Mayday and protest are natural bedfellows however some governments may
attempt to re-brand it. This was something clearly recognised in the
early days of Mayfest, Glasgow's now defunct trade union backed arts
festival. It's something that is clear too in Mayfesto, The Tron
Theatre's now annual month of politically inclined theatre, which
acknowledges its obvious debt to Mayfest. While Mayfesto 2012 has
scaled back its activities prior to a larger, city-wide event set to
take place in 2013, the radical slack has been picked up by the
National Theatre of Scotland, whose second Five Minute Theatre event
takes protest as it's very pertinent theme.
Following on from the inaugural Five Minute Theatre, which, over
twenty-four hours, streamed more than two hundred new miniature plays
which were selected from more than twice that number live over the
internet, this year the NTS, in a very logical association with STV,
have opted for a leaner model. Rather than an all-day affair, the
company has opted to truncate things to a 6pm to midnight running time,
with a mere seventy-two works being broadcast from a solitary hub at
The Tron timed to coincide with the launch of Mayfesto itself. If such
relative brevity of this year's event sounds like the NTS might be
slacking, NTS audience development manager and co-ordinator of Five
Minute Theatre begs to differ.
“It's been mental,” Maxwell says, still in the thick of pulling
together a set of events taking place, not just across Scotland and the
UK, but which has input from all over the world. “I'm just about to
face the running order problem.”
This week's protest-based Five Minute Theatre looks set to be the first
of five similarly styled events set to happen throughout the year. With
each one picking up a different theme, the central hub will also be
beamed from a different geographical location.
“We wanted to make it shorter and sharper,” Maxwell explains, “and to
make Five Minute Theatre happen in more concentrated bursts. The impact
the first one had on us last year as a company was immense. It was such
a great way to celebrate the NTS' fifth birthday, and we knew we wanted
to do it again, but we also knew we wanted to make it different in some
way. Once the dust settled after the first one we raised various ideas
at development and planning meetings, and this idea of doing five came
up, and this sounded an interesting way of seeing what would happen.
We'd talked about the possibility of theming last year's event as well,
but part of the glory of Five Minute Theatre last year was that
anything and everything might happen.”
The idea of taking protest as a theme came about while Maxwell was
talking to playwright David Greig and David MacLennan, the brains
behind Oran Mor's lunchtime theatre phenomenon, A Play, A Pie and A
Pint. Both men were in the throes of pulling together Oran Mor's One
Day in Spring season of plays by writers from Arab companies, which, in
co-production with the NTS, is currently ongoing, both at Oran Mor and
the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh. Given the nature of the One Day in
Spring season, as well as a slew of politically motivated works that
are around, the connections seemed obvious. In the end, it was NTS
artistic director Vicky Featherstone who picked up on the idea of
protest, because, as Maxwell observes, “a play can be about protesting
about anything.”
With this in mind, works range from both seasoned theatre professionals
as well as schools groups and individuals with little or no theatre
experience. So while actor Tam Dean takes a unique look at Robert
Burns, singer Karine Polwart will broadcast an instrumental and
vocal-based piece about a woman's enforced eviction from a living room
in Midlothian and David MacLennan and his Oran Mor team perform
excerpts from their Jacques Rousseau Show, in Aberdeen a group of eight
year olds will perform a piece protesting about two sisters protesting
about their parents splitting up.
In Edinburgh, the Traverse Young Writers Group will present a piece on
conflict between pandas and penguins in Edinburgh Zoo, while at Out of
the Blue, a group of aerialists will present a piece focusing on the
rise of youth protesters today, and performance poet Michael Pederson
presents a two-person piece about a bolshie bank customer who becomes
embroiled in an amorous encounter in a call centre.
Also in Edinburgh, the staff of the Bongo Club in Edinburgh, currently
under threat of eviction from its Edinburgh University landlords, will
make their feelings on the situation regarding one of the capital's
most vital independent spaces clear, while playwright Kris Haddow will
present a critique of the current debacle regarding the Scottish
Government's recent changes to Public Entertainment License
legislation. Other interpretations of protest aren't quite so explicit.
“There are hard-line looks at global issues,” Maxwell says, “but there
are lots of people protesting about relationships as well, which I was
a bit surprised about. We could have had a whole relationship hour if
we'd wanted to. There's a lot that came in about the First World War
and conscientious objectors as well, particularly from schools.”
In Glasgow, among the twenty-nine pieces on offer, there will be
flash-mobs in George Square and broadcasts from an army recruiting
office and a tenement bedroom, while a myriad of works will come from
as far afield as Renfrewshire, Dumbarton, Ayrshire, Dundee, Bo'ness and
Fife.
While some contributions will be pre-recorded, in the main each play
will be performed live, broadcast via two roving camera crews in
Edinburgh and Glasgow, as well as a live feed from Orkney. As each play
streams over the event's sex-hour period, there will also be the
opportunity for audiences to comment via a live chat feed. Beyond the
work itself, the latter was one of the 2011 event's big success stories.
“The thing we've learnt from last year is that people really want to
talk about theatre,” Maxwell explains. “That came across from having
the live online chat facility. People could just blether, and that was
a brilliant thing to see.”
In all respects, then, and if last year is anything to go by, Five
Minute Theatre is an exercise in mass participation in artistic
endeavour that ticks all the boxes in terms of social inclusion without
ever feeling forced. With the next Five Minute Theatre scheduled for
the summer, Maxwell is confident the concept has legs.
“We now have the kit to do something like this,” she says. “We also
have the experience to do it, and the more often our crews do Five
Minute Theatre, the more expert they'll become at it.”
Given the amount of protest-based work that exists in its broadest form
beyond Five Minute Theatre, the NTS have clearly tapped into a
resurgence of people power that all if the event's contributors have
grasped onto with a vigour that politicians should probably take very
seriously indeed.
“I think we've reached a tipping point,” Maxwell acknowledges. “It's
really interesting what's going on just now and the artistic responses
to that. But it's not just theatre-makers who want to protest. It's
everybody.”
Five Minute Theatre is streamed live online today, 6pm-midnight. A live
hub is based at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow.
www.nationaltheatrescotland.com
www.fiveminutetheatre.com
The Herald, May 1st 2012
ends
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