In the education resource pack which accompanies its latest show Falling, Theatre Alibi's (TA) associate writer Daniel Jamieson makes the fascinating assertion that ‘fiction belongs to reality.’
‘Fiction isn't some sort of theme park where things happen that don't relate to reality,’ he writes. ‘It's a gift we have to perceive the richness of real experience.’
The ethos that Jamieson describes here is fundamental to the work TA has been making for over three decades. The company regards the theatre as an imaginative playground where a peculiar mix of live music, movement, and language affords us a vivid prism through which to see our lives. TA embodies a belief that storytelling makes us human, that it allows us to rehearse responses to the challenges life might throw at us, and to reflect on the choices we have already made. We play stories out to each other to practise, to learn, and to enjoy ourselves. Jamieson believes that it is no accident that the stories we tell in the theatre are called plays – we hope that the act of transformation we witness might ‘refresh the playfulness’ in all of our lives.
Beginnings
Jamieson graduated from the drama course at Exeter University in the late eighties, and quickly gravitated towards a theatre company with an already established appetite for ambitious live performance. Exeter has a reputation for generating proactive theatre-makers, and Jamieson regards those early years at Theatre Alibi as a continuation of his university training.
As an actor, he was drawn to the company's focus on social justice which ran through the work that was being created by co-founders Alison Hodge and Tim Spicer.
Jamieson also notes that while it might be common practice nowadays, during the hardships of Thatcher's Britain it was still radical for a theatre company to tour work to non-traditional venues and non-conventional audiences.
He relished the opportunity that this enterprising spirit offered him, casting him in new work for primary and secondary school audiences, as well as what he describes as more ‘avant-garde work for adults.’
This diverse programme has come to define what Theatre Alibi still does for theatre audiences in the south west of England and beyond. But there was one adventure which specifically influenced not only Jamieson's own artistic practice, but also the direction of all of the company's work to come: A visit to Poland to train with the legendary theatre group Gardzienice. The company's lineage connects back to Grotowski, but its work is best summarised by Hodge, in her book, Twentieth Century Actor Training:
‘The Gardzienice company has become well known for its rigorous investigation of indigenous and ancient musical traditions, its powerful physical and vocal techniques, its commitment to the creation of theatre in a natural environment, and its emphasis on principles of mutuality and musicality in training.’
For Jamieson and the rest of the TA cohort, it was an incredibly formative trip. It emphasised the physical resources of the individual actor and empowered them not just as theatre-makers but as the potential authors of total theatre.
He took this inspiration and fed it into the development of a new show with fellow recent graduates Nikki Sved and Emma Rice, and together created the play which would later become the award-winning The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk.
Prescribed practitioners
When I asked Jamieson whether he was pleased that Theatre Alibi was to be included as a prescribed practitioner on the A Level syllabus, he admitted to feeling a little conflicted. While it is wonderful for the company to be acknowledged in respect of what it can offer young theatre makers, he personally regards being an artist as a counter-cultural act, one that resists inclusion in any institution.
Sved is now the artistic director, and echoes Jamieson's sentiment. She had initially been concerned that the demands of an exam-based qualification would completely contradict the notion of an artistic process. She says that she couldn't write an essay on what she asks an actor to do in the rehearsal room: that the TA process is intrinsically organic and collaborative, not formulaic or solely analytical.
However, with drama being squeezed from every angle and applicant numbers dropping, Sved has come to regard A Level drama as relatively counter-cultural. Even though the immense benefits of drama are notoriously difficult to quantify, AQA is still banging the drum for transferable skills, which the curriculum specification is quick to highlight: ‘Students grow in confidence and maturity as they successfully realise their own ideas,’ she says. ‘They learn to evaluate objectively and develop a sound appreciation of the influences that cultural and social contexts can have on decision making.’
© Benjamin Borley
One of Theatre Alibi's workshops in action
Workshops
Sved has recently devised several new workshops which TA will be taking into schools and colleges to complement its new status on the syllabus.
‘For us, what's exciting is that you can inspire the work of young people,’ she says. ‘At its best, we can give them the tools to express themselves in their own way.’
For Sved, it is crucial that students of TA's work don't imitate what it does but use the tools it is offering to build their own processes and find their own ways of working.
In the workshop, she puts this across by focusing on the building blocks of storytelling. She will ask a participant to tell a real-life story of something that has happened to them. The rest of the group will observe the techniques that the teller naturally employs, and then apply those skills to their own story. This not only helps students to appreciate the simple pleasure of hearing a story, but evidences everything you need to know about good storytelling.
From there, the participants develop their story for the stage, developing an understanding of the connection between storyteller, story, and audience. This simple relationship will shift over the course of a story, and the key is to remain in control of how it mutates.
This is most evident in the physical relationship between the performer and the audience. Whether the storyteller sits among the audience, towers over them from above, or tells the story from behind, it will affect the story that is being told.
© Benjamin Borley
Storytelling is a two-way process and both skills need to be developed
Supporting Materials
TA also creates an education pack to accompany every show that it produces. From its website you can download scripts, workshop ideas, and watch interviews with the creative team.
There are also a few videos entitled ‘solving a moment.’ These are recordings from inside the rehearsal room, documenting moments when the creative team was trying to solve a specific problem in the story. It is very rare to get an insight into a working rehearsal room, so these videos make for interesting watching.
They highlight how important the details are to TA's work and cut to the heart of its practice. If you can solve the problem of a moment, you might reveal a greater principle of how the whole story is told.
Theatre Alibi's latest show, Falling, is touring in Spring 2019. More details can be found at its website, as well as scripts, study packs, and interviews with the creative team, all of which can be used in the classroom. theatrealibi.co.uk/falling