paul": I'm not gonna die. That would be much worse. As I tell you this I want
you to think about how much worse that would be.
• Rhea: WHAT.
• "Paul": I'm not gonna die but I kissed Jess by accident.
• Rhea: You kissed my daughter.
• "Paul": She was upset, crying and everything. It was an accident.
• (Rhea whacks him with a tea towel, and moves away from him to hug Jess).
• Joker: (raises her eyebrows at the spectactor).
• Spectactor/Paul hybrid?: I thought I'd clear the air. What I wanna do is say
sorry to Jess.
Source: Notes, HMP Wandsworth performance.
Evidence of Impact and Efficacy?
• At the most basic: feedback form response-rate (based on
Stage Manager’s show reports, data not final).
• Word-cloud as evidence that the audience is taking a view
on the characters, and that view changes with the forum.
• Other feedback form questions e.g. about what made
spectactors come to the stage.
• Sound-point notation and regression as evidence of an
active dynamic between the play and the forum.
• The content of forum interventions as evidence that people
empathised with actors and characters, that the play
connected to people’s lives.
Primary Materials
Venues Visited by the Citz Glass House 2014
Feedback Forms
Type of Venue
Audience
Performances Percent
Hostel or Related Specialist Services
116
71
41
37
52
31%
23%
39%
45%
27%
59%
1066
317
13
23%
10
18%
--------------
1287
838
2125
25%
Theatre for Hostels
6
11%
Youth (16-25) Foyer or YMCA
7
13%
Youth Theatres
3
5%
3
5%
--------------
TOTAL SPECIALIST
33
London Mainstream Theatres
--------------
Regional Mainstream Theatres
TOTAL GENERALIST
Overall Total
---------------------------
Response RtePerformances
378
310
105
83
190
14
Prisons
Forms
Observer
23
41%
--------------
56
100%
========= =========
Percent
14
29%
4
8%
5
10%
2
4%
3
6%
--------------
30%
28
58%
302
187
23%
22%
10
21%
10
21%
--------------
489
23%
-------------- --------------
-------------- --------------
3191
806
==================
25%
--------------
---------------------------
=========
20
48
42%
--------------
100%
=========
Source: Audience numbers from Stage Manager’s show report therefore still an estimate.
Bibliography
• Boal, Augusto (2008). The Theatre of the Oppressed
(London: Pluto Press).
• Boal, Augusto (1998). Legislative Theatre. Using
Performance to Make Politics. Translated by Adrian
Jackson (1998), Loc 556.
• Kershaw, Baz (1992). The Politics of Performance
(London and New York: Routledge).
• Sauter, Willmar (2010) ‘Thirty Years of Reception
Studies: Empirical, Methodological and Theoretical
Advances’, in About Performance 10, pp. 241-63.
• Tempest, Kate (2013). Glasshouse (Unpublished
manuscript).
Creative Team
Production
Team
Writer – Kate
Tempest
Director – Adrian
Jackson
Designers –
Stephanie Johns
and Hannah
Jerrom
Sound Design
and Composition
– Arun Ghosh
Additional Sound
Design – Giles
Ashong
Lighting Design –
Peter Higton
Fight Direction –
Austin Spangler
Voice Coach –
Tim Charrington.
Tour
Producers:
Sarah Sansom
(Time Won’t
Wait). Rowan
Rutter.
Production
Manager –
Bernd Fauler.
Stage
Manager –
Alix Lencz
Marketing
and Press
Petia Tzanova.
Alix Lencz setting up in St. Helens
Central Libary.