list.co.uk/festival Politics in Theatre | FESTIVAL THEATRE
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EVERYTHING IS POLITICS
In the age of chaos, political theatre is more than just the party line, argues Gareth K Vile
‘M y stuff has often been described as political, and that’s probably true,’ admits Kieran Hurley. ‘But so is everything else, all the time, always.’ Having had Fringe successes with Beats, a rel ection on the social impact of rave music, and Chalk Farm, which dissected the London riots, Hurley’s work has maintained a lively interest in current affairs. Even as he acknowledges that his latest piece Heads Up is ‘angry, more hurt, more difi cult’, he makes the salient point that political theatre is not merely a matter of presenting a topical subject.
Immediacy has been used to justify theatre’s social importance, and its very ‘liveness’ lends it a shared dimension. While television and the internet play to isolated viewers, a theatre audience becomes a community, forced to engage not only with the art but each other. This communal aspect emphasises the political power of performance, rendering even unlikely topics potent. The lives of West Ham football fans, for example, are brought to the stage in Irons. Writer Colin Chaston used his experiences as a supporter to consider community and, surprisingly, transgender identity. ‘When West Ham scored, I witnessed people of all races
and genders coming together in celebration, all hugging, kissing, singing and dancing together, totally unconcerned with the labels we usually stick on people. I thought “wow!”’
From this, he developed a story that follows three fans, one of whom is transitioning. ‘I like audiences to feel challenged but I absolutely refuse to lecture,’ Chaston continues. While there is a serious issue in the play, he is sharing another, less obvious journey. ‘I want them to experience the highs and lows and fun of following a football team, and the East End humour.’ Apart from the advantage of featuring Britain’s most popular past-time, Chaston is recognising a politics that is based not in the agenda of the moribund parties but the daily interactions of people. Politics, in terms of relationships of power, is rescued from the increasingly distant rhetoric of government and opposition.
The rise of intersectionality and identity marked a major shift away from the traditional political concerns of i nance and labour. In The Princes’ Quest, Henry Winlow uses questions of identity, and the arguably gay-friendly genre of the musical, to poke at the hidden subtexts of fairytales.
‘The show was i rst inspired by a fake news
Kieran Hurley in Heads Up
‘It feels like we’re living in times of great change, like the end of something big’
4–11 Aug 2016 THE LIST FESTIVAL 93