ear for eye, debbie tucker green, Thoughts Sparked by the Play

Intense. Lyrical with knife-sharp words. The writing staccatos and overlaps to a powerful whole expressing a history and a present of systematic racial injustice in a dramatic form that pushes notions of theatrical form and style.

I’d be fascinated for black critics to see this. A diverse set of black critics. From the US as well as the UK.  Say, Cornel West and Ta-Nehisi Coates (if they don’t punch each other on sight). Would they echo the younger/older black activists in the play? ) and Afrua Hirsch and Renni Eddo-Lodge  and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Valid as their critical thought is - I am not so very interested in [the assessments of] Michael Billington (Guardian, “For me, the real strength of tucker green’s play lies in her ability to explore precisely what it means to be subject to systemic oppression.”) or Dominic Cavendish (“beautiful theatrical invention meets crass identity politics”).

I suppose, given that I’m doubting Cavendish has read Coates, West, Hirsch, Eddo-Lodge and Adichie, and I’ve read some (although I’m not a big fan of many aspects of identity politics either), I should offer some comments.

Forgive the unedited note format of the below. I lack the time for the sharp incision so brilliantly notable in the play.

On the dramaturgy, I am reminded of Caryl Churchill. Churchill has work addressing disappeared people and disappeared language. The taunt clipped lines. The heightened speech that weaves between poetry and spoken word. The subject matter embodied in the writing and its structure. In that dramatic heritage, the work echoes with Martin Crimp and Sarah Kane. Perhaps, seeing Churchill (and Crimp and Kane) on this same stage gives power to the echoes. But the black speech rhythms, both black British and black American, seem uniquely green’s - or they remind me of Suzan Lori-Parks or even the recently passed Ntozake Shange.  The play sits with the work of Beyonce, Solange and Childish Gambino in the music world - black artists speaking about black experience.

In my mind, I have a line of artistic narrative drawn from the play/choreopoem of Shange’s “colored girls who have considered/when the rainbow is enuf” (intriguingly, also mainly lower case) and splintered though Churchill’s work (often concerned with social injustice although not necessarily race; but created on the edge of dramatic form and style)) and to green’s ear for eye.

The case is virtually all black, drawn from the young to old, and including a deaf actor signing expressively, speaking of racial injustice to a mixed-race audience in a bastion of Chelsea, London - one of the richest places on the planet. To me, this says something. Let’s see our deaf people on stage. Let’s see our black people on stage. The old. The young.

Credit: Stephen Cummiskey. Sign Language acting, note Jamal Ajala right, first deaf black actor on the Royal Court Stage.

On my night, the audience ranged from black teenagers to old white men (I overhear the black teenagers being somewhat bored, and partially perplexed. They seem to know all this - and seeing it reflected on stage is nothing special to them) and from the bored teenager to the stunned parents. This audience mix - is an answer to the Royal Court’s social purpose. Why do these plays have to be on in the here and now?  And what audience is the RC speaking to? ...to an audience that reflects the whole of us.

A central motif. The lack of protection for the black body. The lack of place for the hands of a black body. Any place or position for the hands of a black body is antagonistic to “them” - the black person can’t have their head up, they can’t have their head down.

Extract from ear for eye play text, note capital letters, punctutation and form. Words in ( ) are intentions not spoken.

This motif is expressed in Ta-Nahesi Coates’ Between the World and Me (required reading on the Black American experience, along with James Baldwin and Cornel West) where he evokes, powerfully, the threat to the black body and the difficulty parents have in teaching their black children how to simply be.

To me, those parts of the play are a poetic dramatic embodiment of Coates’ letter to his child. The intergenerational conflict between different black activists echoes with the vitriolic fall-out between Cornel West and Coates. I observe it in other aspects of those who should be on the same page (the fighting between far-left and centre-left, for instance, the far left accusing the centre of letting the far right in; the fighting between the non-binary LBGTQ minorities - perhaps that’s where majorities splinter minorities via divide and rule, as through history), whether that’s intergenerational or perhaps ideological.

This fighting extends to the approach activism is taking. Protest but stand at the back of march, look at clashes from afar. Take a selfie and talk about it. The activists argue about their methods “with all due respect” (but an Brit audience knows when we say “with all due respect” we Brits mean “you stupid effing idiot”. The point argued to my mind is that this form of protest is ineffective and powerless. This ignores some of the real world progress made (George Washington kept slaves and equality of opportunity is far greater now), but art is not made to be balanced - and the outrage in the play is palpable.

Ear for eye then has particular real world echoes. It’s not the specific singular narratives that the white academic in Part 2 tries to defend, it’s systemic oppression, and that gun violence in the US is not isolated either, and not explained away by lone wolfs, cults and depressives.

I had a sense of boxers in a ring for Part 2. Personally, I wondered how different it would be with a tightly constrained intensity rather than a slow rotating circle, but I guess it would be equally effective carried by the language - here the tones of academic speech clanging effectively.

Part 3 take us back to the slave codes of the 1800s (Jamaica particularly) into the segregation up to the early-to-mid 1900s in the US. It does not go back further to the historic global slave trades or touch upon the trading in Africa. The situation in 1800s England, itself, is missing. The work is verbatim and pre-filmed and spoken by various caucasian actors/non-actors.

As a link to why we have modern slavery and oppression today, this Part 3 section of the play makes the point. Personally, as a verbatim or found form, I find Charles Reznikoff’s Testimony (link end)  to be more profound and Smith’s Notes From the Field (seen on this stage a few weeks ago) to have been more rousingly dramatic. This Part 3 reminded me of an art installation, and the distant time, as well as distant filming and portrayal, contained a quieter message.

Part 3 left me pondering. Who makes the laws? People. Who changes the laws? People, too. The laws have changed. Rules codify society norms. Slave codes were tools of supremacy. To point to them as an originating force is to not looking deeply enough.

“... third of the four-of-them who had

cuffed me

smiled

and

silent laughed

and said for my ears only,

that the four-a-them got more rights than

me and they know ‘em better than the few I got that he knew I didn’t even know.” (from Part 2)

Why I find Reznikoff’s Testimony so powerful is that it takes the found stories and plainly speaks to the abuse of the time - comprehensively and systematically.

I find CD Wright’s One With Others an astonishing exploration of this theme as well. Wright explores an explosive moment in American Civil Rights when black students who were rounded up and detained in an empty public swimming pool in her home state of Arkansas

I find it notable green directed the play. Actors intentions are crystal. Attention to the use of punctuation, overlap and caesura is crisp in a way that occurs only in close reading by a director. That she is the writer as well should add clarity for the actors. The way British Sign Language drops seamlessly into the play, and as deeply expressive in its movement as the stillness from the spoken word actors.

As a work by a black artist speaking to racial injustice ear for eye joins a growing body of important work across art forms. As a play it continues to push boundaries of form and style equal to the dramaturgy of our greatest playwrights. For the Royal Court, it speaks to its social purpose and reaching to an audience that reflects wider life.

As to my misquiet about where we are with identity politics -

“Playwrights don’t give answers, they ask questions” - Caryl Churchill

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Other thoughts: the comparison between American Black and British Black is useful to make especially if you are tracing the roots to British slavery. And as mentioned above the threat on the black body is profound. However the contention of guns in the US, and the appalling statistics speak to perhaps a deeper contention (rooted in slavery) the UK seems to me to be intersectional with class.

Part 2 echoes with Mamet’s Oleanna but in Oleanna, I sense Mamet is sympatetic to the academic. But here, green is clearly with the student. green allows limited debate in her work. That’s tiring for audiences and the didactic nature will rub some the wrong way (eg Dominic Cavendish).

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Blog on Testimony - one the greatest works of American Poetry.

https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2017/11/22/testimony-charles-reznikoff

Blogs on black hair, Identity Ta-Nehisi Coates and Afrua Hirsch (Identity, black british) and Renni Eddo-Lodge  (race) and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Solange, hair

https://www.thendobetter.com/blog/2017/10/21/evening-standard-dont-touch-her-hair

https://www.thendobetter.com/blog/2018/9/1/identity

Coates on writing on why he was in trouble at school

https://www.thendobetter.com/blog/2017/8/10/parenting-idea

Coates on Between the World and Me

https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2017/8/8/blackamerican

Gambino on Black American experience

https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2018/5/16/this-is-america-black-american-experience

Hirsh, black Hair

https://www.thendobetter.com/blog/2018/2/15/hair-loss-black-hair-experience

Renni Eddo-Lodge

https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2018/5/16/eddo-lodge-why-i-am-no-longer-talking-to-white-people-about-race

Slavery and Climate Change

https://www.thendobetter.com/investing/2018/7/20/slavery-climate-change-and-patents-the-commonalities

Blog on Testimony - one the greatest works of American Poetry.

https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2017/11/22/testimony-charles-reznikoff

Adichie on raising a feminist child

https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2018/3/25/how-to-raise-a-feminist-child

(Given I have some disquiet on identity politics, I’ve blogged a lot about various aspects of it. Hmmm)

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ear for eye at Royal Court, London, until 24 November.

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Hear about the chat with legendary agent, Mel Kenyon.

Some notes from listening to the literary manager of the Royal Court, Chris Campbell.

Be inspired by Artistic Director, Kate Wasserberg’s Dauntless Theatre.

White Teeth, the play

Watching a play that a friend (Stephen Sharkey) has written is a different experience from an arms-length stranger. A play based in one of your local neighborhoods (or right next door to your ‘hood) is rare. Where race, culture, Englishness and a sweep of history collide and you can see part of yourself reflected on the stage – it makes for a play of our times.

As I’ve mentioned before (link end) my life has echoes of Zadie Smith’s (West London / NW London – Cambridge – May Anthologies – Harvard – writing – race) and White Teeth echoes with a time and place, which is partly my time and place growing up.

It mixes culture and a certain optimism (an optimism of a youthful writer?)  with an opposing fatalism and sense of doom. But ending with a point to the future. Go escape and be free - FutureMouse ™ !

The play echoes the book in that regard. But – to the team’s enormous credit – the play is its own piece of art. It riffs on the novel, but is not slaved to it. A truism to say a play is not a novel, but adaptations can fall foul of the gravity and anchor of the originating work. This breaks free.

Losing the intensity of reading Zadie’s sentences (Zadie: “Edit as I go Along. Every sentence. Many times.”) reveals the elements of story and character that reflect a British-born immigrant narrative. My own narrative. A narrative of Kilburn and Willesden.

The addition of zinging movement and catchy songs brings White Teeth elements of the musical form. That heightened sense brings at its best an emotional punch and a sensory feast – a form uniquely theatrical over novelistic.

It’s at the newly refurbished Kiln Theatre. It’s on Kilburn High Road.

I’m bias as my friend wrote it and it echoes with me, but brimming with energy, catchy songs, dance moves, a passionate cast and a British-Kilburn story – what’s not to like?

3 blogs on Zadie: Writing tips, some Q&A and interview, and her piece on her advice from dancers

https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2017/10/24/zadie-smith-writing-tips

https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2018/1/22/zadie-smith-questions-and-answers

https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2018/3/17/dance-writing-advice

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Hear about the chat with legendary agent, Mel Kenyon.

Some notes from listening to the literary manager of the Royal Court, Chris Campbell.

Be inspired by Artistic Director, Kate Wasserberg’s Dauntless Theatre.

Simon McBurney on theatre for world theatre day

Simon McBurney (artistic Director of Complicite) for World Theatre Day (2018) (link here):

“Half a mile from the Cyrenaican coast in Northern Libya is a vast rock shelter. 80 metres wide and 20 high. In the local dialect it is called the Hauh Fteah. In 1951 Carbon dating analysis showed an uninterrupted human occupation of at least 100,000 years. Amongst the artefacts unearthed was a bone flute dated to anywhere between 40 and 70,000 years ago. As a boy when I heard this I asked my father

“They had music?”

He smiled at me.

“As all human communities.”

He was an American born prehistorian, the first to dig the Hauh Fteah in Cyrenaica.

I am very honoured and happy to be the European representative at this year’s World Theatre Day.

In 1963, my predecessor, the great Arthur Miller said as the threat of nuclear war lay heavy over the world: ’When asked to write In a time when diplomacy and politics have such terribly short and feeble arms, the delicate but sometimes lengthy reach of art must bear the burden of holding together the human community.’

The meaning of the word Drama derives from the Greek “dran” which means “to do”... and the word theatre originates from the Greek, “Theatron”, literally meaning the “seeing place”. A place not only where we look, but where we see, we get, we understand. 2400 years ago Polykleitos the younger designed the great theatre of Epidaurus. Seating up to 14,000 people the astonishing acoustics of this open- air space are miraculous. A match lit in the centre of the stage, can be heard in all 14,000 seats. As was usual for Greek theatres, when you gazed at the actors, you would also see past to the landscape beyond. This not only assembled several places at once, the community, the theatre and the natural world, but also brought together all times. As the play evoked past myths in present time, you could look over the stage to what would be your ultimate future. Nature.

One of most remarkable revelations of the reconstruction of Shakespeare’s Globe in London is also to do with what you see. This revelation is to do with light. Both stage and auditorium are equally illuminated. Performers and public can see each one another. Always. Everywhere you look are people. And one of the consequences is that we are reminded that the great soliloquies of, say, Hamlet or Macbeth were not merely private meditations, but public debates.

We live in a time when it is hard to see clearly. We are surrounded by more fiction than at any other time in history or prehistory. Any ‘fact’ can be challenged, any anecdote can have claim on our attention as ‘truth’.

One fiction in particular surrounds us continually. The one that seeks to divide us. From the truth. And from each one another. That we are separate. Peoples from people. Women from men. Human beings from nature.

But just as we live in a time of division, and fragmentation, we also live in a time of immense movement. More than at any other time in history, people are on the move; frequently fleeing; walking, swimming if need be, migrating; all over the world. And this is only just beginning. The response, as we know, has been to close borders. Build walls. Shut out. Isolate. We live in a world order that is tyrannical, where indifference is the currency and hope a contraband cargo.

And part of this tyranny is the controlling not only of space, but also time. The time we live in eschews the present. It concentrates on the recent past and near future. I do not have that. I will buy this.

Now I have bought it, I need to have the next... thing. The deep past is obliterated. The future of no consequence.

There are many who say that theatre will not or cannot change any of this. But theatre will not go away. Because theatre is a site, I am tempted to say a refuge. Where people congregate and instantly form communities. As we have always done. All theatres are the size of the first human communities from 50 souls to 14,000. From a nomadic caravan to a third of ancient Athens.

And because theatre only exists in the present, it also challenges this disastrous view of time.

The present moment is always theatre’s subject. Its meanings are constructed in a communal act between performer and public. Not only here, but now. Without the act of the performer the audience could not believe. Without the belief of the audience the performance would not be complete.

We laugh at the same moment. We are moved. We gasp or are shocked into silence.

And at that moment through drama we discover that most profound truth: that what we thought the most private division between us, the boundary of our own individual consciousness, is also without frontier. It is something we share.

And they cannot stop us. Each night we will reappear. Every night the actors and audience will reassemble. and the same drama will be re-enacted. Because, as the writer John Berger says

“Deep within the nature of theatre is a sense of ritual return”, which is why it has always been the art form of the dispossessed, which, because of this dismantling of our world, is what we all are.

Wherever there are performers and audiences stories will be enacted which cannot be told anywhere else, whether in the opera houses and theatres of our great cities, or the camps sheltering migrants and refugees in Northern Libya and all over the world.

We will always be bound together, communally, in this re-enactment.

And if we were in Epidauros we could look up and see how we share this with a larger landscape. That we are always part of nature and we cannot escape it just as we cannot escape the planet. If we were in the Globe we would see how apparently private questions are posed for us all.

And if we were to hold the Cyrenaican flute from 40,000 years ago, we would understand the past and the present here are indivisible, and the chain of human community can never be broken by the tyrants and demagogue.”

Kate Wasserberg, Dauntless Theatre

I’m fond of the 50-seat Finborough Theatre.  The Artistic Director, Neil McPherson, programmed my first play professional play, Lemon Love on its stage in 2001. He has been AD at the Finborough since around 1999 making him one of the longest runnings ADs in London.

The Finborough also helped start the career of Kate Wasserberg and Neil was an important nurturer. It was a privilege to hear her speak to a group of writers about her career so far. Here follow some notes and fragmentary observations.

After some mixed feelings in San Francisco on sustainable investment - a mix of blah blah and some real passion and commitment, and a host of contradictions (wealth/homelessness; race) - it was inspiring to see a theatre director so committed and passionate.

It’s rare to meet directors who knew they wanted to be directors while still in school. It makes for intriguing conversations with career advisers.

-You wish to fight social injustice, you wish to inspire hope and you want people to feel joyous?

-...Yes..

-You wish to try and resolve the contradictions and disparity in what humans are and what humans do?

-...Yes...

-so... social worker? ... teacher...?

-I’m going to make theatre.

For me,  having only a partial foot in the theatre ecosystem, it was mind opening to hear how cuts have impacted the arts. We see it in other services to be sure, but the value of art is so intangible like the soul, that hospitals and schools, prisons and courts, will always be higher up the agenda.  ... cuts have been really bitter...

But what tools do we have to allow people to cross divides...? How do we give people hope and joy and keep them out of prisons and poverty and despair ? Surely, art is part of the answer even if we can not measure it well.

As Kate reflects as an adult part of her life as a theatre director does stem from finding so much of life unbearably painful (cf. stoics) and that theatre is way of making sense of it - giving meaning to human experience

...too long away from theatre and there’s this urge to do impractical and unreasonable actions like pack up your family to a refugee camp and try and bring them all back with you...

Theatre can be and is in many ways a brutal industry (in terms of money amongst other matters) and so to have a place like the Finborough which a young director can call home for a while - that was a crucially valuable offering and an inspiration for Kate to start a theatre in a pub in Wales - the Other Room.

Plays performed there take the ethos of “make it as good as it can be... as if it will be performed anywhere” a Finborough ethos of making work as best as it can be and not settling for “Ok” or “blah blah”...

Coming to Kate’s work now... it should be:

...without fear    (Or what’s the point?)

....political    (Or what’s the point?)

....joyous    (Or what’s the point?)

Theatre is made by teams.

Not one man. Not one person. It is bigger than that.

We own the legacy of buildings and companies we fall into

But theatre is made by teams and that legacy contains many beautiful and brilliant artists

One things we can change and own is culture

If you are fighting or commenting on social injustice then make the ratio of lower staff to higher staff a more equal and fair set up

Set pay above the London living wage for your cleaners and yours assistants

Think about diversity...

...diverse artists often wear so many hats partly as they have to but maybe partly as they get on and do... I can act write direct sing - why not ? .... if there’s no work out there... or no work I want to be in... maybe I need to make it ?

...there can an attraction in the mix of bravado and naïveté...

I’m asking now - what’s your play for the Nation?

Some organisations are funded to read every script (like the Royal Court). Some organisation don’t have that type of funding.

We should be honest that if you can’t read every script, if you are not funded to do that, then you shouldn’t say we have open submissions for every script.

The riskiest thing is to be too conservative

(me: this is something I learnt when Chairing Talawa and I tell all small companies, be bold! If you do the stuff you think as “safe” it is more likely to fall flat... if you do the stuff that excites you, no matter the artistic risk, it’s likely to fly)

Find hope in shared experience...

...every night these people would come... watch this love story about a couple who fall in love but never meet... and at the climax... this couple meet and shake hands...

...And shaking hands it’s the climax where hundreds of people would draw breath and sigh...

That’s a magic of theatre and it crosses divides.

Me: If you have a state of the nation play, it will be in good hands with Kate

And with people like Kate passionately, thoughtfully forging ahead

Maybe there is hope for all of us yet.

*

Hear about the chat with legendary agent, Mel Kenyon.

Some notes from listening to the literary manager of the Royal Court, Chris Campbell.

San Francisco Modern Art, Reflections

 A few hundred metres away, from my investment conference, stands the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I have 45 minutes to spare. Several artists eloquently - although also esoterically make many of the points that the Responsible Investor conference are grappling with. I also end up writing what turns out to be a poem.

This work (above) by Dawoud Bey highlights America’s conflicts on race (The Birmingham Project, 2012) 

This work (above) by Amy Franceschini asks questions on land preservation and food sustainability - San Francisco City Seed Library (2007).

This work (above) by Tiffany Chung, one giant great flood 2050  (2012) is a climate change provocation.

 I caught some Donald Judd (below).

Oh, to spend a life thinking about the design of a chair.  Furniture. Let others steward the planet. A time for birds, fish and insects. Let humans die out, maybe it is best for this era to end, as all eras must, but let me be allowed to think one thing intensely - like the chair.

I spied Louise Bourgouise’s spiders (below).

Ah! We meet again. Another continent. Again. Our 4th or 5th encounter. You were most massive in that old power turbine hall. Your size is diminished. Your creepiness is not.

Louise. Louise. I’ve heard tell of your salons. I’ve caught your insiduous stockings and your knittings and stichings. But you have left us.

Another world. Another time. Would I sit at your feet and sculpt and sculpt. I would not even know why. Let others think of investment, I’ll only think on being human.

Calder (below). You again. Your work should rather be free and big and open. Imposing on the landscapes.  I once thought of you and Rauschenberg, then completely chopped up a chair, pulled out its stuffing, assembled on a wall, and hund the stuffing on a string.

It went on a wall in a Corbusier building - all drafty but beautiful - and many university students came by and told me it was fine art. And good art. I like to think they were right. But what did we know?

Still your small work has balance and charm. Sitting there in tense stillness. Not quite forgotten by its bigger brothers.

Oh Uyghurs!  Soon we will disappear you. Like many many peoples before you. I am so inadequately sorry. I am glad Caroline Drake has immortalised you in art. Although from here, I know not where it does. I once travelled and took photos.  But the conflicting complexities of viewer - person - atrocity - I could never reconcile. As Susan Meisalas still does not (photographs of the photographs not allowed).

Oh Young Japanese Man! (below) How did humanity find a way to train you to be in suicide attacks and then how did we end your war with an act as unimaginable as to split atoms and blow up Hiroshima. 

Voices unheard. Sitting in this beautiful musuem. For a short time, I hear you.

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The current Arts blog, cross-over, the current Investing blog.  Cross fertilise, some thoughts on autism.  Discover what the last arts/business mingle was all about (sign up for invites to the next event in the list below).

My Op-Ed in the Financial Times  (My Financial Times opinion article) about asking long-term questions surrounding sustainability and ESG.

Current highlights:

Narrative scarcity, representation and being a Crazy Rich Asian.

Some writing tips and thoughts from Zadie Smith

How to live a life, well lived. Thoughts from a dying man. On play and playing games.

A provoking read on how to raise a feminist child.

Some popular posts:  the commencement address;  by NassimTaleb (Black Swan author, risk management philosopher),  Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes;  JK Rowling on the benefits of failure.  Charlie Munger on always inverting;  Sheryl Sandberg on grief, resilience and gratitude.

Buy my play, Yellow Gentlemen, (amazon link) - all profits to charity

Kiln Theatre, let's stand with the Artistic Director

I examine the governance of a local London theatre (charity) and make a suggestion on Board entrenchment based on public company practice. On the subject of artistic decision to change its name, I stand with the Artistic Director and note interference from previous managements on current managements is generally poor practice in public company world.

The Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, NW London, has undergone a refurbishment and has re-opened under a new name, Kiln. It’s a significant part of the UK and London theatre ecosystem and has had an increasingly influential artistic voice (first under Nicholas’ Kent artistic leadership and for the last several years under Indhu Rubasingham - one of the only female directors of colour leading a UK theatre). It’s also a local focal point.

I was intrigued to see a letter signed by many former Tricycle, now Kiln, Board members, and two former artistic directors appealing against the name change.

There’s an adage in business that “No one likes change”. Change gives something for everyone to talk about and gripe about.

It is also notable that it is rare for current CEOs to move on to the Board, or where they are already on the Board when they step down, it is typical for them to leave. Investors scrutinise hard (or should do) when this does not occur.

If you speak to CEOs, it is clear that no one likes having an old boss looking over your shoulder. You can’t embrace change, or new directions as easily when the instigator of old traditions is sitting at your side.

For similar reasons, when CEOs move on, it is very rare for them to stage an intervention or comment - perhaps if they are still major shareholders and they observe egregious problems.

On the letter, I observe Nicholas Kent - brilliant AD he may have been in his time - moved on 6 years ago. The founder of the Tricycle which had its name shortened from  Wakefield Tricycle, and has according to Wiki been living in Canada for the last 2 decades.

They will be attached to what they knew.

I also note many of the board members past, several of them have close associations with the Tricycle past. One Tim Foster, from a reknowned architect firm involved in earlier refurbishments of the theatre. (of note, this appointment would be scrutinised by avid investors, if this  was owned by governance minded shareholders - conflicts of interest might occur).

As to the arguments around a name change, yes presumably there is some brand value associated with a name, although I do think outside of Kilburn and outside of theatre circles the vast majority of people would struggle to name or know the Tricycle.

To my mind, the major value (especially after a break in time) has to be in its current artistic leadership and the work, education and services they provide now and into the future.

To this end, we should look to the current AD. Her track record is strong. She leads the organisation hopefully with thoughtful challenge and guidance from her Board and team.

She needs to be allowed to make this change and move on. She will have considered the factors and options. She also carries weight for the lack of women, for the lack of people of colour.

Sure. Names are important. Sure. It is important to maintain links with the past. And learn from the past, so that the future is better. The physical presence of the theatre building provides that link - maybe more than a name. It might even be the wrong decision, but in matters of creative policy, this type of decision is seldom-to-never a catastrophe or company-ending event.

As an outsider, if I were to be critical, I would look to the length of time some current members of the Board have been on the board and compare it to what we might see on public companies - then I’d highlight the chair and vice-chair as potentially entrenched. A board needs a vibrant mix of old and new as well and a diversity of thinking.

My length of time on the Board of Talawa Theatre company was the primary driver of myself stepping down.

That said it continues to be hard to find good people to commit to Boards of small charities, yet expertise is in demand.

To sum, there are some challenges to the Tricyle, now Kiln, board over entrenchment (current and previous) and diversity of skills and thinking is always in demand. However, on the subject of artistic choice, I stand with Indu, it’s her decision to make and now we should support the work and artistic programme and re-birth of the future.

I’ve recently seen some similar points being made forcefully by Fergus Morgan in Exuent.

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The current Arts blog, cross-over, the current Investing blog.  Cross fertilise, some thoughts on autism.  Discover what the last arts/business mingle was all about (sign up for invites to the next event in the list below).

My Op-Ed in the Financial Times  (My Financial Times opinion article) about asking long-term questions surrounding sustainability and ESG.

Current highlights:

A long read on Will Hutton looking at Brexit causes and solutions.

Some writing tips and thoughts from Zadie Smith

How to live a life, well lived. Thoughts from a dying man. On play and playing games.

A provoking read on how to raise a feminist child.

Some popular posts:  the commencement address;  by NassimTaleb (Black Swan author, risk management philosopher),  Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes;  JK Rowling on the benefits of failure.  Charlie Munger on always inverting;  Sheryl Sandberg on grief, resilience and gratitude.

Buy my play, Yellow Gentlemen, (amazon link) - all profits to charity

Theatre artistic director flux, arts jobs and projects

London (and beyond) Theatre world is in a (potentially) exciting flux, with a few new Artistic Directors starting,  a few major roles open and a theatre re-opening.

New Starts:  Young Vic, Kwei-Armah is a few months into the job.  The Bush AD, Madani Younis, is moving to SouthBank. Hammersmith Lyric has a new AD, Rachel O’Riordan (from Cardiff’s Sherman Theatre, who will be looking). Michael Longhurst to start at Donmar.  Nadia Fall is into her first season at Theatre Royal Stratford East. Orla is stepping down from Scotlan’s Traverse.

The Tricyle Theatre is re-born as the Kiln Theatre and re-opens with a new season.

The BAC is risen from the ashes and starts again.

Here are two roles opened up in that flux:

Bush Theatre are looking for an Artistic Director -  apply (30 Sep)

Young Vic seek a Creative Associate to, as Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah described, be a "... a conversation starter. Someone who believes in their soul that art and discourse has the power to change the status quo.” (1 Oct)

And below some other grants and projects I’ve come across H/T Talawa, Guardian, Twitter, ArtsJobs:

Basingstoke's Fluid Motion Theatre Company is offering a commission of £1,000 for an early-to mid-career UK-based artist or company to develop a new piece of contemporary theatre with Fluid Motion around mental health themes (21 Sep)

The 2019 Shape Arts Adam Reynolds Memorial Bursary is accepting applications from mid-career disabled artists (1 Oct)

Gasworks is seeking to appoint an artist for a 6 month residency whose practice is concerned with the advancement of participation by migrant communities in Lambeth and Southwark. details here (8 Oct)

Farnham Maltings’ no strings attached is a grant scheme (£500 and £1000) to help young people (18-25) make their first piece of theatre - apply here (18 Oct)

Submissions for the inaugural Theatre Uncut Political Playwriting Award (£9500) are now open, apply here (1 Nov)

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The current Arts blog, cross-over, the current Investing blog.  Cross fertilise, some thoughts on autism.  Discover what the  arts/business mingle.

My Op-Ed in the Financial Times  (My Financial Times opinion article) about asking long-term questions surrounding sustainability and ESG.

Current highlights:

Listening to legendary theatre agent, Mel Kenyon. 

Some writing tips and thoughts from Zadie Smith

How to live a life, well lived. Thoughts from a dying man. On play and playing games.

A provoking read on how to raise a feminist child.

Some popular posts:  the commencement address;  by NassimTaleb (Black Swan author, risk management philosopher),  Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes;  JK Rowling on the benefits of failure.  Charlie Munger on always inverting;  Sheryl Sandberg on grief, resilience and gratitude.

Buy my play, Yellow Gentlemen, (amazon link) - all profits to charity

Am I a Crazy Rich Asian?

Am I a Crazy Rich Asian ? By some definitions. Crazy? tick. Rich - vs average, well yes, tick. Asian - hmmmm, I guess, tick.

The film has broken through all type of cultural barriers echoing the breakthrough we saw through Black Panther and chiming with the #MeToo movement.

Stories. Plays. Movies. There is a school of thought which advocates these stories should reflect us. Reflect the human condition. Reflect our hopes and dreams, sins and vices, our sameness, our diversity.

Why has it taken so long to see such reflections? And if people want more such stories then are the mechanisms in place to facilitate that?

One argument runs that dominant culture and dominant gate keepers wish to retain power and dominance (a variation on Darwinian survival of the fittest) and such dominance will tend to crush rivals... competing cultures, competing narratives - it’s a truism, winners write history.

Thus stories of unheard voices or minority’s voices are suppressed either intentionally or by unintentional neglect.

There are two - not necessarily exclusive - solutions. One is via policy, rules, intent where investment or programming purposely targets these stories and promote them. Or at the least ensures equality of opportunity. 

Another might be to try and use market based forces to reveal and meet the demand for such stories.

It’s possible to combine the two. Recall I’m all about the mix and mingle.

In terms of tipping point moments, many of the CRA creatives are broadly my distant peers. Gemma Chan is 5 years younger, but Ken Jeong is 9 years older; my distant cousin Michelle Yeoh is a half generation older. It has taken time and steady pulsing pressure to raise these stories up. BUt as Martin Luther King said:  “Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.” 

So why is it so notable that sales are strong and holding steady?

This shows there is demand for these type of stories.

In a classic market model in search of profit, or rather shareholder value, (not always quite the same) this shows ignoring this demand was detrimental to shareholder value and profit.

This is why a market based social liberal might argue the market mechanism and profit seeking lever when properly implemented is one of the best tools we have for promoting such unheard stories. On one level It lets people choices decide.

Yet the lack of such stories could be viewed as market failure.

Another aspect is the pressure on such a story.

In the dominant story form, there are many unsuccessful examples. That’s OK there is more than enough success as well. There is - as Viet Nguyen might say - narrative plenitude.  Where as Asian-Americans live in narrative scarcity. I think this is an intriguing concept. (see NY Times op-ed here by Nguyen).

A single Anglo-American-overseas-Chinese story done poorly sends a negative market signal - maybe not because there is no demand but because the movie was poor.

Skipping side ways to poetry - there is a parallel in poetry. Ostensibly the market for poetry is small. Yet most people in the world have read or written a poem - making it in one sense a very democratic and inclusive art form (although like many others arts but unlike film which most people can not be a creative in) - so when Rupi Kuar (Instagram poet) has millions of followers and sells millions of dollars it demonstrates a demand for poetry (and yes, if you investment types haven’t heard her, she has garnered an FT review along with other IG poets)

I find it odd on many levels for it to be attacked so by unknown poets (for not being poetry or bad poetry; 'bad' films can still sell well, I suppose)  although there are again parallels between elites and populism (a thoughtful NYT poet on the form here)

Arguably again poetry in its current state suffers from a lack of diverse critics and published writers -  a narrative scarcity - although I imagine most people have written a poem of sorts in their life time.

Skipping again to the broad umbrella is sustainable investments - if there is demand, will the market adjust? Is there real demand?

Borrowing the idea of a tipping point or critical mass, I think we can see that in cultural moments and movements.

Those moments can open markets and unleash those unwilling to commit.

I note - I myself for a complex set of reasons - have a multi-facet career where story telling is only one portion and investments the larger job.

These moments can open up stories for those voices not heard and those creatives who could tip over if only they believed there was a pathway for their work.

Still great work is not created in a vacuum and story tellers do not appear over night - there’s a craft at work and hopefully this proves a moment that builds on.

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Do I recognise anything in this movie?

I have to admit yes. I know these people. I know a wife who hid expensive shopping from her husband (though for slightly different reasons); I learnt Mah Jong from aunties; I’ve sat in kitchens with Matriachs and argued about where the best Satay is found.

Others won’t think this world reflects them. I think that’s OK too and maybe if they have it in them, and they want to see the stories that reflect what they know - they should then do better - and create and write the stories themselves.

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Most cutting funny political line:

Eat up your nuggets. There are starving children in America.

This is true, about 12- 15% of Americans are below the poverty line which matches the number of Americans who receive food stamp aid, currently running  at about 40m Americans on Food Stamps.

Source: US Gov stats here:  https://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap

On a more optimistic note, Cancer survival rates are the highest ever with 7 out of 10 Americans diagnosed with cancer surviving more than 5 years.

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Lastly, on the CRA UK launch, I'm supporting BEATS...  which seek to: humanise British East Asians, increase the visibility of British East Asians on stage and screen, and advocate for the use of the term British East Asian.

One of our means of achieving change is by directing the spotlight and mobilising the public to generate critical en masse support to key cultural events that act as catalysts for equality and representation for British East Asians.

We are launching the first of these events now with a special community presentation of Crazy Rich Asians on 14 September at 19:00 at the Picturehouse Central.

Too book tickets email BeatsOrgUk@gmail.com

For more information about BEATS visit http://wearebeats.org.uk

Misfits, Michaela Cole, personal reflections on UK TV

"The misfit doesn’t climb in pursuit of safety, or profit, she climbs to tell stories, she gets off the ladder and onto the swings; swinging back and forth, sometimes aggressively, sometimes standing up on the swing, back and forth, in pursuit of only transparency, observing the changes, but wonders if these changes are taking place within a faulty system."

Michaela Cole breaks all kinds of barriers in her speech at the Edinburgh festival this year. Deeply personal, she reflects on "misfits" and her sexual assualt.

She also advocates transparency, which I draw a deep parallel to the transparency work and calls that thoughtful investors are advocating in sustainable investing world.

It's a long speech and gives insight into the less-trodden path in the (blinkered?!) world of tv and its siblings. The PDF of the speech is available here.

Coel was presenting the 43rd MacTaggart. Previous speakers include such powerful media men as Rupert Murdoch, Jeremy Paxman, John Humphrys and Greg Dyke. Only five lectures have been given by women. I don't know of (m)any black speakers.

It was deeply compelling and moving. Unlike, in my view, the Corbyn version a few days later.

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The current Arts blog, cross-over, the current Investing blog.  Cross fertilise, some thoughts on autism.  Discover what the last arts/business mingle was all about (sign up for invites to the next event in the list below).

My Op-Ed in the Financial Times  (My Financial Times opinion article) about asking long-term questions surrounding sustainability and ESG.

Current highlights:

A long read on Will Hutton looking at Brexit causes and solutions.

Some writing tips and thoughts from Zadie Smith

How to live a life, well lived. Thoughts from a dying man. On play and playing games.

A provoking read on how to raise a feminist child.

Some popular posts:  the commencement address;  by NassimTaleb (Black Swan author, risk management philosopher),  Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes;  JK Rowling on the benefits of failure.  Charlie Munger on always inverting;  Sheryl Sandberg on grief, resilience and gratitude.

Buy my play, Yellow Gentlemen, (amazon link) - all profits to charity

Eurasia, new ways of seeing

Theatre and a play writing tradition remain vibrant in Britain partly as because one of the great playwrights was an English bloke called Shakespeare. Outside of this western tradition, there are many performance forms, many of which don’t place the writer in the same place. And some countries traditions don't have playwrights.

As local arts meets a global stage and the collisions and intersections ensue, it will be interesting to note how the arts scene develops. There is already a very valuable Asian arts, particularly Japan and China (from ancient to modern), market but more radical artists wish to claim their own ways of seeing.

This clash, I picked up reading, on recommendation a book looking at the history of Europe and Asia - debunking some of the artificial divides commentators have built up and observing the current jibes amongst cultural models (Dawn of Eurasia - Amazon link).  This from an arts lens.
 

“Arefe Arad is an artist in Tehran. She makes bodies by patching different fabric pieces together, and if the result evokes different kinds of human-size alien creatures and monsters that is very much deliberate. She told me she wants to create monsters, textile models close to mythical characters with no identity or individuality.

I met her at Etemad Gallery in North Tehran while spending a few weeks in the city, mostly among contemporary artists and gallery owners. Her sculptures are flexible, viscous, patched together in deformed shapes, a reflection –she said –on the everyday life of Iranian women. Stopping at Tajrish Square, I immediately understood what Arefe meant.

One young woman was going up the pedestrian bridge escalator wearing a black headscarf covering all her hair –very proper hijab few women in North Tehran are keen on –but she combined it with knee-high pink stiletto boots. The whole square turned to watch her walk.

These are not creative cultural hybrids but distorted chimeras. The authorities want a token of subjection and that is why every woman in Iran must sport her headscarf, wherever she is, as a public proclamation that her choices are, in the end, worthless. For some, the humiliation is powerful and deliberate. At the same time, they fight back by blemishing in every way they can the almost aesthetic dreams the clerics have developed for Iran. The result is not creative but destructive, just as the parties in North Tehran are less festive celebrations than distorted affirmations of the will against a stunting force.

When contemporary art arrived in Tehran in the final years of the Shah’s regime it was an opening for Western values and tastes. As the founder and inaugural director of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art put it in 1979, since Iran already imported Western technology and science, it should import Western art as well. That project of imitation failed when the Shah was deposed and no one in Iran wants to repeat it. The art scene still represents the drive to break free of conventions –to become modern –but today it is a much more primal and destructive force, because there is no model left to follow. To become modern is no longer equivalent to becoming Western.

Talking to young Iranian artists, I learned one important lesson. While they were rebelling against the confined spaces of life in Tehran, they also insisted that they did not want to follow the same path as Europeans or Americans. Contemporary art had taught them that there is always a different way of seeing. Art must foresee other pictures, other worlds. Western modernity is for them just another form of tradition to be uprooted and overcome.

When discussing world politics today, we often revert to one of two models. The first, popularized by Francis Fukuyama, sees the whole world converging to a European or Western political framework, after which no further historical development is possible. Every country or region is measured by the time it will still take to reach this final destination, but all doubts and debates about where we are heading have been fundamentally resolved. The other model, defended by Samuel Huntington, is sceptical of such irreversible movement. The world it depicts is that of a clash between different civilizations having little or nothing in common, particularly since Western political culture will remain geographically limited. This book adopts a third view.

I agree with Fukuyama that the whole world is on the path to modern society, but there are numerous paths and, naturally, different visions of what a modern society looks like. Everyone is modern now, but there are different models of modern society. From this fact the essential terms of the new world order follow more or less directly. The hard distinction between modern and traditional has broken down, giving way to a deeply integrated world, but its most distinctive trait is the incessant competition between different ideas of how worldwide networks should be organized…”

I find the book maybe a little less insightful on Russia (or it may be I know Russia less) but fascinating on the Asia / Europe part. Amazon link here.

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The current Arts blog, cross-over, the current Investing blog.  Cross fertilise, some thoughts on autism.  Discover what the last arts/business mingle was all about (sign up for invites to the next event in the list below).

My Op-Ed in the Financial Times  (My Financial Times opinion article) about asking long-term questions surrounding sustainability and ESG.

Current highlights:

A long read on Will Hutton looking at Brexit causes and solutions.

Some writing tips and thoughts from Zadie Smith

How to live a life, well lived. Thoughts from a dying man. On play and playing games.

A provoking read on how to raise a feminist child.

Some popular posts:  the commencement address;  by NassimTaleb (Black Swan author, risk management philosopher),  Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes;  JK Rowling on the benefits of failure.  Charlie Munger on always inverting;  Sheryl Sandberg on grief, resilience and gratitude.

Buy my play, Yellow Gentlemen, (amazon link) - all profits to charity