PROMPT
CORNER 07/2007
The Wonderful World Of Dissocia / National Student Drama Festival
Various
venues
March / April, 2007
Reviews of The Wonderful World Of
Dissocia seem to corroborate my theory that one can often tell
which reviewers have any experience of psychological disequilibrium
from the way they write about plays which address it. Even Equus, in which the teenager's
horrifying crack-up is merely a pretext for some more musing on Peter
Shaffer's favourite heart/mind conflict, brought out some tut-tutting
comments about psychologist R.D. Laing, although these were mainly
along the lines that such views of psychiatric upsets were now rather
dated. But with Dissocia,
there is active condemnation of Anthony Neilson for allegedly
glorifying bipolar disorder. I don't see it, myself. To
note a difference is not to condone that difference; how else might
Neilson show what used to be called manic depression if not by
portraying phases of mania and of depression? Nor, it seems to
me, does the second act – in which protagonist Lisa is shown
semi-zombified and shabbily treated by friends, relatives and medical
staff – amount to a condemnation of all, or even mainstream, treatment
of conditions such as hers. What Neilson shows is first illness
unchecked, then acute response – there's no implication regarding
Lisa's normal, properly medicated life.
But among reviewers there seems to be an eagerness to collapse matters
into a simple binary. It’s almost as if there is something in us
that requires victims of certain events or conditions to be damaged in
a particular way or to a particular extent, and that we sometimes
rather resent it when they are not. It can seem as if we were
more concerned with finding ways in which we can confirm ourselves as
noble, sensitive and liberal by championing a certain “cause” than with
actually understanding that issue, let alone ameliorating the way it is
dealt with or viewed. Sorry, this is one of my soapboxes.
But Neilson has already had his remarks about the – or a – possible future of playwriting
so wildly misinterpreted that it seems to me he can do without the
plays themselves being subjected to similar misunderstanding.
NSDF
In any case, that concludes the voting of the London jury. For
most of the rest of this page, let me reflect on NSDF to augment Robert
Hewison's report and those samples of award-winning student criticism
reprinted elsewhere in this issue.
My reports in previous years have indicated a conspicuous discontent
with the then-Festival directorate, and its approach of ideological
box-ticking at the expense of actual excellence. Without
rhapsodising too fulsomely, let me say that new artistic director Holly
Kendrick gives every indication of being a very Good Thing, with
capital letters. This is not least due to her background as a
producer, where her predecessors had been directors. So, for
instance, Kendrick astutely assembled a workshop programme even more
wide-ranging than usual; never once this year did I hear the normally
perennial complaint, "Why were there no sessions on [insert subject of
choice]?" As ever, the Festival has to deal with the problem of
attracting a wide range of young people with radically differing
degrees of knowledge or experience; more than once during the week I
heard of workshop leaders having to fundamentally re-structure their
sessions on the hoof, as it were – one remarked that his topic had
attracted two people who knew something about it “and 23 girls who
thought it sounded sort of cool”. Obviously, the younger or less
experienced shouldn’t be left out, either in general or by being
formally excluded from particular sessions. I wonder whether one
way around this might be to label workshops as containing content at
various levels, not unlike American college course terminology –
Playwriting 101 etc.
Slackening-off
The other aspect about which I have reservations is the slackening-off
of intensity. It used to be possible, literally, to spend the
entire week of the Festival always occupied, 24 hours a day. This
year, workshop and performance sessions fell into discrete slots in
morning, afternoon and evening. On the one hand, this is helpful,
but it does suggest that there’s rather less around. In fact,
what there is less of is selected productions. (I know that
should be “fewer” – sorry.) For some years NSDF had been
structured on the informal convention that 14 or 15 student productions
would be selected for performance during the week. Kendrick’s
predecessor as director reduced this to 10 or 11 shows, to make room
for invited international presentations. Now Kendrick has altered
the focus of international involvement to workshopping and
work-in-progress collaboration, which on the basis of this year worked
well; but the number of domestic shows selected has not risen again to
fill the gap. Of course, it’s always going to be a lottery from
year to year, and as it happened the average running time of NSDF07’s
selected shows was unusually high. Nevertheless, I think there’s
room for increase… not least because otherwise there is less for the
Festival community as a whole to meet and discuss.
This is an example of how many different elements in such a festival
are interrelated. One of the main elements of NSDF is the series
of discussion sessions where all meet and debate the productions just
seen and various issues arising. Previously, these sessions have
been held more or less daily; this year, only three discussions
occurred throughout the week, giving the Festival less of a chance to
discover and negotiate its own communal identity on a day-to-day
basis. Nevertheless, those discussions which did take place were
generally thoughtful and salient, if (as often) sometimes offering
shows slightly too easy a ride. I had suggested to the new
discussion moderator, actor Alan Cox, that we could usefully introduce
a device from TV panel show QI whereby
any excessively predictable answers are greeted with flashing lights,
sirens and several points being deducted. However, this year,
no-one ever said, “Why was this show selected?”, “It means whatever you
want it to mean”, nor even “I’ve nothing against constructive
criticism, but this is too much.” It seems we’re learning.
Written for Theatre
Record.
Copyright © Ian Shuttleworth; all rights
reserved.
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