The trials and tribulations of Street Theatre in London

Last weekend there was a big event in the Tá Na Deptford history. An event much anticipated by the group, an event which if proved successful would symbolise achieving true Tá Na Rua in London! This event was our first STREET THEATRE PERFORMANCE, and my friends it could not have been a greater disaster, read on to discover why………………

Tá Na Rua in Brazil is a street theatre company. By performing in the streets they bring theatre to the ‘povo’- (the people, the public, your average Joe- whatever you will) thereby conquering the boundaries of elitism by making the arts accessible to the masses. They produce beautiful spectacles on Rio de Janeiro’s often poverty ridden streets, something which is in itself as Amir would say ‘uma coisa maravilhoso’ (a marvellous thing). However aside from providing entertainment, their performances also explore key social and political issues of that given moment and thereby encourage the passer-by to likewise consider politics, exercise their critical thinking and perhaps even enter the debate themselves. A Tá Na Rua street performances is also very much expression of Brazilian culture, they use aspects of Brazilian popular culture to capture and sustain the attention of the ‘povo’. To put this formula simply, I would argue Tá Na Rua create spectacular political theatre by using Brazilian popular culture to debate what is affecting Brazil at the time and opening this debate to every Brazlian who happens to be in the street at that given moment. The formula looks relatively straight forward- if we were to subsitiute the words ‘Brazilian’ and ‘Brazil’ in that last sentence with ‘British’, ‘Britain’ and ‘Brit’ and insert ‘Tá Na Deptford’ into the opening it is possible to view a simple definition of what is our goal. However it is a goal which only now as I sit in recovery of the nightmare which was last weekend, am I beginning realise is by no means straight forward or simple and definitely not easy!

Since first setting up Tá Na Deptford- I have been confused as to how to direct the group towards street theatre. When we first began in September of last year I plastered posters all over Deptford and New Cross hailing the arrival of workshops run by Tá Na Deptford- the South East Street Theatre Company’. However as I began promoting the group to, well, basically anyone who I spoke to, concerns began entering my head about this title. I pride myself on being very good at reading people, and so it was possible for me to see that there was something in the eyes of those I spoke to- confusion, apprehension, possibly even fear that seemed to flash red when I mentioned the phrase ‘street theatre’. Even though the workshops themselves do not take place in the street but rather in the comfort of our local pub- The Amersham Arms, the very notion of something as alien as ‘street theatre’, may have suggested to such people that they were at risk of leaving their comfort zone. Then the weather started to worsen as the dismal British winter descended upon us and it became clear that we were not going to be able to realistically co-ordinate a performance on the freezing cold, snow ridden streets of London. Rather than admit defeat and postpone all activities until summer our motto changed to the ‘South-East London Performance Company’ and we began putting ourselves out there in other ways- music gigs, club nights, artsy happenings. We found the group well received in such venues, which welcomed a performance group who were willing to express the bizarreness of what is (perhaps it is wrong to say ‘British’ but certainly) ‘South-East London’ culture.

I however was not satisfied. In the wake of the New Year I decided that I must make it top a priority for Tá Na Deptford to try and return to the socio-political street theatre roots first planted by Tá Na Rua before it became lost as (so many of are) within the craziness of the London night scene. Luckily my right hand man keeps a better check on what’s happening in London via the internet than I ever have the enthusiasm for doing and an opportunity to shift the group out of the clubs and onto the streets appeared before us. The event was called ‘Carnival Against the Cuts’- a protest event ran by various local campaigning groups against the spending cuts intended for Lewisham council. This was perfect- not only was it a locally run outdoor event geared towards a political purpose, it was also promoting itself as a ‘Carnival’- right up our street so to speak! I got on to the organisers and selling us on our history of carnival performance, our lefty ideals and our connections with the Goldsmiths student community (who have a reputation for protesting) and pretty soon they couldn’t wait to get us on board!

There was only one glaringly obvious problem with the event which was that the date it was planned was only 2 weeks away and I would be in France visiting family. There were three options- 1) I let the group loose without me, 2) We wait for another Carnival themed local political event to swing our way or 3) I change my flight. Luckily, because we live in a word serviced by Easy-jet I was able to get a very reasonable deal by purchasing a new flight (for a 1/3 of the price of changing the old one) which would get me back to London in time for the ‘Wednesday Workshop’ preceding the Carnival so we could throw something together in truly impulsive Tá Na Deptfordian manner. Whilst out in France I would organise what I could in the run up to the event via the internet, with Alex as support on home ground.

Thus I flew out to France and began the usual drill of mail-outs, facebook events, and e-flyers so at least the cyber world would know what would be happening. My strategy would be to get as much word out to Goldsmiths over the next week in the hope of rousing the energies of all those left-wing students who demonstrated their love of protesting so well last year. Surely such a left wing university with a large drama department would offer up some good people willing to partake in a bit of political street theatre happening on their doorstep? As an ex-Goldsmiths drama student myself I knew exactly the people to hit in order to get the word out there-, the drama secretary, the head of the applied drama MA, a few well liked tutors, and even the head of Student Union campaigns all sent out e-mails on my behalf. Even the Goldsmiths music department had a mail out by an ex-music friend of mine because drawing on my experiences in Rio I knew that it would be foolish to attempt any kind of street theatre without music and so word went out to find us a drummer.

I flew back the day of the workshop and arrived at the Amersham ready to embrace the energies of the masses. Well a stampede of willing activist performers was not what awaited me- though word went out, it was apparently not enough to arouse any non- Tá Na Deptfordians to come down and support, something which Emily (our one consistent Goldsmiths drama student) explained might be due to the impending deadlines due in that week. This was not going to concern me, we still had some key members of the core group- Alex, Francis, Jodie, Emily, Laura and of course myself involved- there was no reason why we couldn’t toss a small something together- enough to get some good press shots at least! The only thing that really concerned me was our inability to get hold of a drummer. This is a moment when you know your not in Rio de Janeiro, the very thought of being unable to get hold of someone with a sense of rhythm and a hand drum in a Brazilian context is utterly ludicrous. However this is London not Rio, and so after trying every contact I could possibly think of at such short notice we finally settled for Laura with a set of cowbells, with the rest of us using various kitchen implements. We co-ordinated together a short piece of performance which was essentially a symbolic interpretation of council cuts that involved Francis once again acting as a tree (the community services), Laura donning an Abba-esque Red military jacket (the council) and myself and Emily dressing up as what looked like Eastend 19^th Century wrenches (local people). Alex would be filming the spectacle and Jodie, who would regrettably not be there for the actual event offered to create a kind of foliage headdress for Francis to crack out on the day so none could mistake him for anything less than a tree. We outlined a bare structure to the piece- keeping it as improvised as possible to allow for any audience involvement, packed the costumes into bags and agreed meet at Emily’s place at 10am on Saturday for breakfast and poster making.

On the Saturday morning I woke up early in anticipation of the day ahead, threw open my curtains to reveal a dark- grey sky above drizzling down onto the street outside. My spirits dropped. OK, nothing I can do about the weather, I got ready and waited for Francis who was coming to mine as we were heading over to Emily’s together. 10.15 phone call from Francis- he had woken up somewhere in West London – was not really sure where (none of us South-Easteners know or understand much about West London) and would be late. Shit. That’s two things gone wrong already and I was still in the house. But there was time- I was intending for us to not actually enter the street until 12, he had two hours to make it. Easy.

I made my way over to Emily’s place, she lives in some student digs that were positioned directly outside where one part of the protest was intended to start. Having promised to provide the breakfast I turn up with a bag full of ingredients to knock up a suitably energy fuelled breakfast for the gang. Of course I had forgotten what student halls are like, (the years have enabled me to block out the experience). On the bright side there was nobody else about at10.30 on a Saturday morning. On the low side the place was an absolute pig-sty, untidy the point that even making a simple cup of tea was a challenge – most mugs had some kind of sticky orange residue and a fag-but sitting in the bottom. Luckily I had brought with me an impressive selection of kitchen implements as a substitute for drums which would make do for scrambled eggs. We ate and began shoving together some protest signs out using some flouresant card and any brooms that were lying spare in the kitchen (it’s not like they were being used!) and awaited word from DJ Alex and Francis who were still nowhere to be seen.

At 11.15 I got hold of Alex- he was at Whitechapel station waiting for the next tube to New Cross and should be with us shortly. At 11.30 I managed to track down Francis who appeared to be still in West London. This was not good. The plan had initially been head out to the street at 12.00 where we would join up a group of protesters outside New Cross Library and gather energy before going on to Catford where I thought we could crack out the symbolic tree street performance outside the town hall at about 12.45. Then join the Carnival procession that would be marching over to Lewisham for speeches, songs and cheering in the middle of a traffic island. With Francis still in West London, and apparently still none the wiser as to how best to get back South East of the river we were cutting things a bit fine.

At 12.10 Alex calls- he’s stood outside Emily’s digs with the other protesters- apparently a few people had braved the rain with a sound system (a very small one since we 3 floors above had been unaware of their arrival). Still it was comforting to know something was happening, even if we were still in the kitchen desperately threading masks and working out how best to carry the, protest banners, pots, pans and tree headdress. 12.25 we made it out to the street- where we encounter Alex- alone. The other protesters have now moved on, fed up with the rain they have apparently headed off to a local caf for a cuppa before leaving for Catford. According to Alex everyone was heading down to Catford at 13:00, before moving on to Lewisham at about 13:30- so events were running late, this might save us. If we stayed in New Cross till 13:00 Francis would have time to join us so we could all head off to Catford together rather than risk never finding each other at the other end. I truth I am not sure whether it was in fact this logic that lead me to take the decision to return back to Emily’s flat to wait for another half an hour, or if it was that at that very moment, as we stood cold, soggy, burdened down by our layers of costumes, protest banners and kitchen implements the temptation of returning to the warm and having a nice cup of tea was just too strong- what Brits we are!

At 12.50 I heard again from Francis- serious problems getting over to New Cross, probably best to just meet us at Catford. Right, no more waiting around. We might as well brave the weather and get there ourselves for fear of missing out again. So we piled on a bus to Catford, Alex keeping up with how events were going via the internet and tweeting our current progress. Then disaster- the bus terminates somewhere in Brockley, apparently that day they were not running all the way to Catford (contrary to what was written on the front) . We get off- costumes, props, posters, pans and all, realising we havn’t the foggiest idea where we are. Then a call from Francis- he’s arrived in Catford and found the protest. Well at least one of us is there! We try walking to the nearest station which according to Alex’s i-phone is Crofton Park. I get another call from Francis- the protest is starting to move on. Shit- we’ve now missed our street theatre slot, the whole purpose of us doing this event seems now in tatters, I stand on the side of the road in a stupid red wig with a foliage headdress in one hand and a stewing pan in the other and feel both helpless and utterly ridiculous. The very notion of salvaging the situation to the point of managing to crack out a street theatre performance seemed near impossible given our current whereabouts and overall moral. I seem to remember at that moment in time the only emotion I felt like expressing was my sheer anger at the whole nightmare of the situation, which does not bode well for impulse driven performance, it was taking every ounce of my self control to not vent this anger onto the other equally helpless masked Carnival protesters surrounding me.

The only option at this point was to try and chase the Carnival procession in the hope of catching them at least before they entered Lewisham. I dialled up the ironically names ‘speedy cars’ firm, who after a very unspeedy 25 minute wait, finally delivered us a taxi big enough for all the entourage. It was not 5 minutes into the journey before we hit major traffic running up through Ladywell. The taxi crawled along at such a pace that elderly dog walkers were able to overtake us, unfortunately any notion of simply getting out the taxi and walking was out of the question as in the back seat Emily appeared to be suffering from some kind of stomach pain (potential food poisoning from the student kitchen).

Emotions remained tense in the car as we sat in silence watching the rain drizzle outside, interrupted only by Francis calling to let us know that the protest had already arrived in Lewisham. So we had missed the Carnival procession. Bollox. Laura let out a cry of laughter and tried her best to pull me round to seeing the funny side to the entire situation- however it was still far too early for this. I sat stewing in the front seat cursing the London traffic, London weather and well- London. Meanwhile Alex returned to the i-phone and began tweeting a false account of events, in the hope of cheering me up by making us look less of a catastrophic failure in cyber-land.

Finally we approached Lewisham, and it was possible to make out in the distance a cluster of banners and umbrellas on a small traffic island by the station. We pulled in, and bundled out the car fixing our masks/ costumes/ wigs and made headway for the grassy mound of protesters making sure we held up our banners high, loudly bashing (out of frustration) our pots and pans. Such a spectacle did not go un-noticed and the few press present at the event soon ditched filming the protest speakers to get some shots of our outrageous group. I spotted Francis in the distance and ran over to attach the tree headdress onto him, thinking he might as well look as big a fool as the rest of us so to attract more media attention. The event itself was coming to a close, a few final words of thanks from the organiser and people started to head off. Perhaps owing to the fact he had not just endured the nightmare journey over from New Cross, Francis was bouncing with positive energy and still up for cracking out some kind of impromptu spectacle. I however was too busy trying to work my way round the various organisers of the event, with just enough breath to blubber out some apologies for not actually doing any street theatre for them and Emily was practically ready to collapse. After assuring Francis that this was absolutely not the right time to begin street performing we made our way off the grass and toward our favourite local greasy spoon for another much needed brew- which turned out to be shut so we got the train home.

Overall the day had been an unprecedented disaster- from the moment of waking up and discovering the miserably British weather outside, to the moment of learning ‘Maggies Caf’ has run out of business, nothing had seemed to go right. Once it was all over, I had to commit myself to a good few hours in bed to recover from the shock of the whole affair. Thankfully the event took place on a Saturday night, and I was able to go out later to a nightclub and block those horrendous hours from my thoughts by getting excessively drunk. It is now over a week later and I am finally able to sit and consider the whole event in full- an exercise which is both giving me a good degree of comical entertainment and helped me consider how to develop Tá Na Deptford. One question that ticked over in my head was whether the disaster of last weekend could be blamed upon my poor decision making or on, well, the weather!

Here is my conclusion…………..

When trying to attempt street theatre in London a problem we are inevitably going to have to try and work around is that of the weather. British weather is pretty dismal when you compare it to that of Rio and it can (as last weekend proved) have a direct impact on our ability to perform in the street. However on reflection it is not the technical logistics of performing in poor weather conditions that pull us back- aka weightier costumes, slippery surfaces etc- but rather the psychological impact of such weather upon the performers. When I contemplate the moment wherein I told the group to turn back to Emily’s flat for an extra half hour rather than head straight to Catford (a decision which completely buggered up our timing and made us miss practically the entire event), I can’t help but acknowledge that it was not so much the logic that by waiting in New Cross we might pin down Francis but rather the need for shelter from the wet which drew me to take such action. In all fairness it was not just me who wanted to be back indoors, the rest of the gang could not have been up the stairs and on with the kettle any quicker! So what is the point I am getting at- that because we have miserable rainy weather in England it is impossible for us to produce successful Tá Na Rua street theatre unless we perchance manage to schedule it on one of the few days of the year that actually has sunshine? Clearly such an idea is totally unjustified if we consider not only the fact that rain does also happen in Rio, (a lot of rain in fact!) and as this photo proves Tá Na Rua are able to perform in the rain of Rio with bouteous amounts of energy! The trick therefore must be in discovering how it is that the Tá Na Rua group are able to stir up the energies of their performers to a point whereby nothing, not falling rain or flying bullets (this is Rio) will stop them!

One such obvious means by which the Tá Na Rua group were able to psyche themselves up for performance, (which we aside from all my best efforts lacked) was through music. There were time it seemed in Rio that it was possible for the Tá Na Rua group to take performance directly out of the workshop space and onto the streets by simply grabbing a few percussion impellents and playing some beats. This drum-fuelled energy is undboutably a strong part of Brazilian popular culture- the most obvious example being the Carnival. Clearly, as my failed attempts to find a drummer proved, this percussion element to Tá Na Rua performances is something which might not be possible for Tá Na Deptford given that spontaneous drumming is quite simply not apart of our culture. We have therefore to find some means of arousing the energies of our British performers on the streets of London without the use of drums. I believe that music is still the way to do this, given that it is music which has been the stimulus used within the workshops and our public performances in club venues around London. The only difficulty is in bringing this music onto the streets when the cost of a P.A. system is so clearly beyond the Ta Na Deptford budget (which is basically the little money I have in my bank account).

Until I find a solution to the music there are however still certain things that can be improved upon without the need of extra- finance, most particularly- a strong unified group from the outset. I remember from my experience of performing street theatre with the group in Rio, that for the performance to succeed it was absolutely essential that the group must enter the street as a collective. Most of my street activities with them were unplanned events that spontaneously moved out into the street below their rehearsal space following moments when the performances within the workshop achieved such heightened energy that they could no longer me contained in the one room. In these times, this energy was of course built up through the course of a two sometimes three hour workshop. However I did also partake in a pre-organised street performance ran by Tá Na Rua in celebration of the international day of workers rights. For this event the group had created this unified energy by working together in preparation for the event. The night before we stayed late in their space creating banners, costumes, and masks for the performance. On the day itself we all arrived early to prepare. A breakfast was laid out, as the group dressed one another and began playing music and dancing. Only once the energies of all the performers had become united as one, and once this tension had built did we then bring it to the street. Like unloading a cannon we exploded together outside that red front door and made our way in union (by foot!) to Cinelandia to begin a performance. Such was the strength of our group that I remember we danced openly in the middle of a busy crossroads, banners held high, shouting, dancing, singing, drumming- undeterred by the beeps of traffic surrounding us. A city like Rio is a place that in no other situation would I dare mess with the motorists, but in this instance our energies overpowered them and they had no choice but to wait for the procession to move on. Creating this kind of energy is essential if you are to produce street theatre where you are essentially having to enter an environment that is alien to performance- the street rather than the theatre, and therefore it is your duty as performers to own this space, to convert it into your theatre, and to boldly capture the attentions of all those present- who must be transformed from general passer-by to audience member. It was by reflecting on this experience in Rio that I lead me to suggest to the group that we meet together for breakfast in the morning; I knew it would be imported for us to gather our strength as a collective before braving the streets; however I had not foreseen just how essential the activity is.

There is however another crucial element that was missing from our performance which I am not sure if in all honesty I should really admit to without looking like a complete arse- the group must actually care about the issues raised in that performance! Like I said at the beginning of this account, Tá Na Rua is a street theatre company that produces political theatre with the goal of transforming society. If I am honest what Tá Na Deptford sought though last weeks event was an opportunity of using a local political event to get something out- press shots, experience, new contacts – you name it! When I really consider it, I realise that we didn’t really care that much about the issues that were being raised in this protest! I know this is not the sort of thing one should admit to but I have to be completely frank, having since taken the time to actually read the arguments this protest was raising, I have realised that they are gaping with holes- offering no solution to the cuts, or possible alternatives in their action. Rather their arguments were more about personal attacks of anyone who was vaguely linked to politics and an opportunity to have a good old lefty rant! Certainly given the fact that we had to cover Alex’s face in a mask the moment we arrived at the Carnival not because it was in keeping with the theme of the event but rather because he is currently interning with our local MP (one of the people on the hit list for Lewisham Anti-Cuts alliance) forced me to admit that we were not exactly faithful supporters of this event! To create good political theatre like that produced by Tá Na Rua you have to truly care about the politics itself- something which is really a no brainer, and something which really, particularly given my background experience in political/ social theatre I should have been all too aware of! However sometimes in life we do need to be reminded of the obvious and so at least in this example I am willing to take the blame upon myself, as creative director never again will I force the group to commit itself to an event which it really does not care about for the purpose

Producing Tá Na Rua street theatre in the context of London is no easy task. It will inevitably involve a serious of experiments, which may often go horribly wrong but we can comfort ourselves in the knowledge that often the more mistakes we make the more we will learn. I believe that the trick to successfully achieving the goal of street theatre is in identifying what are the key elements that make a Tá Na Rua street performance work so well in Rio, and adjust these elements to our London culture. Whilst last weekend’s event was an utter fiasco, at least we learnt a good deal from the experience which will help to develop the group so that one day we will finally achieve our goal of producing visually spectacular, politically engaged street theatre!

As a final point - when reflecting upon last weekends events I am not only comforted with this thought but also with one aspect of London culture- which can be viewed as either comic or tragic that has meant the entire event was not a total waste of our time. This is our internet driven social networking culture that reins supreme in London, and our obsession with publicly documenting on online forums such as twitter and facebook every aspect of our lives. The social network evolution is something I hate with a passion, but for the purpose of developing this group in London I have had to become a slave to it. Throughout the course of our disastrous Carnival Against Cuts escapade, Alex decided to tweet our continuous ‘progress’ online- in such a way that was not a complete lie. We were ‘braving the British weather in support of local causes!’ and we were ‘Costumed up and bussing it to Catford for some street theatre at the Carnival Against Cuts!’, and if the action of the press is anything to go on then the remark ‘Ta Na Deptfordians you stole the show in your fantastic costumes- great work!’- is also not a complete lie! And we weren’t the only ones sending out this online bollox- Lewisham Anit-Cuts Aliance were bragging about ‘over 1000 protesters’ turning up- (there was more like about 50) and the Goldsmiths Students Union event thanked and tagged us in a you-tube video of the Carnival procession that we had entirely missed! When I hooked up with my friends that evening they couldn’t wait to hear all our stories about the event, which they had all been following via twitter and therefore assumed had gone fantastically well! So I guess I should be thankful that at least in London we live in a culture wherein it doesn’t really matter what you actually do, since so long as you can upload enough photos, get tagged in enough videos and tweet enough trash you can still appear successful! Fortunately for the future of this performance group, whilst this London trait does make me laugh out loud when I consider last weekend, it does by no means give me the kind of satisfaction that a truly spectacular performance would offer and so we will battle on until we produce a piece of street theatre that astounds not those following it on their computer screens but rather those who encounter it on the street!