Opinion with Becky Downing 

The word “theatre” comes from the Greeks,’ the American actor and acting teacher Stella Adler once said. ‘It means the seeing place… the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation.’

In Politics, we tend to think in binaries: tune in or out, vote red or blue, win or lose. But what if we removed the capital P? What if politics was all around?

If politics is power in decision, why does it feel like something outside of our control? The simple act of buying a banana requires political choice. Is it plastic-wrapped (Environmental)? Fairtrade (Human Rights)? Does the purchase support local businesses (Economic)? Is it within your budget (Class Division)? Every choice has an impact, so how do we maintain this in the face of Politics with a capital P?

They don’t want you to know that your voice is powerful.

We have always communicated via stories. Whether it’s fairytales, song, recipes or religion, our knowledge base as an ecosystem stems from inherited stories. In a digital space, there is a reason we are endlessly scrolling: we are fascinated by life. So why not create our own?

Making theatre is political because it forces us to choose whose voices to platform. By creating new worlds, posing challenges to power and inviting reflection, theatre becomes a catalyst for social change.

Red Ladder & Tamasha’s co-production of Glory discusses racism and violence through wrestling (2021). Travis Alabanza’s Overflow (2021) centres the experience of trans femme Rosie in a bathroom cubicle. These stories allow us to share in the characters’ inner monologues and gain a better understanding of the issues that directly affect them. We’re invited into ‘a seeing place’.

The beauty of theatre as a political catalyst is in the flexibility of location and form. Slung Low used its resources to become an essential community delivery service over the pandemic (2020), Complicite ran an climate change crisis campaign on Instagram, and Ugly Bucket presented a verbatim clowning piece called STUFFED about food banks, providing pre-show community meals (2022). In all these instanes, theatre is no longer a static, invite-only party, but a movement. It is a transformative reclamation of space as political platform. Staging LGBTQ+ romances, employing trans actors and platforming diverse voices in a world that is heteronormative, gender-binaried and ableist is a powerful political act.

What if we chose the meeting point, wrote the speeches and authored the art that life imitates? Enter Politics, stage left.

©Becky Downing

 – Becky Downing, Liverpool-based producer and multidisciplinary artist, founder of Flood Theatre