Everything
Is Possible has been York’s 2017
Big Community Show, a now traditional feat where the people of York come
together under the banner of York Theatre Royal and Pilot Theatre to produce a
large-scale production. It’s hugely
impressive, not just for the size of the project, but the dedication poured
into every costume, prop, scene and line.
Everything Is Possible is the story of the Suffragette movement, and
although from a York perspective, it’s not afraid to draw stories from Leeds
and London to explore the militant side of the movement. The show is very funny, very important and always makes me very weepy. Massive respect to the creatives, cast and crew.
Stories are important, and
of course theatre is the industry of stories.
Whilst the fight for the vote was a centralised idea around the
movement, it was not just about being allowed to tick a box. The vote
represented validation within the political spectrum, to be able to engage with
politics. The show admirably talks about
the sheer poverty of women in Britain at the turn of the century, the sheer
lack of both worker’s and human rights and the fight for them, not just the base
desire to tick boxes in a polling booth.
I have been given the very
privileged position to programme a series of ‘buskers’ for the opening protest
outside the Minster before the show begins, which takes the form of a modern
day Women’s March akin to those that boldly defied Trump and the patriarchy
across the globe earlier this year. I'm really grateful for this opportunity to be part of it, and I know the poets and musicians who have given their time and resources to perform have been super excited by a wing of this mighty production.
As someone known for ‘protesty
stuff’ I can’t deny there are problematic elements to staging a protest, taking
the perfromative elements of a movement and making them into the show’s
prologue. Though the cast are chanting
slogans, and holding banners, and talking to the audience about social issues,
the piece is non-partisan in order to be accessible to the public, and also
appease the varying degrees of politics within the cast.
All stories have an
agenda. The make sure children don’t
stray off the path and talk to wolf-like strangers, or go knocking on
Gingerbread Houses, or it’s OK to kill giants.
Or one day your Prince will come (ugh!). However even, for example, the Sisters Uncut
chant of “back up back up we want freedom freedom / Sexist racist cuts we don’t
need ‘em need ‘em” suggests an anti-austerity agenda, at odds with the Tory
voters of the cast and public. And for
the inclusive community aspect of the production, a compromise is required.
With this in mind, it’s
been amazing to see some ‘realness’ in the form of buskers I have asked to perform
who, without being overly partisan, are able to talk about social issues which
the ‘script’ of the play would not necessarily allow, and possibly get the
charity of YTR into hot water. The
buskers, as outsiders, have a level of rebelliousness that adds an extra spice
to the production.
I think this show has reminded
me of the privilege as a freelance artist to navigate politics. Both on my personal
page, and the Say Owt page,
we promoted the Labour Party because their Arts policies (among many) were more
beneficial to us and our audiences.
It is fine for me as an individual
artist to upset Conservative voters and criticise their Austerity agenda, as
well as other social issues because my agenda is solely my own. A production like Everything Is Possible as a massive amount of staff, volunteers and
associates with all manner of ideas and politics and must acknowledge
But in actuality, this is
the background to all movements. As the
show presents, some Suffragettes were all for violence and militancy, willing
to break the laws. Others still happy to
respectably petition. One thing that the
show didn’t quite touch upon (though I do appreciate it can’t cover every
single aspect of the massive movement within a 90 minute running time!) was the
resistance
to the First World War from the Suffragette movement, and how it split into
ant-war activists
and pacifists (generally from a Socialist and Quaker perspective) and the women
prepared to fly the patriotic flag.
But I am proud that the
buskers I programmed, and myself as a busker too, were able to add into the mix
these other ideas, opinions, poems and songs.
Some women smashed windows, some women sold papers, some made tea at
meetings. Some people chain themselves
to fracking drills, some people film it for legal purposes, and some people
make the tea too.
Systems aren’t made of
bricks they’re made of people, and the same goes for a movement. A movement needs diversity, as much as there’s
the respectable
Parliamentary approach to change that some politicians present, we also need
the spikier side to protest. As I
talked about in a blog from a while ago, keep agitating, keep debating, use
your platform as a host, performer, theatre-maker, musician, poet, comedian,
manager, audience member, space-owner etc to talk about anger and hope and love
and rage. And solidarity.
Deeds Not Words
Unfuck the world
If you want to know more
about militant women’s fights across the world:
Sisters Uncut: “Sisters Uncut is a feminist
direct action group taking action to defend domestic violence services.”
The Nanas: Anti-Fracking Grannies out to cause trouble
for the big energy companies!
Tonic Theatre: Working towards achieving gender equality in
theatre (I wrote about their work here)
War
On Women: hardcore punk band dedicated
to making Safe Spaces on the Warped Tour
The Norwich Radical: Articles on women in music scenes, from
patronising attitudes to periods
Petrol
Girls: Feminist hardcore band calling
out sexism at festivals (and the world)
YPJ: Kurdish women fighting ISIS in the Middle
East
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