The Newham Plays: contextualising localist, site-responsive, new writing and its roots in a community’s history, culture and people (2014-2019)

Created, produced and written by James Kenworth, and directed by James Martin Charlton, the Newham Plays (2014-2019) are a series of three localist-focussed plays rooted in Newham’s history, culture and people. Performed in non-traditional, but site-sympathetic locations in Newham, the series ranges from radical reimaginings/remixes of classic literature to dramatizing Newham’s rich political heritage.

The research investigates ways in which such reimaginings can be ‘localized’ to reflect a sense of a place, people and culture to address and examine recurrent themes and subject matter, such as revolution, rebellion, and social change. As such all of the works have at core a central or unifying theme, which draws in both political and personal interests, the desire/quest for change, transformation, reconstruction, and the concomitant search/quest for building better societies.

The research was partnered by a nexus of funders, partners and stakeholders. These collaborations allowed an investigation of the ways in which arts, when originated and processed at a local level, help foster a sense of civic pride and engagement. As such, the plays were formed through an inclusive-driven ‘mixed economy’ casting involving young people and professional actors, developing a Pro-Localist approach to arts and culture leading to greater cultural participation among young people, particularly BAME.

Exploring and opening the potential of spaces within the borough not previously used as theatre sites, the productions interrogate the means with which space can be inhabited by theatre companies to convey both the meaning of a staged text and the spirit of community-professional collaboration. By means of a methodology of enactivist intervention, we investigated how a stripped-back, minimal, ‘poor theatre’ house-style, might more fully engage the audience’s empathies than mainstream, conventional theatre, to prompt the audiences imaginative involvement.