Farms, libraries and adventure playground spaces for Orwell, Hardie, Carroll and Fry: James Martin Charlton's site-responsive productions of James Kenworth's plays in Newham

Conference paper


Charlton, J. 2023. Farms, libraries and adventure playground spaces for Orwell, Hardie, Carroll and Fry: James Martin Charlton's site-responsive productions of James Kenworth's plays in Newham. Performing Space 2023 - Argolida. Nafplio, Greece 07 - 09 Jul 2023
TypeConference paper
TitleFarms, libraries and adventure playground spaces for Orwell, Hardie, Carroll and Fry: James Martin Charlton's site-responsive productions of James Kenworth's plays in Newham
AuthorsCharlton, J.
Abstract

Since 2014, I have directed a series of site-specific plays by James Kenworth in East London's Newham borough, funded by The Royal Docks Trust. Each production was staged at a non-theatre site. Charlton's role as a director was to facilitate productions that respond to the site's possibilities and uncover congruencies between the site and the text's content.

My process is site-responsive, using Wilkie's taxonomy of site-based theatre; it involves exploring the site, allowing its form to meld with the story and text of the performance, and creating a deep synergy between site and text to create a unique meaning.

The productions were Revolution Farm (2014), A Splotch of Red: Keir Hardie in West Ham (2016), Alice in Canning Town (2019), and Elizabeth Fry: The Angel of Prisons (2022). Revolution Farm was a promenade production at an inner-city farm. A Splotch of Red toured community halls and libraries, while Alice in Canning Town was a promenade production over a vast children's playground. Elizabeth Fry was staged in a library space that aligned with the play's prison settings.

This paper offers a case study of my practice in staging these plays in these environments, drawing on public and critical reactions and theories of site-specific, community, and immersive theatre. I argue that as a director, it is my job to imaginatively excavate and collaborate with the sites to reveal a production which has always potentially been there, awaiting discovery. In this way, these sites become the site of a rough magic, which a responsiveness to space and its ever-existing potential as theatre can reveal.

Keywordstheatre; performing space; site specific; direction; Newham
Sustainable Development Goals9 Industry, innovation and infrastructure
Middlesex University ThemeCreativity, Culture & Enterprise
ConferencePerforming Space 2023 - Argolida
Publication process dates
Accepted08 Jul 2023
Completed08 Jul 2023
Deposited25 Sep 2023
Output statusPublished
Related Output
Is supplemented byhttps://vimeo.com/user25782135
LanguageEnglish
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