Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Red Shed
Has anyone been to, or seen inside the new Temporary "Shed" theatre next to the National on the South Bank? I saw it for the first time last weekend. A video by Ben Power Associate Director of the National Theatre, got me thinking about different kinds of theatre spaces locally. Including the Bernie Grant Arts Centre and the new theatre at Finsbury Park.
Tags for Forum Posts: Bernie Grant Arts Centre, The Shed, local perfomance space, theatre
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Abi on
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Oh aye - Mr SoTo works there, so I've been hearing all about how it came to be! It's certainly impressive for a pop-up structure, and its interior is rather lovely as well. It 'popped up' remarkably quickly.
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Permalink Reply by M on
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I'm going to see The Table there tomorrow night, Alan. It'll be the first time I've seen a performance in the Shed, though I had a very informative tour of it from its project manager while it was being finished. It's an interesting building, I think, and an intriguing intervention in the built environment (full disclosure: I'm an academic who works on theatre and the urban environment, and am in one of the other videos the NT made about the Shed).
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Apologies if you tried clicking on the link I gave to Ben Power's video. Now repaired. Here it is again.
With a second direct link to the video mentioned by M above. I was particularly interested in the view (promise?) that the Shed is a theatre is about 'Now'. And "for audiences who are interested in what's happening now".
(In case you were wondering, 'M' is not Judi Dench.)
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I think it's fair to say that I'm unlikely to be mistaken for Judi Dench. The clips in the Positioning the Shed video are culled from a much longer, very interesting, conversation I had with a colleague at the NT. She asked me several times if I thought that the Shed would achieve the type of "nowness" (for lack of a better word) the NT wants, and which I think the Shed tries to signal. In typically circumspect academic fashion, I responded that we couldn't know yet. Sending a signal with a building is one thing, but how audiences actually respond is a much more complex matter. And theatre often makes promises it can't keep, though I think this is no bad thing--we often find out other things we couldn't anticipate instead, and that can be a lot more interesting.
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The building is certainly eye-catching as a piece of sculpture. Calling it a 'shed' is a witty way to distinguish it from the posh monument next door. On the other hand I did like the little square it has temporarily displaced.
I also smiled, remembering a Manchester bar/restaurant which was once a real shed.
The video claims that this space will be unique. Is it? How will it differ from other theatres in the round - in Bolton and Coventry for instance?
Most of all I'm curious about the aim for "nowness". Maybe you can explain this a little more. It made me think about the Tricycle's commission of Gillian Slovo's "The Riot". Though "nowness" can mean a range of things other than current social issues. Especially as the internet gives people not only access to the new, but also growing and easier access to artistic expression across the globe and to centuries of everyone's back catalogue.
Finally I'm thinking about possible lessons as Haringey and other local councils continue to put public money into the arts. Just to be clear, I'm not against subsidies for live gigs. (Though I question subsidies for the loss-making exhibition business on Muswell Hill. And for Joe Lewis's small hard-up football club.)
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I think that the claims about (or, perhaps more accurately, aspirations for) uniqueness and nowness need to be seen within the context of the NT itself, as a particular kind of cultural institution. Of course, the Shed, as a theatre-in-the-round, is not unique, either in the UK or elsewhere. Although this theatre configuration is uncommon it's hardly unheard of (as you rightly say, and one could point to other prominent examples, such as the New Vic in Newcastle-Under-Lyme). Within the context of the NT, though, a temporary theatre-in-the-round (or arena theatre) is unusual and intriguing, if not unique, because it doesn't allow the forms of staging that the NT arguably undertakes best: ones that put on display the extraordinary artistic infrastructure that the company possesses. Whether this infrastructure is consistently mobilised effectively is another issue, but I would argue that one of the justifications for the NT is to be a big theatrical machine (and some of the best work I've seen there has been in productions that have embraced this rather than shied away from it). The Shed is a consciously self-limiting exercise; I have no idea whether it will work or not, but I see its ostensible uniqueness arising in relation to the NT itself rather than in relation to other theatres (whether or not the NT acknowledges that this is the case).
As for "nowness," I think this is a recurring desire of many arts organisations but one that arises particularly acutely among large cultural institutions like the NT, which are frequently anxious about appearing "relevant" and "engaged" with "the now." They are generally poor at addressing current social issues, if only because things like commissioning and programming in such a large organisation are very complex and require long lead times. I don't necessarily see this as a problem--measuring currency only, or primarily, in terms of addressing certain issues at certain times can foreclose complex forms of theatrical engagement with the world and can be a bit naive about the extent to which any arts organisation can respond to, or even anticipate, current events quickly. But the history of modern, western theatre shows us that, even if the desire for "nowness" is very difficult to satisfy, this doesn't stop that desire from persisting, especially in cultural institutions like the NT.
I don't know the Slovo piece very well, but I would argue that the form of social engagement popularised by the Tricycle in recent years--verbatim theatre--is itself intriguingly ambivalent, and in ways not wholly dissimilar to the NT and the Shed (if on quite a different scale). That is, in both cases there is a conscious theatrical self-limitation, an attempt to strip away elements of the theatrical apparatus in order to get to something more "real," so that current events can be engaged in ways that "all that theatre" somehow prevents. This is arguably related to what Jonas Barish called the "anti-theatrical prejudice," though the thing that Barish missed was that the anti-theatrical prejudice arguably emerges nowhere more keenly than within theatre itself, and that this sometimes occurs most sharply when theatre seeks to address current social issues.
In terms of possible lessons for local councils, the arguments for public investment in the arts--at the local level--are many (and some, or rather some combinations, persuade me more than others). It's also always possible to find individual instances of funding that are questionable--the problem is when we generalise (often inappropriately) from them. But I've already written a short essay here (!) and don't want to bore you any more by writing a whole book. I would say, though, that while I don't diminish the fact that local councils have been singled out appallingly by the national cuts, I also think it's the case that local councils in the UK have historically overestimated their own beneficence towards the arts, and the public has often been encouraged (not just by elements of the media but also by politicians of the Left and the Right) to imagine that vast sums are being spent. By international standards, though, local spending on the arts in the UK has historically been quite low, however important it has been--and continues to be--to the country's artistic ecology and our broader democratic life.
Well, I certainly didn't intend to say all that when I started this message (this is why I don't blog--I'd never get anything else done!). Sorry, Alan, if I've gone rather further than you intended to prompt.
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No need for a 'Sorry'. Your thoughtful, interesting reply is very welcome. A lot to think about!
But apologies for my own ignorance. I'd never heard of Jonas Barish. So thanks for that reference. Especially as The Anti-Theatrical Prejudice is now online. I doubt I'll get through it quickly. I did jump to the last chapter where Barish seems to do what you suggest he didn't - explore the seam of anti-theatricality within theatre itself. But plainly I need to read it more closely.
Overall in 2013, an "anti-theatrical prejudice" seems a strange idea. Don't we love our performers more than ever? And want to get near them in different ways? (Though a long time ago I saw Handke's: Insulting the Audience and was very glad we weren't sitting in the front row.)
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