Jacqueline Bolton is currently undertaking an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award Studentship, studying Dramaturgy and Literary Management at the University of Leeds in conjunction with West Yorkshire Playhouse.
A slightly longer version of this article was given as a paper at the Performing Literatures conference, University of Leeds, 29 June-1 July 2007.
In the UK, the institutional contexts surrounding the “academic research” of theatre and theatre-making are characteristically conceived as distinct from, if not opposed to, those institutional frameworks surrounding the “professional practice” of theatre and theatre-making. An overweening resistance towards “academia” continues to underpin and to some extent uphold the infrastructure and cultures of those building-based regional producing theatres that collectively constitute the mainstream. Whilst intelligence, erudition and eloquence are imperative if one is to succeed in theatre, perceived links with reified notions of “academe” and its associated “intellectualism” are routinely measured against a scale ranging from suspicion to indifference.
Cross-fertilization between academics and practitioners
Interestingly, however, from the perspective of the university drama department, links between professional practice and academic research have perhaps never been tighter. At one level, the introduction of post-graduate “practice-based”, “practice-led” or “practice-as” research has realigned modes of knowledge production, nudging drama and theatre studies away from philology and closer to embodied epistemologies of performance. On another level, the influx of professionally recognized practitioners holding lectureship positions speaks of a belief that “practical work” or the knowledge gained by “practical experience” should infiltrate and enhance research departments.
The recent increase in funded appointments such as “Artist in Residence” or “Creative Fellow” also indicates a sanctioned interest in dialogue between individuals traditionally separated by institutional structures. I myself am the lovechild - or bastard offspring, if you prefer - of a “theatre-practice” meets “theatre-research” embrace: as an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award Holder, I “collaborate” with the University of Leeds and West Yorkshire Playhouse in the research and writing of my PhD thesis on Dramaturgy and Literary Management.
In contrast to the demand for practitioners within universities, the movement of theatre studies lecturers into professional theatre-making cultures does not seem to possess an equivalent momentum. I am not, of course, claiming that theatre-making cultures have imposed an embargo on the transference of ideas and individuals across their borders. Individuals based within a university context do make inroads into the profession in a professional capacity, as writers, directors, designers, etc. But, in contrast to the qualities of professional experience celebrated by universities, to what extent are these individuals’ professorial credentials recognized or valued within theatre?
A myriad of over-determining conditions - chaotic funding structures; what David Edgar calls ‘hurly-burly careerism’ and the long shadow of cultural heritage - mutually reinforce a working environment which leaves little space for the efforts of critical enquiry, comparative study and contextualization and, on occasion, challenges to the form, content and reception of theatre works produced. Scholarly endeavour is often construed by theatre-makers as uncooperative or hostile to the successes of a theatre event and is accordingly dismissed as risible or self-indulgent. To quote Harold Pinter: ‘We have a really profound establishment here; with profound traditions, and one of the essential elements of those traditions is mockery of the artistic or intellectually curious.’
A scholar in the theatre
If the central concerns of academia are commonly characterised as at best superfluous and at worst detrimental to the activity of theatre-making, then the potential roles for “a scholar in the theatre” - the original title suggested for my AHRC Studentship - seem marginal when contrasted with those available for a practitioner in the university.
But what of this “practice” that is so welcomed and encouraged by the university? All forms of practice? Or practice which lies beyond anything as pedestrian as the theatrical mainstream? The present disparity in the apparent receptivity of the two institutions may be related to and illustrated further by another contradiction within their recent histories. Over the past quarter of a century, the establishment of literary management departments within regional producing theatres has seemingly confirmed and consolidated the centrality of the playwright within national theatre culture. Over the same time period, however, academic interest in plays and playwrights as objects of study has markedly declined.
This is perfectly captured by Martin Crimp’s seventeen scenarios for the theatre, Attempts on Her Life. The kind of theatre that “intellectuals” are interested in is the kind of theatre that Anne offers: theatre - that’s right - for a world in which theatre itself has died. Instead of the outmoded conventions of dialogue and so-called characters lumbering towards the embarrassing denouements of the theatre, Anne is offering us a pure dialogue of objects.
Drama and theatre departments today place as much emphasis on considerations of performance - text-based or otherwise - as they do on text - play-based or otherwise. A paradigm shift, characterized by a ‘renewed attention to the materiality of performance, and renewed challenge to the dominance of the text’ was initiated in the 1970s by feminist, semiotic and cultural materialist critiques and vivified in the 1980s and 1990s by a poststructuralist breeze. The Derridean-derived confrontation with the, specifically, dramatic realist text resulted in revisionist definitions which sought to displace the “theological stage” and also its authority, the ‘author-creator who controls and keeps watch over language and meaning.’
The rubric of performance was increasingly invoked as a conceptual strategy by which to, as Michael van den Heuvel has it, ‘destabilize and decentre conventional, text-orientated drama.’ The poor old monologic, logocentric, “enclosed works” of dramatic realism paled against the ‘ludic, liminal, liberating glare of “sophisticated conceptual themata… abstract formal arrangements… compelling visual surfaces and stunning theatrical appealâ€. Over the past 25 years, text, once the omnipotent purveyor of meaning, has been demoted to “just one element in the scenography and general ‘performance writing’ of theatreâ€. As an object of academic study, the status of ‘live event’ has superseded that of ‘literary object’.
Over a similar time period professional theatre – the sites of performance – has dedicated an unprecedented level of debate, organized strategy and resources towards the cultivation of new – specifically play-based, and often realist - dramatic texts. The demand for and commitment to new plays and new playwrights has given rise to a new professional tier within theatre companies and institutions: literary management.
Onward march of the literary managers
At their inception in the late seventies and early eighties, literary managers were charged primarily with the provision of a script-reading service: solicited and unsolicited scripts were to be read and reported on and any that might suit the theatre would be passed on to the Artistic and Associate Directors. In 1999 however, a review of the English Regional Producing Houses, commissioned by the Arts Council, identified that:
Across the creative industries new writing is the key to investment and productivity. It is the primary process through which ideas are ordered as the basis for performance… New talent needs to be nurtured by increasing the resources available to commission and develop work which may not make it all the way to the stage.
The findings of the Boyden report proposed that £25 million be invested in regional producing theatres. A renewed focus upon the development of New Writing across the regions saw more literary management departments placing greater emphasis upon the provision of developmental support for emerging playwrights. Schemes and programmes designed to ‘nurture’ the new writer became a central focus; Scratch Nights, one-off or weekly workshops, structured year-long writers’ groups, out-reach placements, festivals, competitions, attachments: a veritable feast of access points were created in the name of the writer.
In the professional theatre, the figure of the literary manager would seem to represent a stronghold for the literary text; a visible marker of the professional theatre’s commitment to New Writing. Over the past 25 years, the primacy of the playwright’s text has waned in the university, waxed in the theatre.
What sort of writing is New Writing?
But it is this conclusion I wish to interrogate a little. Whilst seemingly central to New Writing development cultures, where and how have the play and its playwright been positioned within and by writer development schemes? Where do emerging playwrights sit within the matrix of existing power relations exercised by directors, artistic directors and literary managers? What sort of theatre is being relentlessly written, by whom and for whom, and what are the material and ideological constraints – textual fetters, if you will – placed upon writers by the exigencies of the ‘creative industry’ within which they write? Here are four tentative conclusions drawn from observing and researching development programmes aimed at new and emerging writers across the country.
Perhaps the most banal point to identify, but interesting in as much as it veers from the academic norm, is the emphasis placed upon story-telling via the conduits of character, dialogue and plot, or structure. Character drives structure, and structure informs character. Given the format of development programmes and the nature of individuals who participate in them, this emphasis seems natural. Most development programmes are taught as a weekly series of workshops or meetings; those who take part in them, by dint of being ‘new’, are either young, inexperienced in writing for theatre, or both.
Character, dialogue and structure are the most easily identifiable formal organising principles of dramatic literature and are arguably the elements of craft which can most easily be codified and taught. In addition, the accepted mantra for new writers is ‘write what you know’: ‘realist’ doctrines tend to be the closest and most graspable form of dramatic expression for writers just learning their craft. Moreover, from a pragmatic perspective, character, dialogue and plot are the ‘essential ingredients’ of all television, most film and a lot of theatre. Learning how to write and manipulate these elements successfully grants a wider spectrum of professional opportunity.
Secondly, development schemes uphold the notion that the writer and their words sit at the centre of a theatre-making process, reinforcing the idea that actors, designers and directors primarily ‘serve the text’. It’s as if Derrida never happened! Development schemes develop text: the means by which ‘developed’ work is presented is usually in the form of a rehearsed reading, a ‘production without décor’ organized specifically so that the playwright may ‘hear’ his or her play and witness the effect of ‘their words’ upon an audience. Theatrical intervention is limited or denied, partly due to budget, but also so as to focus solely on the text and its impact. The driving motor of the pieces presented has to be the words, if only because all other theatrical flesh has been stripped back. More attention is now beginning to be focused upon the role of a writer within devising processes, or, as in Scotland, within the creation of ‘location theatre’, but in many quarters, the writer as the ‘beating heart’ or ‘engine’ of the creative endeavour is still dogma.
This seeming authority over production however, is belied by two further observations. Development schemes sit uneasily within the competing demands placed upon producing theatres. The individuals that organise and lead them are constantly caught in a vexed position between innovation and pragmatism. A theatre’s budget for New Writing, combined with the size, availability and suitability of their spaces over-determine both the nature of the plays that will see production and the means by which they will be produced. This is the case even at dedicated New Writing houses.
Amongst playwrights in development at the Royal Court, for example, it is common knowledge that should you want a chance of production – if you wish to make your play the most attractive option – then you write your play as a two-hander with one set. Even allowing for a misconception on the part of those playwrights I’ve spoken to, this articulation of perceived priorities speaks of a distorting influence upon the imagination of aspirant writers.
Lastly, development cultures operate rhetorical strategies which elide the power structures behind them. Each of the above constraints are eclipsed by a rhetoric of ‘opportunity’, ‘access’, ‘development’, even terms like ‘emerging’ itself. This is supplemented by a larger vocabulary describing desirable voices: voices that possess a ‘vitality’, an ‘energy’, a ‘rawness’ are good, as is an individual who displays, in the words of one literary manager, a “kind of urgency, a passion, a depth, a kind of truth to their voice as a playwrightâ€. Leaden, clunking, derivative material is apparently not so highly valued. The language deployed by New Writing cultures is disingenuous in its attempt to present the theatrical ladder as a neutral meritocracy, not least because the language celebrates a cult of the new which is in fact a cult of the young. From my observations, it seems clear that power is concentrated in the hands of directors and Artistic Directors; playwrights possess as much agency as they are granted.
Canons and conclusions
This has far-reaching and troubling implications. At their inception, development cultures were allied specifically with the desire to “empower particular constituencies of writers and [were] to do with wider political issues of audience access and participationâ€. A number of programmes focused on developing writing from under-represented groups have since been created, but there is a shortfall between the work developed and the work produced by these writers. Playwright Winsome Pinnock has observed, as one example, that “the theatre is director-led, and it is a director’s passionate response to a play that determines whether or not it will be produced Because there are so few black directors with permanent places at theatre, plays by black playwrights are often just not picked up because there is no one to respond to their subject matter.â€
The rhetoric of New Writing seems also to efface any trace of aesthetic or ideological allegiance. Referring specifically to New Writing houses in London, it is surprising that the saturation of venues has not led more theatres to publicly articulate a house policy or identity. The common opinion amongst literary managers seems to be that if you can “pigeon-hole a theatre, then it is in troubleâ€. If this is so, and theatres take pains to stress that they are simply looking to develop the ‘best’ plays from the ‘most exciting’ writers, then why is it so easy for theatre professionals to identify a ‘Royal Court play’, a ‘Soho play’, or a ‘Bush play’?
Mary Luckhurst has already sounded the call to academic researchers: “If the dramatic canon is formed largely on the basis of who and what gets performed… then there can be little that is more political than the selection of plays for a repertoire. But who is involved in the selection? Why do they choose certain plays and not others? What is the agenda of the theatre involved? What underlying state agenda might affect the choices made?â€. Universities’ diffidence towards plays and playwrights has resulted in a relative indifference towards play development cultures; to the detriment, I would argue, of both academia and theatre.
One of the casualties of the mutual suspicion between contexts is that other component of my PhD: Dramaturgy. I mention this because, ironically, dramaturgical practice presents itself as a “space where academic and professional theatre makers (too often opposed to one another) can meet and exchange energiesâ€. In the UK particularly, dramaturgy sits at the apex of a paradox; its core concerns draw upon and conflate structures of thought and action traditionally annexed off by academic and professional contexts. The term ‘dramaturgy’ and its agent, the ‘dramaturg’, has in recent years gained currency within New Writing cultures but in a limited sense which elides its critical contribution to artistic practice.
Dramaturgy is an opportunity to promote contextual and critical enquiry into both the process and the ‘product’ of theatre-making, an enquiry which is itself a self-reflexive and contextualised endeavour. The specificity of a dramaturgical contribution - over and above its value as a cogent articulation and application of dramatic craft - is, I believe, its latent capacity to look both at and beyond theatre and, synthesizing the observations made from this vantage point, to encourage re-evaluations of both theatre-making and the theatre event made.
A sustained analysis of theatre events made, paying particular attention to theatre-making processes prescribed by New Writing, is lacking from academic and professional contexts today. The questions to be asked of contemporary theatre practice should be generated by direct engagement with and sustained reflection upon theatre practice and theory. Unfortunately, at present, the blind spots of both theatre and academia are precluding important questions being asked. If there is a role for a dramaturg in the theatre today, then surely this is it.
Bibliography
Books and Articles
Gottlieb, Vera and Colin Chambers, eds. Theatre in a Cool Climate. Oxford: Amber Lane Press, 1999.
Jonas, Susan, Geoff Proehl and Michael Lupu, ed. Dramaturgy in American Theatre: A Sourcebook. Orlando: Harcourt Brace, 1997.
Jurs-Munby, Karen. Introduction to Postdramatic Theatre by Hans-Thies Lehmann. London: Routledge, 2006.
Luckhurst, Mary. Dramaturgy: A Revolution in Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Vanden Heuvel, Michael. “Complementary Spaces: Realism, Performance and a New Dialogics of Theatre.” Theatre Journal 44, (1992).
Plays
Crimp, Martin. Attempts on her Life. London: Faber and Faber, 1997.
Reports
Peter Boyden Associates. Roles and Functions of the English Regional Producing Theatres: Final Report. London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1999.
Conferences/Meetings/Interviews
Edgar, David. Keynote speech. “Next Stages: Dramaturgy and Beyond, Writers and their Careers”, organised by Manchester Metropolitan University in conjunction with North West Playwrights, Manchester, 29th-31st March, 2007.
“Old Vic, New Voices: Meet the Literary Managers”. Old Vic, 16th October, 2006.
