Talking Theatre

I sat in on a conversation with Richard Eyre held at the V&A on Friday evening. Eyre was discussing his current book, Talking Theatre: Interviews with Theatre People and began to give a sense of his belief in British theatre of the past 50 or so years. The discussion, yes, was in aid of promoting a book that very specifically handles a specific type of theatre making, largely theatre building based, text orientated, Western theatre performance with conventional structures in place and emphasis on traditional writer, director, performer relationships. However, several ideas emerged that distilled what has been an interesting start to a year of development at Central.

Eyre discussed "Theatreness" and listed six components that work together to keep theatre unique, (these are: time, space, light, speech, movement and storytelling (perhaps adding sound to this list in light of the past week's work would be useful). I understood there to be a great amount of passion for the uniqueness of theatre and especially in Eyre's belief that in a culture of multiple screens, pulling us in further to a more specific position the theatre can thrive as it instantly opens up and out human experience.

Such a belief is of course purposefully optimistic but does I believe hold firm as reasoning for the current theatrical landscape and its engagement with new audiences whilst sustaining those that already exist. The "Theatreness" of theatre is its largest asset and one that we have all begun a process of exploration of at Central. However, I did find the discussion a useful comparison to a lot of talk throughout this week on the roles we are all playing within the group and essentially how we can manage development as individual artist/practitioners whilst existing in a collaborative ensemble supporting each other.

At this stage and upon reflection I am willing to presume, or to predict or even hope that as time progresses such feelings will themselves change and most likely questions now all have answers but these will come somewhat organically. The potential is huge within this group to make exciting, provocative work (as has already been demonstrated with small showings of scenes inspired by Maeterlinck's L'Intruse). This potential is what continues to excite me and so long as I can craft a pathway that challenges and develops my previous experience, all the while facilitating my contribution to the ensemble I am hopeful that the work created will itself be fascinating.

To summarise some of the emerging questions at this stage and to save my over description of ideas, thoughts and musings that are under developed I will merely list the jotted questions I have written in a notebook, whilst waiting for Eyre to start his talk.

• What is my personal perspective, my socio-political and cultural loci? What are my experiences and where are these impacting the work I hope to action?
• What is a director and how useful is this as a term - does it problematize working in ensembles and is what we understand as a director a role that works in theatre now, should he(she) be evolving to accommodate collaborative practice?
• How can the directors (on the course) integrate and operate so that there is a pushing of own work / development of practice and opportunity to "direct" or collaborate without alienating themselves or leading groups that may be resistant to "mono"leadership?
• What work am I unable to make, where are my boundaries and what could I never direct?
• What are my strengths, what are my weaknesses?