# Conference: Cultures of the Left in the Age of Right-Wing Populism Community Plays: Creating a New Unity in Society

Marianne Drugeon

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Marianne Drugeon. Conference: Cultures of the Left in the Age of Right-Wing Populism Community Plays: Creating a New Unity in Society. Cultures of the Left in the Age of Right-Wing Populism, Silvija Jestovic - University of Warwick, Apr 2019, Venise (IT), Italy. hal-04674820

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Conference: Cultures of the Left in the Age of Right-Wing Populism

Community Plays: Creating a New Unity in Society

Marianne Drugeon

INTRODUCTION: HISTORY PLAYS AND POLITICS

In an age of rising right-wing populism, which plays on people's fear of the other and on the definition of a strong sense of national identity as a means to exclude whoever does not belong to the community, some British left-wing playwrights have decided to fight back by using their art so as to create a new, more inclusive sense of the community. It is a community which celebrates itself by understanding its common past and which seeks to imagine a better future.

I wish to explore the contradictions at the heart of such experiments, basing my analysis on the Community plays which have been written for the city of Dorchester in the South of England, in the past 30 years. I use the term "contradiction" because these are History plays which try to be nationalist in a liberal left-wing way; because they try to define a left-wing inclusive national identity.

Traditionally, left-wing politically committed theatre has used the stage as a pulpit, and turned it into a tool to force spectators to think about the present. Politically-committed playwrights have also often resorted to History plays because they are very efficient at putting the present in perspective. Playwrights use the stage to convince, to debate, to teach, to question...

From the start, history plays have helped the nation to define its own identity. Thus Ralph Hertel explains how the rise of History plays in the Early Modern period corresponds to a growing sense of English national identity under the early Tudors: "Englishness is considered as something brought forth by the spectators who participate in the theatre event by becoming eye witnesses of sorts of the events staged and who engage in the Englishness displayed theatrically<fnref n="1" />."

I think community plays have taken a step further towards engaging the audience and tackling contemporary political issues in an innovative way, as I will try to show.

<footnote n="1">¹ Hertel, Ralf. *Staging England in the Elizabethan History Play: Performing National Identity*. Surrey, England: Ashgate, 2014, 1.</footnote>
# I. COMMUNITY PLAYS

A few words about Community Plays: Ann Jellicoe, a professional playwright and theatre director, settled in West Dorset in the late 1970s. She started to write a play for the local school, but she wrote on such a large scale that it became necessary to involve not only the children but also the wider community. The experience was a huge success. Jon Oram, artistic director who has started working with Ann Jellicoe and is now a specialist of that form, explains: “the more that people were asked for help, the greater became the interest in what was happening. The greater the interest, the more people helped, and commitment grew. An amazing energy emerged: long-lost feelings of belonging to a place and a community began to surface<fnref n="2" />.”

Since this first experience, there have been 6 community plays in Dorchester, and the next one will be performed in June 2020.

Those experiences seem to help the inhabitants of the city to redefine their sense of community, and all those plays are history plays. As defined on the site of Dorchester community play, “the essence of the modern community play is that it tells a story taken from the community’s past (...). And if the play has resonances today so much the better<fnref n="3" />.”

The link between past and present is made concrete because the play happens on the exact same location, and is performed by descendants of the real individuals whose lives are being told on stage. Anne Jellicoe comments on the very strong impression it creates: “There was a feeling of ‘it happened here’ and confusion in terms of us and them and then and now.” (Entertaining Strangers, 4).

Previous Community plays were set in the Victorian era (Entertaining Strangers), in pre-Roman and Roman times, during the Viking invasion, in the seventeenth century, in Georgian England (A Time to Keep), and the next one will be set in the 15th century (Spinning the Moon). Only two of the six plays performed in Dorchester have been published so far, both most probably because they were written or co-written by a famous playwright, David Edgar. The next one, Spinning the Moon will – perhaps – be published and distributed along with the programme of the play. I will follow the creation of this play step by step, have already met the playwright for an interview and just received the draft of the playtext. I will thus quote only from those

<footnote n="2">² Jon Oram, Afterword to A Time to Keep. London: Nick Hern Books, 2007, 127.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ http://www.dorchestercommunityplay.org.uk</footnote>
three texts: *Entertaining Strangers*, performed and published in 1985, *A Time to Keep* in 2007 and *Spinning the Moon*, to be performed in 2020.

## 1. The number of participants and relation with the audience

### How does it work?

In concrete words, in Dorchester, a committee was formed in the 1980s composed of 10 non-professional volunteers. They are the ones who choose the writer and define what they call a “social agenda” (they agree on the general subject of the play, the fact that it is linked to Dorchester’s history...). Besides them, there are only 5 or 6 professionals, among whom the playwright. Alongside them, between 80 and 130 inhabitants of Dorchester will participate in the creation of the play without being paid, either researching the subject, or creating costumes, or having parts. The whole process takes around 2 years. This is a much longer process than for a professional play, because the vast majority of participants are not paid. In terms of numbers of parts, the guiding principle is to accept absolutely anyone who wants to act. Instead of doubling, playwrights resort to “halving” (dividing important parts among several performers) as explained in a note on characters and casting in *A Time to Keep*: “We were inundated with volunteers (...). Against all our instincts and usual practices, we found ourselves needing to add rather than to subtract characters from the cast, asking if so-and-so couldn’t have a sister, or a servant (or two servants), or a mother, or a child? As a result, the character list contains over 115 names.” (*A Time to Keep*, XVII). The huge number of unpaid actors is probably the most striking feature of Community plays.

## 2. History plays and their relation to the present

But another striking characteristic is that they are all history plays and that they constantly play on a dialogue between past and present.

*Entertaining Strangers*, for instance, begins in the present time, with inhabitants of Dorchester who are presented as “real people in contemporary clothes” in the stage directions. They explain that they have found genuine documents (birth certificates, family notebooks...) about the “characters” in the play. The past is literally excavated in front of the eyes of the spectators as the scene shifts to a building site where further artefacts were found by archaeologists. Reality and fiction intermingle, both in the present and in the past: the present-day characters play with modals to present the story that they will be telling: this is how it “could have happened”. Then the action jumps backwards several times, from 1985 to 1870, then 1850 and finally 1828, then develops forward in chronological order, from 1828 to the present.
*A Time to Keep* is set in 1804, as the city of Dorchester prepares for a possible invasion by the troops of Napoleon, and as King George III and his family are also visiting, the community decides to mount an entertainment about the town's history to sustain morale: the play-within-the-play is about another well-known historical fact that happened in Dorchester in 1706, (a story with which Thomas Hardy was obsessed and which he described in letters and articles). It is the story of Mary Channing who was the last woman burnt at the stake in Dorchester. Thus the real story of the past becomes a fiction inside the play, which is itself a fictional version of a more recent past.

*Finally Spinning the Moon* is set in 1486 and covers a 50-year period It tells of the collapse of the Manorial system, and the clearance of land for sheep. This switch meant that many labour hands were not only stripped of their jobs (you needed only one man to look after a flock of sheep) but also out of their houses as the richer farmers bought land from the lord of the manor and covered it with sheep, pushing the people who had so far lived on it off the manor houses, into the woods.

Once more the play is a history play, but Stephanie Dale insists it is linked to the present, and more particularly to the refugee crisis: "part of writing a community play is to explore cultural resonances [between] the past and present. (...) Currently the world is experiencing a refugee crisis. Part of the landless plot will explore how it must feel to be forced to leave your home. Peter [Cann, the director] and I are always keen to ask "how is the past connecting with now?" And I think that is one very clear example." (Interview of Stephanie Dale by Andrew Barrett, unpublished). This is concretely shown on stage during the performance, as S. Dale explains in her notes on the production: "we took the decision to look back at this period through a 21st century lens. Therefore, the play should feel bold and contemporary in its language, tone and production. By the end of the play, the landless should be in contemporary clothes; this idea can and should spill over into the design and music of the whole production."

### 3. Relation to the place, creating a new sense of identity

The third characteristic of all those community plays is that they are set in Dorchester. Cherry Schrecker, in her critical history of the concept of community in Anglo-Saxon sociology, explains that the most important and defining aspect of a community is the geographical common ground. Thus, the plays are performed in the most iconic buildings of the city (a monastery, a church, a school...), and they are also about the city and about its inhabitants. Schrecker also explains that when the place is not the common ground, for instance in the
case of migrating communities, a shared history is a very important factor in creating a sense
of community. Those community plays, and that is one of their contradictory features,
manage to create a sense of community either because people who have now moved out of
Dorchester still share a common history or because people newly arrived in Dorchester now
share a common space, and are introduced into an enlarged community.

The philosopher Pierre Dardot and the sociologist Christian Laval for their part, argue that we
are currently living through a crisis which is social, environmental and political. This crisis has
led to a rise of nationalist and xenophobic populist movements as an answer to the message
sent by governments, a message based on individualism and capitalism: the state is not there
to protect society, society is composed of individuals who need to be responsible and
independent. They then analyse many examples of social endeavours that aim at recreating a
“common world” through communication, a redefinition of how we can live together and find
common roots (be they historical, social or religious for instance). I think that community plays
are part of that movement. So what is the ideology behind those experiments?

It is a fact that all the professional participants in those creations are liberal left-wing, that they will try to share their ideals, and communicate about themes that are close to their hearts: about homelessness, about migrants, about opening up to other cultures or other religions, against Brexit etc. But this is not necessarily the case of the non-professional participants, and this is not the case of the audience either. As an illustration of this point, in workshops, participants are encouraged to list all their problems, or the problems they think the community faces. The price of parking, and fuel, or traffic congestion come foremost, as well as the number of homeless people who are seen as a nuisance and not a population in need of help. The strategy of the playwrights is obviously not to silence such viewpoints, but to play with them. Concretely, in S. Dale's next play, there will be a comical reference to Dorchester needing a one-way system, which will get a big laugh: that is a shared experience, it is showing the community to itself, it is also part of the deal when you accept to write for the community. The workshops are also occasions to discuss politics and ideology, to mix socially, and to meet those the community may fear or reject: homeless people are also participating. Though participants will not dramatically and miraculously change their minds, it is to be hoped that they will become aware of others' points of view.

On the whole, the ideology of playwrights who write community plays remains under cover:
well-known left-wing writers will not be chosen by the committee because they antagonize
part of the audience from the start. The tactic is not to confront the audience or indeed the
actors violently, but to be on their sides. ( It is also not necessarily aiming at helping those who
make the news, be they migrants or the homeless, but also helping handicapped people, or
the elderly, who face solitude, groups who feel they are cast out from the community as well,
but that nobody cares). On the whole, community plays will not necessarily change the
political stance of the participants but will certainly create new ties, and those who acted in
*Entertaining Strangers* in 1985 still see each other today!

Whereas known left-wing playwrights (, for instance David Hare whose last play *I'm Running*
opened at the National Theatre this year,) tend to find themselves addressing spectators who
are already converted to their cause, and who share the same knowledge of politics, with its
lingo, its rules and its codes, the audience of community plays is more varied, perhaps more
vulgar, which is also a way of defining what is common.

Interestingly, if it doesn't share a knowledge which is above the common (more specialized),
or "supra vulgus", it shares, perhaps, common sense.

As a final attempt at defining these experiments, I would like to compare them with other
types of communal creations.

## II. COMPARING COMMUNITY PLAYS WITH OTHER TYPES OF COMMUNAL THEATRE

### 1. mystery plays

Since 1950, the city of Chester (among others) has had a Mystery every five years. Those plays,
inherited from the Middle Ages, are representations of Bible stories. The idea is also to create
a sense of belonging, of communion (this time with a religious meaning). Stephanie Dale also
wrote a mystery play for Chester, and the two forms share the same aim: linking the past and
the present. Thus recent mystery plays have commented on the environment, or on the
migrants in Calais, or on military violence and political tyranny.

Another common feature is that the modern mystery plays, like the community plays, also
rely on non-professional actors.

But if we look closer, this aspect of the production may be slightly different: on the one hand,
the rare professional actors who are cast in community plays are given secondary roles, on
the other, in Mystery Plays the few professional actors are given the main roles such as God,
Jesus or the Devil, while community casts play crowds.
(Interestingly, when community plays are history plays, mysteries are supposedly set somewhere nearer the present. Nevertheless, if we look at the costumes, contemporary dress in Mysteries actually means vintage clothing design, recalling WWII and its aftermath. This is probably meant as a reference to the first revivals of Mystery Plays in 1951, as a tribute to a tradition.

So whereas many characters who appear in Community plays are dressed in the same way as the audience, those of mystery plays are dressed in old-fashioned clothing.)

Unfortunately I don't have time to develop other interesting differences between the two forms, but, as is most often the case, the main difference spells itself in financial terms: the seats for Chester Mystery plays are twice as expensive as those for Dorchester community plays. And they get much more funding, by the Arts Council and by the Church.

## 2. Cinéscenie

Another interesting comparison would be with a French equivalent: the night show entitled "Cinéscenie" in the amusement park "Le Puy du Fou". The show is also historical, telling the story of the French Revolution from the point of view of farmers from the Vendée. Though the message could almost be said to be revisionist, and certainly is populist, there are a number of similarities between the two productions. For one thing, the cinéscenie relies on non-professional volunteers who are ready to give time, often to give up holiday plans, for the benefit of this common experience, and the idea that the money the show will make will be reinvested in the department (so beneficial for the community as a whole). For another, both kinds of "history plays" are based on the same idea of changing points of view. When the cinéscenie takes that of poor farmers who are royalists and who decide to fight against the ideals of the French Revolution, *Entertaining Strangers, A Time to Keep and Spinning the Moon* are also about common people, farmers, servants, pub owners or smugglers. They are all examples of people's history, or history from below, with protagonists who are not members of the aristocracy but are poor and marginalized.

One may imagine here that the audience will identify more willingly with those individuals, and that inhabitants of Dorchester or of the Puy du Fou will feel that finally they are under the spotlight and given a voice.

Nevertheless when the cinéscenie pictures a different point of view and presents another version of history, their aim is to convince outsiders that the received history is questionable.
The show is consequently didactic, if not propagandist. It is also focusing on the representation of Vendéens and presenting them as particular, or special, to spectators who are not Vendéens, who do not share the same roots.

In the case of the community plays on the other hand, there is no real historical lesson to be drawn. What is pictured is the received history (with the Queen and King, the aristocracy etc), but including in the picture characters who are generally left outside the frame because they are considered as less interesting, less central. The aim seems rather to broaden the picture, so as to include characters who are closer to the spectators of the show in that they are anonymous, unimportant, unknown. This is best exemplified by the ending of community plays, where the company as a whole comes on stage and sings the same song, encouraging the audience to sing along.

Indeed, having a participating audience is a stated expectation in community plays, and actually one of the rules set by the committee. And this is not the case of the Cinéscenie where actors will address the audience, face the spectators and sing to them, but will not have them become active. This is actually theorized by Jon Oram who created the concept of the “social actor”: “A social actor somehow has permission to implicate the audience in the drama, because this is their home territory; the actors and audience are neighbours. (...) The fact that the actor comes from the community makes the audience’s transition from spectator to involved performer almost seamless. There’s a feeling of equality and intimacy when the cast and audience come from the same community.” (Afterword to *A Time to Keep*, 131)

Another technical choice which partakes of the same wish to create new bonds and include the spectators as equals is to have the plays performed outside theatres, in barns, schools, churches, factories or castles: those locations are a common ground in that they do not belong more to the actors than they do to the audience who lives there throughout the year.

Jon Oram sums up: “Each of these community plays demonstrates that they are capable of galvanising and motivating groups of people who feel they have lost control over their lives”
*(A Time to Keep, 131)*

## CONCLUSION
The idea of losing control over one's life, or losing control over what governments (national or European) decide for the people, probably echoes with contemporary troubles, be they the demonstrations of "gilets jaunes" in France or Brexiters in the UK. The populist idea of finally listening to the common people is subtly mingling with
the ideals behind community plays, and it is difficult to avoid completely any kind of
sectarianism or revisionism or enclosure (to take up the vocabulary of the common, this time
applied to fields, which is actually the theme of *Spinning the Moon*).

In that light, it seems that the aim of community play writers is to counter that ideology by
using the same form. The creation of the show thus becomes a new wealth to be shared
among the community, a commonwealth. The idea is not to define shared roots which already
exist and are considered as a good, but to build together an inclusive world where a new story
is created, to be enjoyed and shared by as many people as possible. Thus, in a preface to
*Entertaining Strangers*, the creator of the Community Play Anne Jellicoe writes: “One day I
was discussing whether we should play without an interval or not, when Baz Kershaw of
Medium Fair said: ‘You must have a coffee break because then you’ll involve more people.”,
and it flashed upon me that we were in the job of involving people in creating a work of art: if
they actually gave of themselves in order to help the creation, support it, belonged to it, then
it would be theirs. Later I realized that creating a work together, as part of a community,
enormously stimulates and refreshes that community. Communities need community events
to continuously revitalize themselves.” (*Entertaining Strangers*, 3)

Marianne Drugeon