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Interview - Richard Allen - Director,
Things on Fire Theatre Company
by Tom Knight
South-west and London based theatre company 'Things on Fire'
have recently returned from performing at this years Edinburgh
Fringe Festival. We caught up in Bristol with writer, director
and angry young man, Richard Allen.
The company began at Exeter University where Allen
first began to write. He recalls: "It was a sharp turning
point, going from being involved in theatre acting to writing
and directing. I became aware of playwrights and practitioners
that opened up new possibilities and ways of thinking and
working for me."
The influence of other playwrights, writers and artists on
Things on Fire boldly underpins every production. Their latest
offering - 'The Lightning Conductor' - is an abstract, imaginary
tale in which a group of surrealists struggle to maintain
control in the lighthouse they inhabit as their tired creator,
The Writer, looks on from the side of the stage. Allen explains:
"The whole idea behind 'Things on Fire' comes from surrealist
and surrealist influenced art - the work of Dada, Max Ernst.
our first production was 'Sanitorium (under the sign of the
hourglass)' which was based on a short story by Bruno Schultz.
We admire the idea of the 'poor object' also, an idea created
by the Polish practitioner Cantor who saw the artistic worth
of objects that have had a life before, a past existence."
This artistic motivation is reflected in their practical production
methods: "We find the work of Bread and Puppet, the American
Company who use very rough methods when producing their theatre,
very influential. I admire their 'cheap art' ethic - all of
our costumes and the things we use within our performance
are materials found at recycling centres and rubbish dumps."
It seems that this philosophy towards performance, something
Allen refers to as 'total theatre' is starting to pay off:
a month performing 'The Lightning Conductor' at Edinburgh
yielded good audiences, positive reviews and attention from
important quarters. "We're keeping 'The Lightning Conductor',
which has been asked to go to the National Student Drama Festival.
If we keep working on it, making improvements and refining
it, make it more focused, we'll be entering it in April. That
will hopefully provide a good springboard."
The recurrent call from the press when covering this years
festival was that it "ain't what it used to be" - a sentiment
shared by Richard despite this measure of success. "On the
whole most of what I saw was pretty poor to be honest, for
several reasons. With the way the festival runs - with productions
crammed into each venue - there's little chance for a company
to let their piece settle within a space. That's one thing.
Other than that, not many established companies go to the
festival anymore. It's mainly new, raw work that's going to
be touch and go whether it's successful as a piece."
It seems that the Fringe, once considered the cutting edge
for performance art in Europe, is in danger of becoming humdrum.
Allen goes further than this, identifying chronic problems
in British stage culture across the board - problems tied
to our traditional approach to the theatre. "There's always
been an argument that theatre needs to reinvent itself, to
adjust and react to where it is. Look at the London theatre.
the audience is almost entirely middle class. They go to watch
"gritty" plays about life on the dole or some perceived social
issue that they can talk about over dinner. On a practical
level you have to be reasonably rich. it's expensive to go
to the theatre, much more expensive than if you were to stay
at home and watch telly or hire a film. Instantly you have
this divide."
His frustration (and self-belief) is evident. I asked him
if there was any hope to be found, if there was a way out
of this vicious circle. "If, like me, you consider it to actually
be a problem, it's difficult to see what the solution is.
Do performances need to be forced out of the theatre buildings,
out of the studios, out of the places that have these reputations?
Most of our buildings are old and stand for me as reminders
of what's gone wrong."
Street performance is thus an important weapon for 'Things
on Fire' in their fight against the mundane. Luckily you won't
find them hogging the pavements when you're trying to get
the weekly shop done. "It's not the kind that's confrontational,
where you would set up a space and grab people say "come gather
round, here's a hat". we do subtle things, things that don't
necessarily have any framing. The reactions have been interesting.
Some people get confused, demanding to know what we were selling,
what we we're trying to say. Some people get very angry. Some
people laugh and enjoy it because it's a funny, unusual, strange
thing to see. Some people stand and contemplate, although
it's difficult to tell what they're contemplating!"
I asked what the unwitting audience should be contemplating.
"It's difficult to say what we want. The performances distort
the places that the audiences regularly go through and around,
to make them ask questions and see things a little differently.
I think it would be pretentious to want any more."
Although the company has existed in its current form for just
over two years, the members and their director seem to have
found a common cause and successful, productive formula. And
there's no sign of them slowing down yet: "There's a new,
much smaller piece, with just a few of us called 'Fac Totum',
based on the works of Charles Bukowski. That's a puppet based
piece, the idea is to play with very realistic dialogue -
like Bukowski - with an inherently unrealistic medium - puppetry.
We hope to form into a ten-minute scratch that we're going
to take to the Battersea arts centre where established directors
and theatre makers will give us advice. Jerry Springer the
Opera was formed through the scratch nights at Battersea.
It's a great base for new devised work, potentially it could
mean a lot - It's the best place in the country for new work
to be showcased."
Things on Fire just may have the ideas, ambition and puppets
to turn a few cynical heads. If you see them out of the corner
of your eye as you make your way through town, don't get angry.
This young company could well be a sign of things to come.
www.thingsonfire.co.uk
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