| Open Space, Open Minds: |
Theatre Event |
| Lucid , Chapter Studio , November 7, 2011 |
Lucid uses a process pioneered by the Open Space movement. It links closely to the research in biology, the social sciences and elsewhere on the nature of self-organising systems. Its influence has been immense. Its impact can be seen in new approaches to civic and industrial policy. In the arts in England its best-known exemplar calls itself Improbable: Devoted and Disgruntled. Open Space tears up every normal notion of the conduct of meetings. It is best exemplified in its lead principle “the law of two feet.” Neither contributing nor benefiting in a gathering? Leave, and seek another elsewhere. Topics for consideration are individually generated and posted on a wall. Groups cluster, they discuss, they document and, eventually, speak in plenary. The intention is not that of the usual meeting. That seeks to create action for largely pre-thought out positions. Open Space is generative; new thinking, based on new relationship, is what matters. Ten o’clock in the morning and the Chapter Studio has attracted a cluster of participants. The urns of tea and coffee are well primed. The wall is blank. By four-thirty in the afternoon, two-dozen writers, directors, the Sherman’s dramaturg, have come and gone. The wall is filled with comment. The urns are drained dry. The tone has been generous-minded, enquiring, exploratory. Anecdote has been occasional but relevant. Grudge and grievance have been absent. In the great world outside, Europe’s political malfunctioning has been reaching a new climax. I have forgotten about it wholly for seven hours. An early question asks “is there a problem?” The title of the day does not say there is a problem. It says no more than what it says. A participant does report that he has recently met a city councillor out canvassing. “What’s happened to Cardiff’s Cultural Strategy?” he asks. “Good question” is the reply “I’ll get back to you.” By coincidence Menna Richards, late of the BBC, delivered a lecture to the Welsh Political Archive on November 4th. Cardiff’s new studio should be creating a crop of high-value-added support companies. It is all in the cluster theory of Michael Porter. Neil Kinnock made his “Competitive Advantage of Nations” (1991) compulsory reading for the then shadow cabinet. Will it happen? Good question. We’ll get back to you. Over the day a quarter of a million words echo up to the Studio roof. The acoustics in the room are not great. Dramatists make their voices heard in the world through the speech of others. Like any group of writers some are good at the quick composition of thought for a public forum. Some are less good. “What is good dramaturgy?” asks a group. Interestingly, two writers independently form a near identical response. Good dramaturgy is “challenging the writer to make the play the best it could be. It’s asking the right question.” The worst literary managers are those who once wished to be dramatists, the ones who “try to change the playwright’s vision.” John Caird in “Theatre Craft” is very good on the subject. “Reformed critics” he says “make very good literary managers.” Good humour prevails. “I think I’m an emergent artist” says one “but no-one has ever told me what it is I’m emerging into.” Too true. Once upon a time there was a kind of career path. And once upon a time Britain’s railways were packed on a Sunday with one hundred and fifty theatre companies travelling to new venues. Nonetheless, the comment that residencies get handed out to writers already making a bit of money does seem a peculiar practice. But the writers are realistic. Even if the Sherman were to become a Soho Theatre, it would take a decade to stage a single play from every aspirant writer. Like Hardy’s character Little Father Time indeed “We are too menny.” But then it is not just writers and directors who are in abundance. Cardiff’s theatre landscape will shift with the butterfly emergence of the Sherman in its new form. What it is to become will be determined by whoever takes up its role of artistic director. But, for its size, Cardiff is probably over-venued. There are theatre companies that have worked hard to generate a reputation. “You know what Theatr na Nog, Mappa Mundi, Volcano stand for” says “Bankrupt Bride” writer Kath Chandler. But the branding of the venues is blurry. The New Theatre is what it is. As an audience member it's fine by me if the commercial tours hosted each season pay for Live Theatre or Headlong to visit. But, says Theatr Iolo's Sarah Argent, South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company played the Weston. It could have done Chapter, or the new-space-on-the-block, the Richard Burton. It is true that the London equivalents, the Bush, the Tricycle, the Royal Court, have clear artistic identities. All the more reason then that the Sherman Board thinks long and deep about who is to take their artistic helm. |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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