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learning resources 2 There are protestors outside the performance of a play I’m seeing. What do I do? Protecting our Freedom to Write and Read English PEN believes in the freedom to write and the freedom to read. When anyone’s freedom is being challenged, we can help them – and so can you. PEN believes that free speech isn’t a passive right, but an active responsibility: anyone can participate, just by reading a book or having a conversation! In these helpsheets, we explore further actions you can take to experience your freedom of expression and help extend it for yourself and others. We hope they encourage you to listen as well as speak: a crucial part of ensuring freedom of expression for everyone. The helpsheets are divided up to reflect the kinds of cases we deal with. Each helpsheet tells you a little bit about the history of a form of censorship and some of the writers who have experienced it, so you can imagine what it might be like to be in their shoes. The helpsheets also offer information about the current situation of writers around the world facing that form of censorship, some questions you can discuss in class, and some ideas and suggestions for how you can change the story. There are protestors outside the performance of a play I’m seeing. What do I do? This helpsheet focuses on the act of protest: people using their bodies and voices to be heard. It looks at the impact of protests directed at theatre productions, and other possibilities for changing the narrative, using creative writing as well as class discussion. Staging a Protest Imagine: there is a play at a theatre near your school that paints teenagers as feral and amoral, based on media reports about youth knife crime. You and your friends are worried that it will provoke people to attack you for being teenagers, and decide to protest this. Divide the class into groups. Give them a few minutes to come up with slogans or images, then give each group a few pieces of A2 cardboard or stiff paper and some marker pens to make signs. Ask each group to come up with a slogan to shout as well. Clear the middle of the room, and get each group to walk around it a few times, waving their banners and chanting their slogan. Once every group has had a go, ask them how it felt. What effect did it have on them? What effect did they think it might have on a potential audience? Now ask them to imagine the reverse: they are going to the theatre with your family, friends or school group, to see a play on an issue they care about – and outside there are protestors with signs! Some of them are angry, some of them are sad, some of them try to give you a leaflet or shout at you: how do you feel? What do you do? Ask for responses, leading in to: Group discussion: Do people have a right to say whatever they want on stage? Do people have a right to protest any piece of art, even if it prevents audience members from getting in to it? Do protests work – ask for examples from all fields of political protest. What is it particularly about theatre that brings out protestors? People don’t protest outside bookstores or art galleries (although they do sometimes damage art work, or ask for it to be removed). Prompt students to think about LIVE audiences and the difference between, say, reading about a kiss and seeing it performed right in front of you. Theatre History Theatre has faced censorship since its recorded inception. One of the oldest written and performed drama we know about, Aeschylus’ play The Persians, was censored after its performance in 472 BCE. The play is set in Persia, where the Queen Mother Atossa is waiting for her son, King Xerxes, to return from war. The Greeks had defeated Xerxes’ army only eight years earlier: but the play is sympathetic towards the defeated Persians – this was apparently so shocking that it’s claimed that pregnant women miscarried in the aisles. Athenian playwrights were subsequently banned from referring directly to recent history and current events in their plays, and women appear to have been banned from attending the theatre! The Greek philosopher Plato writes in his book The Republic that theatre is immoral, because it shows an idealised, pretend version of the world, which stops the audience from thinking about the real world they live in and aspiring to a better one. Many religions also think theatre is immoral: during the English Civil War, the Puritan government banned theatre because of its racy themes, and because of male actors playing female characters. From 1737 to 1968, theatre in the UK was formally subject to the Lord Chamberlain’s Office. All new plays and stage shows had to be read and approved for performance: many major dramatists like George Bernard Shaw initially had their work banned. While there is no formal censorship in the UK anymore (except for films, which have to be passed by the British Board of Film Classification, guidelines here), there are frequent protests, which sometimes even shut down productions. Theatre History Continued Protests have taken place outside a number of productions of plays in recent years, with notable cases including: Terence McNally’s Corpus Christi, which depicts Jesus as gay. There were protests by Christians outside performances in Edinburgh, and when the same production opened in London, the Shari’a Court of the UK issued a fatwa against it. Jerry Springer: The Opera, by Richard Thomas, was the subject of multiple complaints (about obscenity and offense to religious, predominantly Christian, sensibilities) to the BBC when broadcast, and faced protests on its UK and US tours. England People Very Nice by Richard Bean experienced an on-stage protest at the National Theatre against its depiction of its Bangladeshi characters. A production of The Merchant of Venice by Israeli theatre company Habima at London’s Globe in 2012 was protested by pro-Palestinian activists. Caryl Churchill’s play Seven Jewish Children was accused of anti-Semitism. You can read the playtext here, with several reviews linked in the headnote. Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s play Bezhti was accused of religious offence to Sikhs and sexual depravity for attempting to address sexual abuse.You can read the Birmingham Repertory Theatre director’s account of the small number of violent protestors who stopped the play’s run and turned it into a cause celèbre here. Pick one or more cases to review with the class, exploring the arguments ‘for’ and ‘against’ each play. Is there any justification to the arguments ‘against’? If so, was a protest a good way to address the protestors’ concerns – what did it achieve? Speaking Back This is for use with older students who feel confident with difficult material Counter-theatre is a brilliant way of addressing concerns – and adding to the power of theatre. Seven Jewish Children was followed/answered by new plays by: Deborah Margolin, Seven Palestinian Children Richard Stirling, Seven Other Children All three playwrights made their scripts freely available for performance, and encouraged theatres to perform two or more and engender audience discussion. Divide the class into three groups, and give each group a scene of your choice from one of the three available plays, and get them to prepare a staged reading. The Independent newspaper published a portfolio of letters relating to the play and to Howard Jacobson’s review that called it anti-Semitic, including Churchill’s response, here. Use points from these letters to guide the discussion comparing the scenes from the plays. Get students to think about how together the plays create a fuller picture and more informed debate, rather than about which one is politically right or wrong. Staging a Protest II This can be an individual or group exercise. Ask students to write a short scene, or handful of short scenes if in a group, responding to the hypothetical play that demonised young people (there are lots of examples of media material that you could supply as prompts). Here are some concrete examples of counter-theatre and protest theatre. Allegory (telling one story to refer to another) is a good way to address censorship. If you read any of William Shakespeare’s plays, you’ll notice that he never refers directly to any recent history or current affairs, because writers in the UK could be imprisoned or executed for speaking out against the monarch. So he uses the ancient story of the Scottish king Macbeth and his vanquisher Banquo, from whom King James I was said to be descended. In Eastern Europe, many playwrights turned to absurdism as a way of documenting everyday life under Communism without being put on trial. Because everyday life was absurd, audiences understood what a playwright like Eugene Ionesco meant when he put a rhinoceros on stage… ‘Theatre of the Oppressed’ was an idea created by a teacher called Paolo Freire (whose books have been challenged in the US): rather than using expensive theatre and trained actors, Freire suggested that theatre-makers make plays in public spaces, and with opportunities for participation: the actors would turn to the audience and ask ‘What shall we do now?’ Another popular strategy for communities mis-represented or under-represented on stage is testimonial or documentary theatre. Eve Ensler’sThe Vagina Monologues is the most famous example: about views of women, their bodies and their sexuality, based on interviews. The Colour of Justice, by Richard Norton-Taylor, is a documentary play based on the transcript of the Macpherson inquiry into the Metropolitan Police’s failure in the Stephen Lawrence case. Although Bezhti didn’t get to complete its run, the play survived its protests: it had a staged reading in London, and full stagings in France and Belgium. Bhatti has since written a play dramatising her experience, Behud, with a version of herself as the main character. Belarus Free Theatre was formed in the UK by Natalia Kaliada, Nicolai Khalezin, and Vladimir Shcherban, all political exiles from Belarus, where theatre is heavily censored and theatre-makers are prosecuted and disappeared. They make political theatre based on the ideas of Total Football: speed, urgency, teamwork, and the key one for counter-theatre – a shift from defence to attack. Credits This learning resource is part of the series ‘Help!’, which focuses on core free speech issues for young people within a school or other learning setting. They were written by Dr. Sophie Mayer and funded by English PEN. Design and photography: Brett Evans Biedscheid www.statetostate.co.uk