Sharing the Darkness

I was in a meeting over at the church hall to discuss some of the practical issues arising from our latest arts project, “Visions in the Wilderness.” This ambitious project includes six events on consecutive Saturdays through this coming season of Lent, including a film night, classical concert, art exhibition, some drama, and something called ‘Captured Voices.’ This is billed as a Poetry Recital and Procession which actually sounds a little quaint now I come to write about it. I hope it is anything but! The title ‘Captured Voices’ is borrowed from a poetry anthology by ex-hostage and news reporter John Mc Carthy. After returning from Beirut where he was held as hostage he compiled this collection from the writings of fellow victims of torture and injustice around the world. Before stumbling on the book in my school library, I had the idea of developing the Catholic ritual of ‘walking the Stations of the Cross’ for one of the arts events, using poems rather than images as the stimulus. I wanted to focus less on Christ’s historical journey to Golgotha, and more on contemporary characters who were suffering around the world today. After all Christ is especially visible in the suffering of the marginalized and persecuted according to the Holy Scriptures. I wanted to illustrate the fourteen poems or 'stations' with small art installations to provide a visual focus for each piece of writing. For example, I might display a pile of copies of 'The Big Issue' resting on a plinth along with an old harmonica for Peter Kavanagh's poem 'Street Corner Christ.' Once the fourteen poems had been heard by the congregation, they could move from station to station re-reading them, as they would be displayed by the installations. However a couple of folk at the meeting did not initially share my enthusiasm, having read through the poems. ‘It’s all a bit grim,’ they said. ‘Where’s the hope?’ Where indeed?

For Christians, poetry and art in general, can provoke some awkward questions. We want to come across with passion and conviction to those groping for answers in the spiritual wilderness of the twenty first century. Yet the function of art is to reflect life 'warts and all!' It holds ‘a mirror up to nature’ according to Hamlet, and if it is to project a true and profound image of life for it's audience, then it will ultimately reveal the complexity, ambivalence and apparent contradictions at the heart of the human condition, whether we like that or not. The poems I have chosen, from Blake to Rilke, to the Nigerian Ken Saro-Wiwa (executed in 1995) are grim indeed! Blake’s London echoes with ‘the youthful harlot’s curse’ and ‘the infant’s cry of fear.’ Rilke sees how in the ‘lost’ and ‘rotting’ cities ‘children waste their days/ on doorsteps always in the same shadow,’ while Saro-Wiwa writing about the compliance of citizens with the dictatorships which govern them, highlights the ‘Cowardice masking as obedience/Lurking in our degenerated souls.’

My response to the concerns of my colleagues, was to assert that a true Christian response to the misery of human suffering was to listen first and foremost to the victims; to share the darkness with them, as the Christian activist Sheila Cassidy once wrote. Art enables us to do this most intently, whether we stand before Picasso’s ‘Guernica,’ listen to Samuel Barber’s "Adadgio for Strings,"or walk "The Stations of the Cross". Such contemplation as this, becomes a form of prayer. Aristotle, the original art critic, recognized its profound spiritual nature, when he described the cathartic impact of Greek Tragedy. The initial horror and pity he felt in the theatre, as an actor narrated the self mutilation of Oedipus and the suicide of Jocasta when they discover the truth of their incestuous union, left Aristotle strangely uplifted when he finally left the auditorium in the gathering gloom. Perhaps he percieved a deeper intimacy between the vast Athenian crowd as they silently returned to their homes sharing the darkness both literally and metaphorically. I remember something like this at the end of Spielberg's masterpiece 'Schindler's List' in Edinburgh several years ago. As the credits rolled no one moved. There was an intensity in the cinema which was profoundly spiritual. No one wanted to break the bond that had been established witnessing the horror of The Holocaust together and the heroic struggle of Oscar Schindler to somehow take a stand against this tide of evil. We are so desensitized by the mental clutter of our busy lives. We so desparately need to be still and feel both the agony and the ecstasy of the human condition. This intensity of feeling, according to Aristotle, is not a negative or indulgent experience but a positive ritualistic purging of our souls. It is a cleansing which restores us. Oedipus's blindness leads him to enlightenment at the Greek city of Colonus as St.Paul's did once he reached Damascus.


True hope is not found in trite platitudes served up by Christians or anyone else, however noble our intentions. It may, however, grow almost imperceptibly like a tender shoot- even in the bleakest of landscapes. The joy of Easter morning was felt only once the horror of Good Friday had been experienced. Walking through the season of Lent which culminates in the horror and pity of Holy Week with its betrayals and brutality should indeed be cathartic. "Visions in the Wilderness" is at St.John's Church Broadbridge Heath -W.Sussex from February 28th -April 5th. It is an opportunity for believers and agnostics to encounter the God who walks with us through the desert, all the way to the promised land.

A Space for Something to Grow

Last Saturday night I met up for a drink with my friend and collaborator on The Space Project, Simon Machin. 'Space' is a faith based arts initiative, which has grown out of the life of our local Anglican Church in West Sussex http://www.thespaceproject.org/ Simon and I are collaborating on a new play about the poet Christina Rossetti. Simon, who works in finance, has never written a full length play before and is understandably apprehensive. I feel similarly ill-equipped as his mentor, having only written a one-act drama before. He is to write the script, and I am to direct and act in the play, with my mother, the actress Beth Ellis, playing Rossetti. So yes we are a little daunted, and hence the excuse for a drink to help us to invoke the muse. Simon and I have had a fair few drinks in our brief friendship thus far. I fluctuate between coffees and pints of coke in our Sussex locals, which does nothing for my sleep, whilst Simon agonizes over the choice of ales. In this time we have forged a deep friendship and creative partnership as we have sought to nurture this fledgling arts project together. From this evolving relationship, creative ideas seem to surface from some mysterious place and slowly materialize in the space between us. Saturday was a particular example of this. There we were pooling our ignorance, fumbling for a way forward from Simon's promising but as yet unformed scribblings, when our 'muse' seemingly pulled up a seat and inspired us with an exciting new approach to our play. As we relaxed into the warmth of our friendship, ideas began to flow.

The performing arts are essentially collaborative. A play, for example, involves writer, director, actors, designers, technical team, not to mention the audience. The work evolves from the inter-action between these key players, over a short but highly pressurized period of time. We depend on one another to help create a space where something can grow; a creative space where our guards can come down and our imaginations may soar. We need to feel sufficiently relaxed in each other's company to aim for the stars, and take the risk of looking foolish if we fall flat on our face in the process. When we are anxious to please, or avoid offending others, our body tenses up, our imagination goes into spasm, and our wild brain-children are aborted! Suddenly we see the other as a rival or disapproving parent, and we don't want to come out to play anymore. Sadly the working relationships we forge in our 'dog-eat-dog' culture, inhibit our creativity more often than stimulate it. We experience the crippling tensions of trying to appear efficient, productive, and 'come up with the goods,' to use a ghastly capitalist cliche. Creating art is not about manufacturing products, and it requires a different climate and another language to inspire its processes.

The Space Project, as I said earlier, has grown out of the life of a Christian Church. It is, I suppose, a 'family affair' which runs on good will, common values, and through relationships which have been refined in the intense heat of sharing our lives week by week. The relationships between members of our church drama group, have been intensified further still, by collaborating artistically over the past few years on The Space Project. When we work creatively on a play together, we reveal (or perhaps attempt to conceal) something profound about ourselves. Either way we are ultimately forced, or maybe coaxed, out into the open, in a way which rarely happens in our day to day life, even within the church. It takes time for relationships to mature to the extent that we can really relax with one another and express ourselves openly. Working together as artists can fast-track this process, provided it is earthed by a robust humour, and a willingness to let go of our so-called dignity! So The Space Project, with its emphasis on creative collaboration flowing out of open, authentic relationships, is hopefully reflecting a counter-cultural way of life to the church and society at large.

Dance of Redemption

I am currently directing some A’ Level Theatre Studies students in a production of ‘Our Country’s Good’ by Timberlake Wertenbaker. The play, which is about the first convicts to be transported to Australia in the 1700’s, has become something of a modern classic since it was first staged at The Royal Court Theatre in 1988. The story tells how the newly appointed Governor of the penal colony appoints one of his officers to direct the convicts in George Farquhar’s fashionable comedy ‘The Recruiting Officer.’ He believes this will help to rehabilitate them during their sentence. His social experiment is supported by the officer who has been holding the auditions: ‘In my own small way, in just a few hours, I have seen something change. I asked some of the convict women to read me some lines, these women who behave no better than animals. And it seemed to me, as one or two-I’m not saying all of them, not at all-but one or two, saying those well-balanced lines of Mr. Farquhar, they seemed to acquire a dignity, they seemed-they seemed to lose some of their corruption.’ By the end of ‘Our Country’s Good,’ despite the opposition of many of the officers, the prisoners rehearsing the play have become transformed- both individually and as a community. One of the convicts, a shy and fragile soul, gives us some insight into how acting has stretched and challenged her in such a beneficial way. As she rehearses her central role in the comedy, she says to her friend Dabby: ‘How can I play Silvia? She’s brave and strong. She couldn’t have done what I’ve done.’ Dabby tries to reassure her: ‘You can pretend you’re her.’ But Mary will have none of it: ‘No I have to be her…Because that’s acting.’ Another convict declares toward the end, ‘When I speak Kite’s lines, I don’t hate anymore.’ Lest we dismiss Wertenbaker’s play as liberal propaganda, she includes some letters at the front of the Methuen addition of the play, from contemporary prisoners. Each writes movingly of the impact of doing drama while serving their sentence. One such man puts it very well. ‘Prison is about failure normally, and how we are reminded of it every day. Drama and self-expression in general, is a refuge and one of the only real weapons against the hopelessness of these places.’

As a drama teacher I frequently see the impact it has on people’s lives in many tangible ways- albeit in a less highly charged environment. I was directing one of the students in the role of the aggressive, street-wise convict Liz Morden this week. Jessamy is a nice middle-class girl who’s rather shy and she was clearly feeling a bit self-concious playing the part. We began to explore the body language of this high-status criminal. I encouraged Jessamy to hold eye-contact with the other performers, look them up and down in a slow, measured way, and to move very deliberately into their personal space. The transformation was instantaneous and the other students cackled with glee at the ‘new’ Jessamy before them. Jessamy found playing this rather dangerous convict strangely liberating. Perhaps it helped her express her shadow side which she’d been conditioned to keep in check over the years. She seemed to relish being powerful, dangerous, even sexy for once, rather than the demure goodie-goodie persona Jessamy is inclined to project in class.

An even more positive example of the therapeutic properties of drama was demonstrated last week, as I was directing the lower sixth in their AS production of the Greek Tragedy, ‘The Trojan Women’. The play explores the desperate struggle of the captured Trojans to make sense of their horrific fate as prisoners of war. They cry out to the gods to help them but to no avail. It is poignant at this time of the Israeli attack on Gaza. A very obvious challenge for these post-modern/secularized students, is how to connect with the sacred rituals of the ancient Trojans, without resorting to theatrical clichés. I did the usual trick of playing some moody music and got the students to work in pairs, mirroring each other’s movements until they began to lose themselves in the simple physical communion established between them. I then asked them to form a circle and asked the student playing the prophetess Cassandra to lead the rest of the group in a simple sequence of movements, in response to a sublime track from Wellspring's CD ‘Ancient Paths’. The student did this very sensitively before coming to a place of intense stillness and silence. I then encouraged them to speak out words of praise for Troy and the gods and the simple pleasures of their every day existence as a Trojan (assuming that this was before the Greeks had invaded their land.) The impact was very moving, and afterwards one of the students said how the things the characters had given praise for were still utterly relevant today. She had, perhaps for the first time in her life, discovered the universal impulse to worship . As we develop such spontaneous rituals over the coming rehearsal period, I believe the students will awaken their dormant spirituality in a very exciting way. Sadly there is very little other forum for this, in our highly secularized school.

All of which brings me to the title of this blog and the point I am trying to make. On Friday we took our two daughters to see the musical ‘Billy Elliot’ in London. As you probably know the story is about a twelve year old working-class lad from a mining community in county Durham, who discovers a passion for ballet- much to the horror of his bigoted Dad and older brother. On the morning that he has secretly arranged to audition for the Royal Ballet School, they find out and stop him attending. Billy’s distress at seeing his dreams torn to shreds is juxtaposed with the menacing advance of the riot-police toward an imaginary picket line of striking miners. With their truncheons beating wildly against their fibreglass shields, they move as one man towards the audience- leaving Billy sandwiched between. (see picture). The oppression of the mining community, is being equated with the father’s tyranny over his son’s ‘unacceptable’ quest for self-expression.

Later in the musical, Billy is alone in the local community hall late on Christmas eve. He has told his best friend that he has ‘packed-in the ballet.’ As he sits brooding about missed opportunities, Billy notices a cassette recorder in the middle of the hall and shoves in his tape of Swan-Lake. Inevitably his love for dance is rekindled, and he begins to move gracefully around the hall. The moment evolves into a sort of dream sequence, in which a grown up version of himself enters the space and leads him in a glorious pas de deux which culminates in the young Billy flying up high towards the lighting rig in an image of freedom and transcendence. This musical adaptation of the film is very clever in the way that it employs a whole range of dance routines as a metaphor for both personal and collective freedom and redemption. We see great burly miners, squads of riot-police, even Billy’s decrepit grandmother, telling their stories through hilariously incongruous choreography. At the curtain call there is an extra finale in which the whole cast including Billy’s Dad and brother, prance around in frilly tutus with utter glee and abandonment. The production leaves us with the profound truth, that beyond the socially conditioned roles we adopt-roles which so often lead to personal constriction and social conflict, there is a universal huger to come together and express who we really are. That is perhaps what true worship is partly about and this wonderful finale, which the performers clearly adore, provided the audience with a glimpse of Heaven. Authentic spirituality and uninhibited artistic expression are both powerful means to help individuals and communities leave the masquerade of social posturing, and discover 'the glorious liberty of the children of God.'

As I continue to develop the creative and performing arts within my local Anglican congregation and my school, I shall look and pray for more of the same!

For more information about the Christian Arts Ministry I lead at St. John's Broadbridge Heath, go to http://www.thespaceproject.org/

The Space We Share- Christian Theatre for a Post-Modern Age

Around five years ago I started something in my local Anglican Church called The Space Drama Project. The main idea was to create theatre which grew directly from the faith and creativity of members of the congregation and which might enrich the church and the wider community in our post modern age. I hoped to bring together people from a diversity of backgrounds and beliefs for that unique shared experience of live theatre.

The Space Project was so named to reflect the fact that theatre uses space as its primary medium of communication; a stage surrounded by an audience.

The first theatres in ancient Greece were simply large stone circles normally used for threshing corn at harvest time. From this primitive arena it grew into a vast civic auditorium by the 5th century BC holding 20,000 citizens. The drama festivals of Athens became a central building block for one of the greatest civilizations since the dawn of time. These vast auditoriums reflected the Athenian notion of democracy. The amphitheatre became a shared space for both the actors and the audience with people viewing the action from multiple angles offering each citizen a unique perspective on the action unfolding in the circular arena below. The theatre was for the citizen a place where the great questions of life could be openly debated where the mysteries of the universe might be explored and experienced through the power of the drama.

Over the centuries, theatre has changed; in many ways for the worse! Theatres are much smaller today and tend to segregate the audience into distinct sections; stalls, circle, dress circle, the boxes, each at different prices. Audiences have been increasingly distanced from the stage by orchestra pits, curtains, and darkened auditoriums. Moreover, in most West-End theatres, the seats are all angled end on to the performers, rather than surrounding them as of old. So, it has been argued, theatre has become a more manipulative medium over the years relegating the audience to the role of passive consumers. We are sold a product at a price, spun a yarn that leaves them, both literally and metaphorically, in the dark!

All this has probably influenced my choice of staging regarding the latest production at The Space. This is a dramatic adaptation of Christina Rossetti's folkloric poem, Goblin Market, which tells the story of the seduction of a young maid by Goblins from the nearby glade. It has also made me reflect on how the kind of space you create for an audience, profoundly affects their experience in the theatre and to consider how a Christian theatre company such as ours might communicate more effectively with an audience in a post-modern age. This is a culture which mistrusts absolute Truth, but rather celebrates the dialogue generated from apparently conflicting versions of truth in a pluralist society

We have decided to perform Goblin Market in our new community hall, rather than the church, and to create an intimate theatre in the round. (See above for an example.) This means the actors will be surrounded on all sides by their audience. The size and shape of such an auditorium means that everyone has a ring-side seat and everyone is in a more direct relationship with each other, creating a virtual community within the hall, for whom the space is shared rather than segregated. It also means the action and story is viewed from diverse perspectives, reflecting the multiplicity of meanings which resonate from the drama. It means we have less control as story tellers to manipulate the audiences response, since every image we create will be seen from several angles at once. This also diminishes my control as director over the performers since there is no single frame within which to position the actors for a particular effect. They are freer to roam!

All this suits both the company and audience very well, since great art thrives on ambiguity, complexity and conflict. An audience doesn't like to be spoon-fed ideas or a simplistic story-line, but wants to be given space to piece the puzzle together for themselves. A great film or novel, for example, leaves us with many questions about the characters, the plot, and the picture of the world it has reflected. It shows us the story and characters unfolding from a range of angles, constantly shifting our perspective. It stirs us up to question our assumptions about truth, and makes us rethink our beliefs. (This explains why in many dictatorships the arts are considered to be dangerously subversive leading to censorship, the burning of books, and closing of theatres.)


However, some Christians have been concerned by the emerging ideologies of post-modernism because they appear to be undermining a faith which celebrates one absolute creed, rather than multiple versions of truth. It is, after all, a monotheisitic faith mediated by one saviour, through his one perfect sacrifice. Nevertheless other believers, including artists like myself, increasingly feel that some post-modern ideas can inspire and inform both our theology and our art.

Take, for example, this notion of multiple versions of the truth, or at least multiple perspectives. Have you ever wondered why we need four gospels to depict the life of Christ? Why do they differ not only in style, but sometimes on quite significant details? One reason is that each writer views the story through their unique cultural lens, whilst seeking to reflect the concerns of their particular target audience. They have a different perspective. They are, as it were, sitting on different sides of our theatre in the round.

I was reading Ian Boxhall’s excellent study of the New Testament recently, and he explained how Mark’s gospel reflects a more localized, Jewish perspective on the ministry of Jesus, so that he writes about him teaching by the sea of Galilee. Whereas the much traveled Luke, who had sailed the vast Mediterranean with St.Paul, describes it more accurately as an inland lake. Yet Mark’s vision of the life of Christ was nourished by a familiarity with the Jewish scriptures, where the sea symbolizes the realm of chaos and evil. So, perhaps Mark has a particular agenda, when depicting Christ teaching from a boat on this highly symbolic stretch of water early on in his gospel, and later stilling the storm there too. He wants to emphasize Christ's power over the forces of darkness. In contrast Luke is keen to provide a more factual, geographic account, for his more cosmopolitan audience. Both have something important to contribute to the portrait of Christ.

It is very challenging for Christians to bare witness to the gospel, in an increasingly pluralist society. There are so few people at work, in our neighborhoods or in the media who seem to share our world view. They see things differently. Even within the Anglican Communion, just one denomination of many, there are conflicting interpretations of what the Bible has to say about a range of contemporary issues. It is always tempting to assume my view point is the most valid, the more biblical, orthodox, or compassionate, rather than to try to see life from another’s perspective. The result can be that I become more entrenched in my one perspective, and increasingly hostile to any other. At its worst, this has resulted in violence, bigotry, and other such attitudes which fracture communities and lead to war. Even at best it may lead me to close my mind to new ways of seeing the world.

The arts, and perhaps theatre in particular, due to its multi-dimensional space, encourage multiple perspectives as a way of encountering the complexity of the human condition. They highlight the limitations of single mindedness. Their way of seeing is more often both-and rather than either-or. They draw us into fruitful dialogue, rather than coerce us into a particular point of view. These virtues, it may be argued, are increasingly embraced by our post-modern culture.

The church can benefit enormously by embracing the arts, and its way of exploring truth, if it is to make any headway in the mission field of contemporary society. I hope and pray, that the work of the Space Drama Project and our forthcoming ‘in the round’ production of ‘Goblin Market’ draw the post-modern skeptics into a fruitful dialogue with the Christian faith. May it also coax the more conservative theologians into an open engagement with contemporary culture? May we all gather together in a theatre in the round, sharing one space, viewed from diverse angles. Your kingdom come!
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