Uncategorized

Beware of Pity, Barbican Feb 10 2017. Photo (c) Guardian

Beware of pity, beware of the danger of pity without empathy, be aware of the inner warmth of he who pities set against the chill of the pitied.   The warning was strongly expressed in Beware of Pity in London tonight.    The show, by the actors of Schaubühne Berlin directed by Simon McBurney of Complicité, is a deeply telling, graceful, fluid production based on Stefan Zweig‘s novel, published in 1939.

The Schaubühne ensemble was a supreme example of ‘match-fit actors’, as Simon McBurney described them in a post-show discussion, working selflessly and seamlessly with text, sound, light and projection, so that content and form were one.   Lieutenant Hofmiller, an Austrian cavalry office, narrates the story of his younger self, falling prey to the self-satisfaction of his encouraging effect on Edith, a disabled, wealthy daughter of a self-made, soi-disant aristocrat.   The ensemble creates a rich world of characters, as they double and treble roles.    Voices and bodies flowed in and out of each other and of the chairs, tables and now microphones that are the staples of a Complicité staging.   Hofmiller cannot face the responsibility of the love that Edith feels for him.   Her personal catastrophe is overtaken by the colossal European catastrophe of the First World War.   Hofmiller goes willingly to die to assuage his guilt, but he and his conscience survive to realise that there is no forgiveness.

Zweig wrote as one European catastrophe was about to engulf him, driving him to suicide.   The story speaks of another that broke over Europe only 25 years earlier.   Thomas Ostermeier, the director of Schaubühne Berlin, and Simon McBurney spoke passionately about the darkening of our present time and how resonant the literature of 100 years ago sounds today, as European politicians raise physical barriers and turn their backs on each other, draining the continent of the habit of irritating, tedious, exhausting negotiation thatfor 70 years has kept the nations of Europe talking as tetchy partners rather than fighting as mortal enemies .

See also Brexit, Trump, Le Pen

Earlier this year, Inpress Ltd, which Ian Grant chairs, rescued the Poetry Book Society from extinction.   There was acute danger that the 63-year old society would disappear. This caused anguish among the membership, poets and the literary world.   The PBS forms a significant layer in the ecosystem of poetry.    A new start for the PBS promotes new voices in poetry to its members and to the wider public. It helps to maintain the reputation and output of established poets.   It adds to the royalties poets receive by purchasing print runs of new books of poetry that its Selectors choose as the Poetry Book Society Choice.    Each quarter the PBS also promotes four recommended titles to its members.  This results in additional sales for the publishers and royalties for the poets.    Helping poetry publishers to become and remain profitable is a significant effect of the PBS’s position in the market.

The Inpress mission

This is also the mission of Inpress Ltd.    The Arts Council of England, which helped to establish Inpress 15 years ago, significantly supported the rescue of the PBS.    The Arts Council’s relationship with the PBS dates back to its foundation in 1953 when T.S. Eliot, Sir Basil Blackwell and others founded the PBS ‘to propagate the art of poetry’.   Eric Walter White, a distinguished writer, musicologist and Arts Council administrator, was Secretary and subsequently Chairman of the Poetry Book Society.    He was followed as Chairman by Philip Larkin, Blake Morrison, Michael Goff and other outstanding figures in the world of poetry and literature.   As a result of the rescue, Ian Grant is now Chairman of the PBS.

Inpress and the PBS subscribe to the key objectives of Arts Council England – excellence, innovation, diversity and reach.    The PBS aims to serve its members with fresh vigour and sophistication, offering stimulating choices of new work, news and insights from the poetry world; to engage new members and new contributors through new means of communication; to broaden its appeal to a much more diverse audience than the founders could ever have imagined; and to reach writers, readers and publishers throughout the world with the message and the substance that poetry, a most ancient art, is at the heart of humane communication in our complex, messy and fractious world.

 Visit the Poetry Book Society at https://www.poetrybooks.co.uk/.

Harriet Walter appealed (again) for more women’s leading roles in theatre and film – roles which do not involve women only talking about men, are not simply domestic or love interest and show women leading fully rounded grown-up lives.   The Guardian ran this interview with her.   She writes an ‘open letter’ to Shakespeare saying, ‘despite the fact that the world has changed enormously since your day, the stories we tell about ourselves still tend to follow your template’.

Women are wiser then men

I agree.   Women are wiser than men, there are more women than men, we have just missed the opportunity of a triumfemate of women’s leading roles the US, Germany and the UK that might have shone light onto some of the darker elements of the world’s story to come (although Marine Le Pen will hold us back).   Shakespeare’s leading women are all defined by their men, however powerful they are.   We have all been borne by women.

Maybe the Greeks knew more about the fundamental power of women’s leading roles (for good or ill) – Medea, Antigone, Electra, Clytemnestra.  However much women were formally second-class citizens in the Greece of 450BC, the dramatists could not avoid expressing their power.

My response

I try to respond to the issue addressed by Harriet Walter in my plays.   In the current one, Scapegoat, the leading roles are all played by women, older and younger.  The cast has four women, three men.   The women have big jobs – President of a European country, investment banker, charismatic politician, archetype.   They are all more than equal to the male characters.   The play is directed by Abigail Pickard Price, a young director never out of work.   The forthcoming workshop production will tell us whether the dynamic of the play works and the characters live off the page.   If so, I hope it will add a tiny weight to the female end of the see-saw.

Yesterday America elected Donald Trump President.   Brexit, now this, next year Marine Le Pen.   The rhetoric of Farage and Trump has allowed visceral rage, racism and fear to burst the bounds of public debate.   People are once more being divided openly between ‘us’ and ‘them’.   Education, context and parental boundaries have faded.

The 70 years since the Second World War have been progressively more easy for the rich countries of the world.   Schools and families have relaxed their vigilance over understanding and respect for every human being.   For too long all of us have fought only feebly against ignorance and the dilution of awareness of who we are and where we come from, so that lives are lived in a thin crust of daily soundbites and thoughtless responses.   Beneath is roiling appetite, addictive satiety, forgetfulness surging around a core of cooling iron – a planet dying, humanity suffocating itself in plastic cotton wool and bilious excretions.

So we have to go again.

Our contribution to Europe, a Europe of nations allied for 70 years since the last, catastrophic, European war, a Europe that struggles, moans, argues, compromises and eventually agrees, our contribution to our continent is an integral part of our economic and civic order, structure, rhythm and heartbeat, that keeps us alive and operative.   Untune that European string, and the domestic discord that consumes the Tory party will consume our country too.

Two thousand people last night filled the London Palladium, home of variety, song and dance since 1910, to debate the Britain’s future in or out of the European Union.    We got a bit of variety, a bit of a clown, a sparkle or two, but no-one was sawed in half.

The Guardian Live event showed that people care; the queue to get in went the length of Argyll Street; people of all ages were there.   The atmosphere, warmed up (the theatre was chilly) by a couple of stand-up comedians, was of a pantomime audience ready for a good night out.   Cheers and boos and laughter flowed around the theatre as Andrea Leadsom (Tory), Nick Clegg, (Lib Dem), Alan Johnson (Labour) and Nigel Farage (UKIP) knocked each other about.    Despite strong feelings on the platform, very few people changed their minds during the evening, according to a show of hands.

Alan Johnson made the best points in favour of remaining in the EU, on the 70 years of peace through grindingly long negotiations; the protections of employment law extended to the working people of 28 countries; the protection against crime and terrorism a joined-up approach to European policing provides.   Nick Clegg was the most passionate, and came over increasingly strongly as the evening progressed, particularly in response to Nigel Farage’s preposterous provocations.   Farage is professionally rude, as he is in the European parliament.   His interventions are not arguments, they are attacks, like a mini-Trump.   His outrageous hypocrisy, trumpeting against the EU while pocketing a generous salary and colossal benefits as an MEP, is one of the reasons why he has never won a seat in Westminster, despite trying for years.   I have never come across Andrea Leadsom, and her remark that there was no internecine war within the Conservative party was derided by all 2,00 in the audience.

It is extraordinary that we spend time in this debate, which has been conjured up by the Prime Minister to appease a fractious Tory back bench, when the real crisis in Europe – the refugees seeking safety and a better life and unemployment for a large number of young people in the southern states – is so huge that it will take years of doing the work to ease the pain.

See also European Union – five reasons to remain

Once again, the headlines focus on another catastrophe in the narrow sea between Turkey and the European Union.   People flee the war in Syria; they flee from the crumbling states in Afghanistan and Iraq; they flee from political and social trauma in Libya and sub-Saharan Africa.    They flee to Europe and underline each day the case for Britain to stay in the European Union.    They come because it works.

Five reasons for Britain to stay in the European Union:

1. Work to be done – the European Union is the largest single jobs market in the world.
2. The rule of law – across our continent are 28 countries that subscribe to a common system of justice for each citizen beneath an overarching legal concept of human rights.
3. Freedom of speech – we each have an acknowledged right to say, believe or argue whatever we choose.
4. Freedom of opportunity – we can choose to move freely throughout the European Union in search of work, inspiration, leisure.
5. Security – Europe has preserved 70 years of peace, by talking, compromising and sharing rather than fighting and killing.

Five reasons why Britain leaving the European Union (Brexit) would be wrong:

1. Free trade – we are members of the largest free trade zone in the world.  Brexit says we can make better trade agreements on our own.   Why start again and throw away all the influence we already have?
2. Safety – we are members of the two major defence alliances in the world – the EU and NATO.   Brexit says we would be safer out.    The US and all our other international partners encourage us to remain, to make more of our influence in the EU.
3. The protection of citizens – EU regulation valuably protects employment rights, human rights, health standards, the environment.    Brexit means these protections would be weaker in the UK, and to trade with the EU we would need to abide by the EU’s rules.   Why leave?
4. The City of London – one of the major global centres.  Brexit says leaving the EU would unshackle the City.   The City largely disagrees, not wishing to lose business to Frankfurt and Paris.   Global financial institutions urge us to stay.
5. Immigration – careful management of people coming to Britain improves our economy and our society.   Brexit says the present humanitarian catastrophe would be solved for Britain by tough border controls.   People are people, not numbers.   The wars will continue, people will move to seek a safe future.    We have a duty, across the European Union, to share.

Brexit makes no sense for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.  And if we leave the EU, Scotland’s chief minister politely points this out that Scotland will plan to leave the UK, in order to remain a European nation.      The UK will crumble, forfeiting the opportunity to make a major contribution to the peace, security and prosperity of the continent of Europe – where the fortunes and the safety of our children and their children rest.

See also:  Peace, law and freedom of speech

Creative Structure has launched a new website for the actor and voiceover artist, Alexander Grant.

The simple site offers a showcase of the Actor’s work including showreel, voicereel, and gallery images. It also provides a full bio as well as a link through to Grant’s Spotlight profile, where casting directors can get in touch with creative talent.

“In today’s acting industry it’s important to have an online calling card that stands out against the competition,” said Grant. “From the outset, Creative Structure has offered shrewd and pragmatic advice on making the transition to digital, as well as a structured approach to marketing oneself in an increasingly noisy online world. Particularly in the creative industries, this level of professionalism and expertise is a huge asset to writers and actors.”

Last year Creative Structure also launched a new website for A Prayer, a play it produced for the Hen & Chickens theatre bar that received rave reviews amongst the theatre press. With experience in the literary and theatre sectors, as well as significant digital expertise, the company is helping individuals and companies to market their services within the creative industries.

Three pillars of the European house – 70 years of peace between neighbouring nations; the rule of law; freedom of speech.    Three great public rooms – healthcare, education and public support for people in need.   Four open doorways – free movement of people, goods, services and money.    These qualities are why Europe is both a home and destination of choice.

This weekend two very different politicians, from Poland and Greece, lent their weight to the arguments for Britain remaining in the European Union.   In the Financial Times Radek Sikorski, former Foreign Minister of Poland, repeated his call for Britain not only to remain but to lead in Europe, particularly on foreign policy in which he feels that Britain has unique value to contribute.    There was a similar expectation in 1973, when Britain joined the European Common Market – people looked to Britain to contribute its long experience of parliamentary democracy and international diplomacy to the cause of wider and deeper peace and co-operation to a Europe that only 30 years before had been engaged in a murderous civil war.    In many ways, through its civil servants in Europe, Britain did contribute but the political rhetoric has always been half-hearted at best.

Yanis Varoufakis, formerly Finance Minister of Greece, wrote in an article in The Guardian that ‘the European Community was, in its earliest incarnation, a magnificent undertaking’.    He details Europe’s democratic failings and the forces of centralisation that he encountered so fiercely when he was negotiating on behalf of Greece last year.   He notes that David Cameron’s inconsequential ‘negotiation’ to give himself some reason for holding a referendum opens up the space for institutionalising xenophobia and re-establishing borders within Europe.    But his article announces a new drive to democratise Europe, beginning on February 9th in Berlin, with the launch of DiEM25, the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025.   Its aim is to build and embed much greater democratic accountability throughout Europe so that ‘the magnificent undertaking’ that has given us the three pillars – peace, law, freedom of speech – should have renewed foundations, resting on a bedrock of popular engagement and assent.

This is an evolution of the European Union that would inspire all generations of European citizens.    To engage in it, requires us to be in it.

It’s hard work helping to make the world a better place, but no harder than making it worse.   We must do the work.

See also Don’t fence us in

Ashley Pearson’s Coverage opens at the Courtyard Theatre in London this evening. It’s a modern take on the story of Julius Caesar as told through the lens of a right wing US 24hr news station. We spoke to Alexander Grant, who plays Julius Caesar in the production.

Coverage introduces a sense of modern day 24/7 news reporting to Julius Caesar… what is the balance between the original material and this modern interpretation?
“It’s a completely contemporary rendering of teamwork that falls apart because of human ambition and frailty,” said Grant. “Ashley Pearson’s script lands us in the bustle of a TV newsroom, broadcasting live news of contemporary political events in a Roman/American republic. The shifting relationships of the news team mirror the crumbling allegiances of the Roman senators as they plot to murder a political leader who reaches beyond the republican ideal of the equality of every citizen. The senators speak the Shakespeare text, intercut with the Aaron Sorkin-like dialogue of the newsroom.”

Please give us a brief introduction to your role…
“I play Julius Caesar. In Coverage, Caesar is a liberal-minded presidential candidate, reaching for sole leadership of the state. He believes in gun control and the individual responsibility of citizens to run their own lives. But he also believes utterly that his own powers of leadership overtop all others.”

Are people today blind to the influence of the media and in particular its right wing bias?
“No. People select the news they watch, hear and read and react to it in a manner of their own choosing. Fewer people choose centre-left channels than centre-right and beyond. There is a greater volume of noise and further reach in the right-wing channels. In the UK the BBC largely holds the ring. In the US, money talks even more loudly, so the right-wing volume is very high.”

Can we draw parallels between the Roman Empire and modern day America?
“Only with a broad brush. The Roman Republic was very different from the American republic that has emerged from the 18th-century Enlightenment and the movement to votes for all in the 20th-century.  But Rome was built on the management of a very stratified society, with slaves at its base; military might; and, from the fourth century AD, a Roman emperor keen on imposing an evangelical Christianity across his empire. Like all empires – the Chinese, the British, the Islamic – there are fundamental similarities which reflect the fact that people don’t change much.”

In a world of non-stop media, does theatre have a stronger role than ever to play in connecting art with audiences in ‘real life’?
“Theatre is wonderful for that. At its best moments, the human life and fire that is created by actors is reflected back in a response ‘in the moment’ from the audience. This forms a connection between people of such openness that is unbeatable in any other medium.

Coverage runs at the courtyard Theatre on Tuesday 26^th January – Sunday 31^st January. For more information visit: http://www.thecourtyard.org.uk/whatson/654/coverage.