Download Black British Playwrights

Kwame Kwei-Armah: Case Study
“Without the past we have nothing to stand on – the present is not robust
enough.”
CREATING AN ARCHIVE
Ideology
Archives are central to Kwame Kwei-Armah’s practice as a student of history
and a writer and actor who engages in political and social narrative. For
Kwame, there is a strong connection between his artistic and archival
practices, both play provocative roles but at the core of both is a vision of
political and social action.
Kwame has been collecting the scripts, plays and work of Black British
playwrights. He has been drawing together a new archive which recognises
the contribution of of Black British playwrights to British theatre.
Staff at the National Theatre have been involved in supporting the
programme. This has included providing access to their space (s), supporting
the development of the infrastructure, financially and in the documentation of
the archive, as well as considering how their own programme might pick up
the work that is being uncovered.
Process
Ignited by his own experience, and growing with an increased awareness of
the wider cultural landscape, Kwame recognised a prevailing lack of
understanding of the theatrical and social traditions and heritage with which
he was working. He compared his experiences in the UK with those in the
USA and identified a stronger awareness, knowledge, and engagement with
the work of African American writers than existed in the UK. On a visit to
Broadway, at the New York performing arts library at the Lincoln centre,
Kwame was able to engage with a diversity of plays without having to do so
through the prism of a reviewer - access which was entirely lacking within the
UK. In the UK, there was just one person to whom his work was compared Roy Williams - even though their content and social engagement differed
considerably. Kwame saw this as being partly influenced by the lack of a
black theatre canon and so set out to identify and draw together an archive.
Kwame was appropriately connected so as to gather a black theatre archive.
Whilst working with Radio 4, he had drawn together Michael Bhim - Alfred
Fagon Award Winner who had worked with Soho Theatre and the Royal Court
and whose first play ‘Pure Gold’ was commissioned by Talawa Theatre
Company - and Michael Abbensetts a playwright who had written for the
Royal Court Theatre and the BBC and is considered one of the foremost
Black British writers. Abbensetts, in particular, related and talked about plays
that Kwame was unfamiliar with, plays that went unrecorded and that lacked a
documented presence and therefore lacked any wider engagement.
When he began his journey, Kwame anticipated finding in the region of 100
plays, he discovered almost 4 times as many. To draw them together, he
spoke to a cross section of individuals, to theatre directors, producers, writers,
practitioners, venues, producing houses etc. He and his team also contacted
a number of different institutions, including the British Library. The problem
he encountered however was that over 95% hadn’t ever been published but
likely lay, instead, in filing boxes, under beds or in attics – undocumented.
That his overall hypothesis had been correct was evidenced by the
experience of his project manager Similia Hodge Dallaway. Presenting their
work at a seminar, she was told by one young director that whilst keen to
direct a play by a Black writer, they were unable to find anything; Similia was
able to present her with 375 potential plays.
CONSIDERING ACCESS
Healing
On a personal level, Kwame sees the project as providing something in the
way of healing generations who have been largely invisible. He recognises
that he is in a privileged position but wishes to use this to play the part of a
broker. Kwame believes that the programme offers Black communities a
route into the National Theatre since there is now a foundation, an archived
heritage; a canon which offers subsequent generations a more stable
foundation, resting upon the shoulder of giants who were previously unknown.
Inspiration
The plan is for the work to be made widely accessible. All of the plays will be
available on the internet. 10 minutes from each of the plays will be selected
for audio recording. Then, 10 plays will be performed in full and filmed, with
the recordings also accessible. This information will be held on a number of
websites, (National Theatre, Sustained Theatre) as well as archived within
physical spaces (Black Cultural Archives). The hope is that this body of work
inspires new generations, provides a strong foundation for growth and
development and instigates change within the UK’s cultural landscape.
This belief is already reaping results; Radio 4 has now agreed to take on 3 or
4 of the programmes and shape a season of radio drama. Radio 4 is also
considering how they will archive their own plays, recognising the importance
of legacy. So further stories are now emerging – spinning out from a history
that people previously knew nothing about.