Adrian Jackson is the founder-director and chief executive of a unique theatre company, Cardboard Citizens, in which most of the performers are homeless and ex-homeless people, refugees or asylum-seekers. Founded in 1992, the company tours theatre productions, especially inter-active Forum theatre, to all sorts of venues.
LABORATORY DATES: Tuesday, 13 April to Thursday, 15 April
This laboratory will explore the presentation of truth and history, personal and national. A particular focus of the exploration is likely to be the story of the Chagos Islanders who were forcibly removed from the island of Diego Garcia in the 1970's.
Before the start of this laboratory, Adrian Jackson set down his goals, and his wishes. He wanted to look at telling a story, a public history story, that of the small person in the big history. Conscious of the media desire to expose the ‘interesting’ and ‘dirty’ parts of a story, Jackson is interested in the honest telling of a person’s story, as that may be all they have left.
ReplyDeletePossibly best known for his translations of and work with Augusto Boal, Jackson made it clear that one of his goals is to share what Boal was doing with communities to a larger scale audience.
The starting point for this laboratory is the story of the former residents of Diego Garcia, a small island in the Chagos Archipelago, based in the British Indian Ocean Territory, who were forced to leave their island at the end of the 1960’s, so a U.S. Military Base could be constructed.
So the first question was how can this story be told? Both accurately, honestly, and while acknowledging our relation to it?
Adrian had collected large sample of documents relating to Diego Garcia from the public records offices. These included UK and US government discussion of the plans to construct this facility and relocate the people. A petition from the people of Diego was included. There was also a blog from a couple of holiday makers describing the beauty of the archipelago, without referencing the story of the islanders at all.
This material was distributed to the group to read aloud, the order of fragments chosen by Adrian, so as we read and listened, the story was evoked, different threads at different times creating poignant connections between unrelated and related text.
We then watched some videos Jackson had filmed of interviews with some of the surviving Chagossians, which had not been translated from their original Creole. This gave us a study of body language, tone and facial expression to tell a story, and an immersion in the rhythmic language that these people speak.
With all of these different accounts of people coming into play, the group had created ideas of their own. The histories of the workshop participants came into play, and ideas of reflexivity came about; we discussed not just tarring the governments involved with this sad story with one brush straight away.
Indeed, Jackson was clear that he did not want to create a harangue, but a complex layered piece of material, including reflexivity and a positive viewpoint. Stepping outside of the direct story of the eviction, we looked at material about the marine life of the archipelago, which is now a protected area of the Indian Ocean, allowing marine life to flourish.
The other idea of impartiality we looked at was that of a reversal. With no translation of the interviews, Jackson pointed out, it could be said that they were suggesting anything. Even something as radical as destroying London for example, and removing its people against their will. While untrue, this focused us on the honesty needed in a story, but also the ability to mock and reflect on the situation.
For the last hour or so of the day, we had split into pairings to work on the source material provided by Adrian, with directions when help was required. These documents again included the holiday blog, and government documents, even the video interview and British Indian Ocean Territories Marine life booklet. Material has been generated from these documents now, and will be brought together in day two.
To start the second day of the laboratory, we looked at some more source material, from a source not commonly linked to theatre and performance; the internet. Many different videos have been posted on to www.youtube.com about Diego Garcia, whether telling the story of the island, giving tourist’s pictures of the British Indian Ocean Territory, or even the troops stationed on the military base there.
ReplyDeleteAs well as giving us more of a view of the island, these videos also come with a series of debates around the issues we are looking at, giving us this possible source for material. Using this, we gave the bloggers voices, and used their comments for an argument. Adrian made sure that we included the exact language of the bloggers to have this argument (not just tone, but any spelling mistakes, and internet abbreviations i.e. lol), placing the sense of location clearly into the argument. This grew until the language was lost with everyone speaking.
While we agreed this was an interesting exercise, and a good way to use the internet as a source material, it did raise the question of the quality of the debate, and the amounts of information to be used. With countless numbers of people being able to post upon the internet, selection of something like this would be a difficult process.
Moving on from this set of correspondence, we looked then at similar material to yesterday (from civil servants), but this time, we edited third person reports of correspondence into first person actual correspondence. Like with the material yesterday, this gave a good idea of the different processes going on without the islanders’ knowledge. It did however return us to the question of reflexivity, and objectivity.
There was still concern in the group that by giving the story using the materials present, there may not have been enough contextualisation of the reasoning behind the British and US Governments decisions. It was at this point Adrian reminded us of his key goals; to tell the story of these people honestly, with credibility. He is not looking to create a harangue with this long term project, but to give a three dimensional account of what happened here; not justifying the acts of the governments, but explaining them as best he can in a different time to the actual events. It will be by giving these source materials honestly that the three dimensional account will come out, allowing the audience to make their own decisions about right and wrong.
This led on to discussion about style of the play, and the possibility of a Brechtian style was discussed. We explored creating Brechtian style episode titles, which would tell the audience what was about to happen, giving them a distance from these events, allowing impartiality from either side.
After this brief discussion, we moved back to some material from yesterday, where two of the group members had created a small movement sequence, using the names of the islands in the Chagos Archipelago as their text. Using the text of this piece, we created a tag like children’s game, to discover a rhythm of language for the Chagossians. This children’s game then became the start of a small fragment we created. Once someone was out of the game, they would then move out of the action, and prepare some documents, which would be read afterwards. Again, these were some of the civil servants’ documents we had been using previously.
Adrian was keen to keep the reading of these relaxed to begin with, developing a sense of chronology, as at the start of proceedings, there was no rush for events to take place, and allowed us to set up the style of this government workers; controlled, proud and loyal people, willing to do the best for their government.
So by the end of the session we had these two scenes, the children’s game with an interview with a Chagossian projected behind us, and a very different business like affair, with correspondence beginning the removal of the islanders.
To start the final day of the laboratory, Adrian warmed us up with a few games, straight from the Arsenal of the Oppressed (Boal’s creation, all found in Games for Actors and Non Actors), with a few variations. Taking some examples of leading and following exercises, and Image Theatre, Adrian informed us that not only did these games work well with large groups, but that they will always have the opportunity to be adapted, and expanded to keep them alive and interesting for both director and participants.
ReplyDeleteThe games from Image theatre were also useful in terms of the work we had been doing; by creating an image in a pair, and adjusting it under the direction of a third person, it instills the idea that sight is not merely for receiving information, but for giving information as well. In a situation where we are looking at the ownership of a story, this is very important, and allows the group to understand different possibilities of what can be happening at any one time.
Today, Jackson had received the translation for the interview he had done with Madame Talate, so for the first part of the laboratory, we focused on this. While we had already gained some information from the video interview even with the language barrier, the actual dialogue gave us the opportunity to add extra layers.
As an explanation, Adrian again explained to us that he was interested in honestly telling a story, not simply ‘mediatising’ it, and taking all the ‘interesting’ or ‘dirty’ parts, as a documentary maker, or the media would be interested in. This led to a discussion on the showing of material, and techniques used. It was questioned as to what would be done if the participant (Madame Talate) had broken down into tears, and whether it would be acceptable then to show this. Jackson’s answer was that a more ‘mediatised’ version may show this for a while, and then cut away, but to be honest and credible with his film, he may have either cut away straight away, or filmed the entire emotion, including the recovery, which would show the whole human nature of the participant. Whereas previously, Adrian had wished to remove the interviewer from the video, and have the interviewee almost speaking straight to the audience, here he planned the opposite, wanting to acknowledge his part, and his friend Henri’s (Henri is a Mauritian who has had a long relationship with the Chagossian people located in Mauritius).
For the final part of the session, we split into groups, and worked on two sources of information; one group looked at re-creating the interview with Madame Talate, and the other looked at creating the story of Rolf and Irene, the holiday makers who we briefly looked at on the first day.
The holiday makers were looked at purely in a personal form, with their only relation to the islanders being that they had seen Diego Garcia and the Chagos Archipelago, so their story became a video blog for their friends, which could perhaps be juxtaposed against another part of the story later.
The video interview was done with a slight Brechtian flavour, allowing the audience to see the interviewer and soundman (Henri and Adrian), and language was played with to make understanding the interviewer impossible, and Madame Talate clearly.
As a finish to the three days, we discussed with Adrian what the after effects of his play would be. Reaffirming that he did not wish a harangue, but an informative piece, it would allow him to prompt further investigation of the situation; for documents that had been destroyed to be investigated, such as early drafts of feasibility studies (to see how inhabitable the islands were), investigations of government decisions. While the piece may not instruct the audience to do anything, it will be fully open enough to let them make a decision about what they think is right and wrong, and if they wish to do anything about it. Sharing this story with the world with honesty is the only way the Chagossian voice, and the surrounding voices can be heard truthfully.