Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Adam Somerset on March 29, 2011 at 1:21

Dear Charlie

Your query deserves a longer response. But every company in Wales is producing or touring at the same time in these same two weeks.

 

There is a hot-off-the-press book "Rewriting the Nation" which spends two hundred and fifty pages exploring this theme in theatre across Britain over the last ten years. I rather suspect that pursuing a pure category for theatre is a bit like pursuing  happiness. You are better off creating the conditions that are best suited to bring it about. 

 

There are productions like "Midsummer" , which is written, directed, acted and produced by Scots so it as Scots as it comes. But you get a production written by Wales' most prolific writer

but which is based on a forty year surreal short story by a Parisian or the currently "Deffro'r Gwanwyn" which at one level could not be more Welsh but comes via  a playwright from Germany with a plot that could not be created here, with music written via a composer from New Jersey. The lyrics are written by a writer from the state next to you.

 

 

 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Christopher Cale on March 29, 2011 at 2:40

I still maintain that 'Welsh' theatre in a contemporary form is very much in it's infancy - which is why this theatre community specifically seems to garner such deserved interest.

 

What there is to remember also, is that the modern sense of national pride in Wales itself is very much in its' youth.  I wouldn't say that Welsh theatre is so much restrained by different national attributes - ie. taking place in Wales, have a particular writing style etc. as you mentioned - but rather to at least represent the nation, and its' people, in any of the aforementioned criteria.

 

And on the last part of your question; "What makes it different from English theatre?", I'd suggest not much.  Granted, if you write the play in the Welsh language, or get a big-name Welsh practitioner involved, then it will be 'Welsh theatre' - however, the question to ask really is, bar stereotypes, how really apart are the modern cultures of Wales and England - and where theatre can be specifically marketed at certain demographics and be acutely separatist; why should we try and enforce this division in society?

 

If your answer is something along the lines of 'to highlight the best of Welsh identity and culture', rather than 'to keep up with other National Theatres and to force our own identity', then I think you're in the right ballpark.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Charlie Nork on April 3, 2011 at 6:36

Thanks Adam and Christopher for you very helpful responses. You both opened a few doors for me, and I appreciate it.

 

I want to be able to use parts of your responses in my paper if that's alright, and I will keep you both anonymous. Unless you tell me otherwise, your names will remain confidential.

 

Thanks again for your help,

Charlie

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Adam Somerset on April 6, 2011 at 6:00

Charlie, hi

 

I have no problem with being identified. (Ten years ago Hubert Dreyfus, a philosopher in the US, wrote a short book called “On the Internet” from a philosophical
point of view. One of these was about identity and expression- the
point being that if you were anonymous somehow you lost a part of what was "you" when making comments.)

 

Your query was certainly an interesting one. If you are looking for online resources you might try theatre-wales.co.uk & look down the menu list for “commentary”-
over the years there has been some provocative writing. Dic Edwards,
for one, is always worth reading.

 

Your question could be turned round. Instead of trying to find qualities across productions that are common, you could say that Welsh identity was affirmed any time an audience
was created by an event. And that then responded in a way that could only exist in that way in that
place.

 

When “Black Watch” came to London after the USA it was in a plush venue in the middle of all the skyscrapers of the City, London’s financial district. One of the
best critics in London here wondered what all the fuss was about. I said that when it played in Wales it was different, in an area both historic and disadvantaged,
but also just over the mountains from a garrison sending soldiers out
to Afghanistan. That made it very different.

 

These productions, for example, are all different but brought people together in ways that could only exist in Wales. “Arden of Faversham” (brilliant Welsh cast), “For Mountain, Sea and Sand”
(unique style and location), “Franco’s Bastard” (politics),
“Siwan” (literary history)

 

Best

 

Adam S

 

 

 

 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Sara Katie Murphy on April 11, 2011 at 4:49

Dear Charlie,

What a lovely and I imagine different topic for you to have chosen at Eastern Michigan Univeristy! Here are some books that you may find useful:

Adams, David. Stage Welsh: nation, nationalism and theatre: the search for cultural identity (Llandysul: Gomer Press, 1996)

Curtis, Tony. Wales: The imagined nation. Essays in Cultural and National identity. (Poetry Wales Press, 1986)

Jones, Anwen National Theatre in Context: france, Germany, England and Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2007)

Taylor, Anna-Marie. (ed) Staging Wales: Welsh Theatre 1979-1997 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997)

 

May I also suggest that in order for you to establish what it is that makes theatre 'welsh' it may be worth identifying what 'welshness' actually is first. As with all identities, especially those concerned with nationalism- the welsh national identity is a very difficult one to define. In a postcolonial present, 'Welsh-ness' is not something that is defined soleley by the geographical area that one inhabits but much more. You may find Edward Said's Orientalism a fascinating theory to explore when tackling this issue.

 

Hope this helps in some way!

• ▶ Reply